Seven Questions for Atheists, answered

I saw this over on Bruce Gerencser's Blog, and thought it might be worth composing my own answers -- since, as the original article notes, no two atheists are identical. The article is titled "Some Honest Questions For Atheists", and it's a column posted by a Dr. Michael Brown. Since I know almost nothing about Dr. Brown, I'm going to take him at his word and assume that he is A) sincere, and B) not trying to, I don't know, entrap anybody as if this were some sort of debate. (I am so, so very tired of people who want to debate.)

If the questions are indeed offered out of genuine curiosity and an honest desire to understand, well... I do my best to answer those. Why not? It seems a worthwhile effort. So, without further ado:

First, would you say that you are (or, were) an atheist based primarily on intellectual study or based on experience? Or did you never believe in God at all?

I mean... both? I've written a bit about growing up as what a Christian might call an immature believer, and why that stopped working for me. I am probably closer to never having believed in God at all than most of the ex-Christians who get accused of "never having been a (real) Christian", but I was raised to believe and by rights I probably should have gone on believing. You can follow those links for more detail, but the short answer is that I was raised as a Christian in a Christian environment, and I stopped believing for a number of reasons, some intellectual and some experiential. 

Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is that at some point Christianity just... stopped making sense for me. It doesn't seem to accurately describe the world I see around me; as a lens for understanding human nature I find it extremely flawed, and as a revelation of the supernatural it doesn't match with my own experiences (such as they are). It doesn't make sense to me, and I cannot "choose" to believe in something that makes no sense to me.

Second, would you say that even as an atheist you still have a sense of purpose and destiny in your life, a feeling that you were put here for a reason and that you have a mission to accomplish? Or is it primarily people of faith who feel like this, since we are simply the products of an unguided, random evolutionary process?

Ummmm...? I mean yes, I feel like my life has meaning and purpose, but I'm not sure I mean that in quite the same way that you do. I don't feel like I was "put here for a reason" and I have no sense of being "put here" by anything with any sort of awareness or volition. I don't feel like there was a plan for me. But on the other hand, the human experience of life is full of opportunities to find meaning and give yourself purpose, and I did. I certainly don't waste time feeling like nothing I do matters (except occasionally at work -- and that's an issue of Capitalism, not religious belief).

Third, would you say that you are 100% sure there is no such being as God—meaning, an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing being? Or would you say that, for all practical purposes, you have concluded that this God does not exist, although it is impossible to prove such a negative with absolute certainty?

I don't believe that God exists -- not as defined and described in either the Christian or the Judaic traditions, and not in any other tradition that I've ever encountered. I do not, on the other hand, affirmatively believe that something that might be described as God does not exist. (The simplest explanation here being the universally-applicable human principle of "but I could be wrong.") 

I will say that if an eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful being exists, then its nature and character seem unlikely to resemble anything described by Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. 

Fourth, do you believe that science can provide answers for many of the remaining mysteries of the universe, including how the universe began (including where matter came from and where the Big Bang derived its energy), the origin of life, and DNA coding?

This question is complicated by the current state of the world,  in that I'm not sure at this point that science will be around long enough to do any of that. And while the question absolutely reeks of God of the Gaps nonsense, I'm going to assume that it's offered in good faith and just try to answer: I think it potentially could. Given enough time and enough information to work with, I think we could have answers for any and all of those things. 

However, I will also note that science does not present Absolute Truth. At its best, it presents our best understanding (and in some cases, our best guesses) as to how things work. It is not subjective, but it's not truly objective either; science, on the whole, is a direct application of intersubjectivity. All scientific answers are subject to further research.

On top of that, there's a point at which... I don't really care. We have the world we have. We live the way we live. If we somehow discovered that our Universe was actually created by, say, the ineffable super-cosmic equivalent of a high school freshman for a class project on algorithmic patterns derived from string harmonics... so what? On a day to day basis, what difference does it make? The things that give my life meaning still give my life meaning, and the things that are huge, harmful problems for us are still huge, harmful problems for us.

Fifth, have you had any experiences in life that caused you to question your atheism? Has something happened to you that seemed genuinely supernatural or otherworldly? Or have you been confronted with some information that shook your atheistic foundations, such as a scientific argument for intelligent design? If so, how have you dealt with such doubts to your atheism?

So... I'm not entirely sure how to answer this one.  This is partly because it conflates atheism and materialism, which... aren't always the same. (There atheistic religions, for example. I could believe in ghosts but not gods, and still be an atheist -- and that's kind of comparable to my actual position.) Yes, I've had things happen that felt supernatural or otherworldly. (Again, see the links above -- or read about how I got back together with the woman who became my wife.)  

But I haven't really "dealt with such doubts" because atheism isn't a position I'm particularly trying to hold onto. It's the conclusion I've reached based on the best information I have. In the case of how I re-met my wife, well... it's basically a statistical outlier, a one-off: an extraordinarily unlikely event that might just be coincidence or might indicate that something else is going on, but without a pattern of other similar events -- which we don't have, because of the whole "extraordinarily unlikely" bit -- it's impossible to guess which might be the case. In the case of the Sense of Presence I mentioned in the Bit of Both link above, I think that's more likely my brain doing things on its own that I hadn't expected, rather than anything genuinely supernatural. 

So overall, no: while I have had some odd experiences, I really haven't had anything that would lead me to "question" my atheism. And honestly, my atheism doesn't really have "foundations" as such, except maybe for the fact that the idea of powerful supernatural intelligences capable of interacting with our world just... doesn't fit with the world I see around me.

Sixth, are you completely materialistic in your mindset, meaning human beings are entirely physical, human consciousness is an illusion, and there is no spiritual realm of any kind? Or are you superstitious, reading horoscopes or engaging in new age practices or the like?

I would describe myself as an experiential materialist. The best way that I can think to explain this is that I firmly believe that pain is a physiological reaction which relies on electrochemical stimuli in the body, but also holy poot stubbing your toe on the end table still hurts. Human consciousness is an experience, not an illusion; but I still think it's rooted firmly in the physical world, because if our consciousness was a separate spirit driving our physical bodies, it shouldn't be possible for people to get drunk.

Seventh, if you were convinced that God truly existed—meaning the God of the Bible, who is perfect in every way, full of justice and mercy, our Creator and our Redeemer—would that be good news or bad news? And would you be willing to follow Him and honor Him if He were truly God?

Speaking of differences in perspective, this one sounds like a you-concern, not a me-concern. If it turns out that I'm wrong and that some version of the God of the Bible exists -- and I will note that there are multiple versions, just as their are multiple denominations within Christianity, not to mention Judaism and Islam -- then I'd have a lot of things to rethink. By the same token, I would also have a lot of questions, which more or less boil down to, "Okay, but in that case what the hell have You been doing this whole time???"

Good news or bad news? Eh, depends. Would I be willing to follow? He's all-knowing and all-powerful, so following Him and honoring Him would most likely be the only sensible course of action. Still, I've got a number of questions I'd like to have answers to before I commit to anything here.

...So there you go. Comments are open; ask me anything. (If you can't comment, try changing browsers -- some of them seem to have issues with the way Blogger uses cookies.)

Atheism, me, and this here blog

Quick note for anyone coming over from Bruce's site: 

Hi, yes, I actually am an atheist, but if you've come over here looking for atheism-specific content, well... that's a very small part of what I do here, and I haven't written much of anything about it recently because I really haven't had anything new to say about it. Not for several years now, honestly.

So, if you want to read what I've written on the topic, don't go down the main feed; click over to Atheism tag instead. But honestly, most of what I've said recently on the topic, I've said in the comments on Bruce's blog. 

On the other hand, if you're interested in D&D and other tabletop games, bits of fiction (often, but not always, inspired by those games) and me complaining about how tiring it is to be an adult, well... WELCOME! Tags are at the bottom of the page; try the Storytelling tag if you're looking for fiction, or just jump in wherever. 

Got a question? Leave it in the comments.

What's in a name? Apophenia vs. Intuitive Theism

This is me responding to this post by Tony Breeden, which in turn is responding (sort of) to the loss of faith of former Baptist pastor Bruce Gerencser. I expect my comment to show up on Tony's blog shortly (it's currently queued for moderator approval), but just in case it doesn't make the cut, I'm reproducing it here.

Mr. Breeden disagrees with the idea that children are "born atheists".

I’d actually partly agree with you, in that:
A. I don’t think that children are born “atheistic” in the way that adult atheists use the term, and
B. I do think that a general tendency towards religious belief and expression is “wired in” to the human species.

Where we differ is that I don’t see that either of those things requires or even offers evidence suggesting a “creator god”, let alone the specific deity of the Christian religion.

What you keep referring to as “intuitive theism” has other names, and it’s worth reading their definitions: Pareidola, Apophenia, and Hyperactive Agency Detection. And while those add up to a tendency towards religious belief, they don’t add up to any sort of intuitive or pre-programmed monotheism – let alone anything as specific as Christianity.

Historically and socially, monotheistic religions are a statistical outlier (though admittedly, one that’s been so successful that at the current moment, in Western countries, it’s popular enough to seem like the default). That sort of belief is neither “programmed in” nor particularly intuitive; it only seems that way because we’re swimming in it.

Basically, while the phenomenon you’re describing is real, it is (at best!) an extremely weak argument for the truth of Christianity (or even the existence of some vague, generic, Deist sort of Creator). We aren’t born “with eternity in our hearts”; we’re born with a tendency to assign personalities and purposes to the events that affect our lives.

Edited to add: Mr. Breeden responded that I'm not arguing with him, I'm arguing with peer-reviewed Science! (which, um, isn't exactly how science works; a peer-reviewed article suggesting a specific conclusion is not the same thing as an established conclusion), and then deleted my response. So, I'm guessing that conversation is pretty much over.

Unconvincing Apologetics: Created Or Not, Part 2

So... back in December, I encountered a fellow named Tony Terrana when he commented on Bruce Gerencser's Facebook page. I summarized the exchange and what I thought of it here after Bruce got annoyed and banned him. (It's probably worth following the link and reading that, if only for context.)

Well, today he commented again.

It was the same comment. I mean, word for word, the same odd little block of text.

The Paradox of The Burden of Proof:

From our subjective perspective - either some higher-level creative Intelligence is responsible for our existence or not. There is currently no publicly-known, objectively-verifiable, scientifically-reproducible, peer-reviewed evidence sufficiently leading to proof that either is the objective truth. It is a choice to believe one or the other is the truth. Whichever you choose - you are using the concept of faith. Faith is belief without proof. Objectively speaking - only one is the truth and our subjectively formulated opinions or lack thereof have no effect on that objective truth. Such is the nature, beauty, and glory of The Truth - He is perfect and unbreakable.

So I queried him, and I got exactly the same response that I got last time, except without the bit about whether or not I believe in boots. Seriously:

Michael Mock - I'll simplify for you.
Do you perceive the following statement to be true or false?
1. From our subjective perspective either some higher-level creative Intelligence is responsible for our existence or not.

How about this one?
2. Of the two subjective possibilities mentioned in the preceding statement - only one of them is the objective truth.

So I responded again, and he "simplified" again. (For "simplified", read "reiterated".)

This time, I pointed out that I understood what he was saying, and I was impatient for him to quit saying it and move on to the next point.

(I should note that I'm assuming, at this point, that he's a person who has a selection of rote responses that he pastes in for most of his answers. The alternative -- that he's actually some sort of bot -- has occurred to me. In either case, it's a rather frustrating thing to attempt to have a conversation with him. I'm also having vague flashbacks to my attempts to interact with Dennis Markuze, which suggests some other mildly troubling possibilities.)

So, having pointed out that the points he was trying to make were so blindingly obvious that I was actually confused by why he'd insist on putting them out there, and repeating his own points back to him, I got this:

Michael Mock - right - what I am saying is so obviously true I should not have to say it - but many people do not understand these fundamental truths with respect to this conversation.

Well, first of all, these aren't "fundamental truths". They're starting assumptions for something that might eventually become an argument for Deism. And even then, I'm not sure the first point is actually undeniable; there's always the possibility that the actual situation is more ambiguous or more complicated than his either/or dichotomy suggests.

But maybe the dude thinks that this is a complete argument. It's hard to see how, but maybe... because right after posting that, he stopped responding. Now, maybe he's gone to bed, or maybe he's off having dinner, or maybe he's gone out to a club or something. (Or maybe he is a bot.) Maybe he'll come back and respond at some point.

But the fact that he posted this nothing-argument on an atheist's page, and a quick glance at his Facebook page, YouTube page, his website (which is full of odd, vaguely lyrical pseudo-scriptures which are peppered with actual Bible verses), and his Google+ Account (which is nearly empty)... well, all that leads me to believe that he isn't angling for anything as simple or basic as an acknowledgement that Deism is a defensible philosophical position. Whatever his specific beliefs, he isn't a Deist. His website looks like he's playing with a particularly gnostic and/or mystical sort of Christianity, something where God is knowable and active in people's lives, and probably the world at large. So I'm baffled as to why he would stop here. He hasn't shared his beliefs, or even laid any sort of groundwork for them.

So I'm going to give it a couple of days, maybe longer. And then there will be a follow-up post, if only so I can vent my frustration by taking apart his rhetorically-cute little comment. (Does that make me a small and petty person? Eh, whatever.)

Every Night We Do The Speaking.

This was a comment in response to something else, but it amused me so I'm copying it over here. The topic was What Part Did The Internet Play In Your Loss Of Faith? (It's here if you want to see it.)

"Listen well and 'member. We do the Speaking every night so we don't forget. Time was, time is, time's gone. 'Member the time now, when everything was meatspace. T'weren't no Internet. T'weren't no Metaverse."

Children in chorus: "We 'member it."

"'Member the times when the tech wasn't part of you. 'Member the times before you could even wear the glasses or the goggles to see into the Network. Member when a computer was nothin' more than a big, heavy box, like furniture, with a tiny little window to let you see... and there wasn't anything to see. 'Member when all there was, was people writin' words."

Children in chorus: "We 'member it."

"Some of these boxes, these computers, they were plugged into wires. Phone lines, we called 'em then. The box computers used other boxes, smaller boxes, modems to talk 'cross the wires. Without the modems, the box computers were silent and alone. 'Member them."

Children in chorus: "We 'member the modems. We 'member the copper wires."

"In those lost, dark days, you had to know the numbers. If you didn't know the numbers, the modems couldn't find other modems. They couldn't talk. We wrote the numbers on paper, in meatspace. We left them where people could find them. We found the numbers that other people had left. We put them in our computers, so our modems could talk to their modems, so our little computer windows could show us the words they'd written, and they could read ours. 'Member the numbers."

Children in chorus: "We 'member the numbers."

"Time is, time was, time's gone. That was world, when I first drifted away from Christianity. 'Member it."

Children in chorus: "We 'member."

Unconvincing Apologetics: Created or Not?

So, over on FB, a dude calling himself Tony Terrana showed up on Bruce Gerencser's page. He opened by posting a bunch of scriptures (which, y'know, is always a winsome way to approach a bunch of atheists -- seriously, there's nothing we love more than having someone quote from the Bible to rebuke us for not accepting the authority of the Bible.) When Bruce pointed out the, um, minor flaw in that approach, he decided to go all Deep and Philosophical instead:

Subjectively speaking - either some higher-level creative Intelligence is responsible for our existence or not. There is currently no publicly-known, objectively-verifiable, scientifically-reproducible, peer-reviewed evidence sufficiently leading to proof that either is the objective truth. It is a choice to believe one or the other is the truth. Whichever you choose - you are using the concept of faith. Faith is belief without proof. Objectively speaking - only one is the truth and our subjectively formulated opinions or lack thereof have no effect on that objective truth. Such is the nature, beauty, and glory of The Truth - He is perfect and unbreakable.

Now, I have a number of issues with this bit of misguided semi-philosophical rhetoric. I settled on the one I felt was most relevant, and responded:

But you aren't interested in us acknowledging some esoteric, imperceptible "higher-level creative intelligence", are you? I mean, if you want to talk about that, sure: could be. But if there is such a thing, it's effectively indistinguishable from impersonal natural processes. It makes no difference.

No, what you want us to agree to is the existence of the God described (in many and varied ways) by Christianity. And that's something else altogether. That's an entity that, its followers claim, actively intervenes in our world and our lives; that's a being with firm opinions on how we should live and what we should value. That's not "Oh, there might or might not be extra-Universal power/intelligence/principle which created everything." It's a different sort of claim entirely. And it's a bit disingenuous to conflate the two.

Apparently deciding to stick to his guns, Tony answered:

Michael Mock I'll simplify for you.
Do you perceive the following statement to be true or false?
1. From our subjective perspective either some higher-level creative Intelligence is responsible for our existence or not.

How about this one?
2. Of the two subjective possibilities mentioned in the preceding statement - only one of them is the objective truth.

And just so I know who I'm talking to?
3. Boots exist now - at least conceptually.

At this point, I went off to have brunch; while I was away from the computer, he went back and forth with Bruce for a while. I'm not going to reproduce all that here, but I think I can fairly summarize it by saying that Tony kept trying to get Bruce to answer this set of questions, and Bruce kept responding that he had no interest in playing the Meaningless Philosophical Bullshit game. I, on the other hand, sometimes enjoy meaningless philosophical bullshit, so when I came back I answered Tony's questions, like so:

Tony, you aren't simplifying anything. You're just repeating yourself -- and the assertions (or propositions) that you're repeating aren't relevant to the argument that you eventually want to get to, which is whether or not Christianity accurately describes the world in which we live.

So, to answer your questions:
1. You're overlooking the possibility that it might be more complicated or less clear than the either/or scenario you offer... but let's assume, for the sake of argument, that everything more complicated falls into the second category, "or not". So, sure: either our Universe was created, or it just happened.

2. Unless the nature of ultimate reality is a lot stranger than any of us realize, only one or the other of those possibilities can be true.

3. What the hell are you talking about? Is "Boots" the name of your cat or something? Or are you trying to establish some philosophical point about the nature of reality by asking whether or not a perfectly mundane material object actually exists? And if so, why?

Look, you've already said that "there is currently no publicly-known, objectively-verifiable, scientifically-reproducible, peer-reviewed evidence sufficiently leading to proof that either is the objective truth." So at best, you can argue from there that some sort of Deism isn't an unreasonable view -- and I think Bruce and I would both agree with that. That being the probable extent of your argument, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Is there any meaningful difference between a Deistic Universe (one which was created by an entity that no longer interacts with it, and which cannot be perceived with any degree of certainty) and an atheistic/materialistic Universe?

2. Given that you've already admitted that there's no functional proof of a creator, are you angling towards some version of Pascal's Wager?

Bruce, at this point, had had enough of the esoteric mumbo jumbo and verbal dancing around, and banned Tony. Frankly, I have no problem with this; for starters, it's Bruce's page and he gets to decide what he's willing to put up with there; also, and perhaps more to the point, I agree that Tony wasn't interested in having any sort of honest discussion of views -- he was trying, fairly obviously, to trap us into some sort of philosophical argument that he thought we wouldn't be able to refute. (I'm guessing it was either #17, or #32, though there are a couple of other possibilities. If you've been an unbeliever for any length of time, you've probably run into some variation of "Let's look at this logically!" many times before.)

The argument itself isn't the only problem, either. This entire approach, this "Let's have a structured, logical argument between our views" schtick, isn't really designed to compare views. It's designed to let the person laying out the argument set the ground rules, and (ideally) lead the listeners along to his* conclusion. It's a rhetorical trick as much as, or more than, it's an actual philosophical position. I don't mind playing along sometimes, but as a general thing it comes off less as someone trying to share their faith, and more as them trying to control the conversation. And that gets tiresome very quickly.

* It's usually a "his" rather than a "her".

We know them all so well, we just use numbers...

A man goes into a bar, and while he's sipping his beer he hears someone yell out, "44!"

Half the patrons burst into laughter.

After a while he hears someone else yell out, "72!" This time there's even more laughter.

So he waves the bartender over and asks, "What's going on with the numbers?"

"Well," says the bartender, "this place has been around for a long time, and most of the people here are regulars. They love to tell jokes, but after this many years we know them all by heart. So we gave each joke a number, to save time. Now, instead of telling the whole joke, you just call out a number and everybody knows what joke you're making."

"Oh," says the man, "can I try?"

"Sure, go ahead."

So, he yells out "102!" and the place is dead quiet save for a few groans. Confused, he looks at the bartender, who's just shaking his head. "Okay," he asks, "Now what happened?"

"Well," says the bartender, "some people just can't tell a joke."

That came to mind in the buildup to this conversation, while we were all waiting to find out what Steve from the UK was going to come out with. If you're an evangelist or a would-be evangelist, this is precisely the problem with trying to talk to former Christians: former Christians already know, and former Christians disagree.

It really shouldn't be a surprise. I mean, as former Christians, we all had plenty of opportunity to hear those arguments; we may even have used them ourselves. And, of course, if we still found them convincing... well, we'd still be Christians, wouldn't we?

Unconvincing Apologetics 1

This is continuing, if it continues at all, from this conversation with Steve from the UK over on Bruce Gerencser's blog.

Here's the initial assertion:

Given that most atheists are intelligent beings, you will have an eye on the times in which we live. So how do you square the fact that Revelation – a scholarly accepted dateable document (https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1552-when-was-the-book-of-revelation-written) contains prophecy written more than 1900 years ago that is coming true before our eyes today? Just Google Verichip and then read Revelation where it says man can neither buy nor sell lest he receive the mark in his right hand or forehead. As an atheist, how do you explain that degree of accuracy in an -allegedly ‘uninspired’ text?

My response:

As far as the Book of Revelation goes… well, let me take a moment to consider how the Book of Revelation is relevant to present-day events.

Revelation1:4
“John to manifold churches which are in western Europe and North and South America, which lands are currently unknown to you: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;”

And here, again, in Revelation 1:10-11
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in the United States; unto the United Kingdom, and unto Mexico, and unto Canada, and unto Brazil, and unto Argentina, and unto Puerto Rico, and unto all the readers of Bruce Gerencser’s blog.”

Look, at the risk of running this particular point into the ground… even if Verichip was really a thing[1], to tie it to Revelation you have to start with the highly dubious assumption that the Book of Revelation was A) secretly intended as a message for modern Christians, rather than the people to whom it was explicitly addressed, and B) a prediction of far-future events, rather than a coded message to Christians living in areas hostile to Christianity.

Yes, I remember a goodly number of Christians freaking out about Verichip, and about various other signs that we were clearly living in the End Times — Right now! The world could end tomorrow! Or even TODAY!!! — forty years ago, and I know it’s been going on for centuries longer than that. And every bit of it was supported by comparison to scripture. So what I’m looking at is a text that just about anybody seems to be able to fit to the events of their time, which doesn’t say all that much for its degree of accuracy. Flexibility, maybe, but not accuracy.

[1] “VeriChip… was the only Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved human-implantable microchip. It was marketed by PositiveID, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions, and it received United States FDA approval in 2004. Its manufacture and marketing were discontinued in 2010.” From Wikipedia; emphasis mine.

Steve from the UK replied:

Michael, if the cashless society arrives and Denmark is already well on the way, will you accept your identification/goods payment chip in your right hand or forehead if that time comes?

I answered:

Who cares? Why should I be even vaguely concerned about that?

You posited that Verichip was the “mark of the beast” written about in the book of Revelation, and cited this as proof of the supernatural accuracy of the Bible. I pointed out that verichip is a discontinued product, and Revelation was most likely never intended as a chronicle of future — or even modern — history, making that an exceedingly weak example of accuracy. You then respond that Denmark — Denmark! — is well on the way to becoming a cashless society, as if that were some clear indicator of the impeccable accuracy of the Bible.[1] Even if we had somehow established that the Book of Revelation was in any way relevant to the economic activities of modern Denmark and/or any modern nation (and we haven’t), moving to a cashless society is still a far cry from implementing anything like the “mark of the beast”, so it’s still a weak and highly dubious example of The Accuracy Of Biblical Prophecy(tm).

But that does bring me to another point: even if Revelation is a prophecy in the sense that you think it’s a prophecy, it’s self-defeating. At least here in America, the Mark of the Beast would be impossible to implement. Why? Because any time something that might even sort of vaguely resemble something like the “mark of the beast” comes along, huge numbers of Christians start freaking out about it. The prophecy is inherently self-defeating; the very existence of such a prophecy prevents it from coming true.

So, if the cashless society arrives, will I accept my identification/goods payment chip in my right hand or forehead? No, I’ll pay with a credit card like everybody else. Sheesh.

[1] Actually, now that I look again, that might be possible. Revelation 13:16-17 does say, “And he causeth all in Denmark, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Spooky.

So that's where we're at. The short answer to the original question is that I don't see the Book of Revelation coming true before our eyes; all I see is strained connections based on vague resemblances between modern events and an ancient bit of extremely complex visual metaphor. And frankly, I'm having a hard time taking that seriously.

Greetings to the Cenobitic Order Of Saint Bruce

No, I'm kidding; Bruce isn't a Saint. He's more of an Ohio State fan.

Since I see that a couple of people have wandered over from The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, and in particular from this conversation, I thought I'd sort of wave and say hello.

I feel compelled to point out that this isn't really an atheist blog, as such. It's more of a whatever-comes-into-my-head blog. So, if you're looking for atheism-related posts, you should follow the atheism tag. Otherwise, my topics are all over the place.

If you're a Christian interested in talking about your beliefs, my beliefs, or the intersection of the two, I highly recommend that you take a stroll though the Friendly Evangelism posts -- but, hey, if you want to jump right into the comments here and start talking, go for it.

Whatever the case, welcome to the Blog o' Doom. I'm glad to have you here.

Reaction: J Warner Wallace and The Case For Truth, Part 4

Heh. I started this back on the 5th of February. It isn't finished, obviously. But, hey, I haven't got anything else for this morning, so here you go:

I wrote this introductory bit yesterday, when I thought I was finally recovering from the Flu. (I'm pretty sure it was the flu. Whatever it was, Tamiflu strated helping almost immediately.) So I figured I'd have time and energy to continue this the way I've been doing it so far. That was before last night. Last night was... kind of horrible. So I'm switching to a newer, shorter approach.

This post is part of an extended response to this video of a talk given by J Warner Wallace of Cold Case Christianity. Why? Well, somebody asked me to take a look and kind of offer my feedback/reactions. Here's the background. Everything I've said about the video is collected under the Cold Case Christianity tag, so that's where you should go if you want read the whole thing.

Honestly, though, I'm not sure anyone strictly needs to read the whole thing. I laid out some thoughts about Mr. Wallace's approach in the background post, and they've turned out to be fairly prescient in terms of what he has to say in this particular talk; so if you just want a general reaction, that's probably sufficient. At this point, I'm continuing on mostly for the sake of completeness, and because I'm curious if he has anything to add to the "eyewitnesses" argument for the historicity of Jesus.

In the last post, I stopped at the twenty-five minute mark, partly because the wall o' text was getting pretty long, and partly because I felt like I was getting away from explaining why I didn't find the thing convincing, and more into directly criticizing Mr. Wallace's approach. There's likely to be more of that ahead, so... um... be warned?

Yeah. Instead of going through it point by point, I'm just going to watch the rest of the talk. If he does anything that we haven't covered already, I might comment, but otherwise we're going all the way through the second half of the lecture and I'll just write down my final impressions.

I'm still very curious what the teenagers in his audience thought of this talk.

...Okay, fine, I'm going to comment a little. I'm at 31:55 in the lecture, and Mr. Wallace has been quizzing his students on whether various claims were objective or subjective. He's also been walking up the ladder of how-abstract-is-this, from physical claims, to mathematical claims (which he categorizes as "abstract"), to metaphysical claims, to moral claims. In the process, he's accidentally confirming something I talked about in the last post: this whole topic is vastly more complicated than objective/subjective and true/false. Trying to divide everything up into objective or subjective seems guaranteed to set up a false dichotomy.

In fact, rather than taking all those different kinds of claims (physical, mathematical, metaphysical, moral) and dividing them into objective or subjective, I think we'd be better off to add "subjective" in as another kind of claim: a claim of value. Are chocolate chip cookies the best dessert in the world? That's a question of value. Is tiramisu awesome? Also a question of value. That doesn't mean those claims aren't subjective; value is always perceived and changeable. But looking at it this way changes the way we make our divisions. Now, instead of having Physical, Mathematical, Metaphysical, and Moral claims which we divide into the larger categories of objective or subjective, we have five categories: Physical, Mathematical, Metaphysical, Moral, and Value claims, each of which we can approach on their own terms.

Going back to one of his earlier examples, let's look at "Hyundais can fly you to the moon." Mr. Wallace, using his objective/subjective split, classifies that as objective, and objectively false. I think there's a very good chance that he's miscategorized it -- that it isn't a physical claim at all. Instead, with such an obvious case of hyperbole, it seems far more likely that what we're hearing is the colloquial equivalent of "Hyundais are awesome," a value claim, and best considered and evaluated as a value claim rather than as a claim about the physical world.

That brings me back to Mr. Wallace's statement at 31:50 in the talk: "If there is a single objective transcendent moral claim that we can agree on, then we're stuck with the objective, transcendant nature of moral claims."

He then goes on discuss what he calls "objective, transcendent" moral claims -- basically making the claim that moral claims fall into the objective category. Now, he does acknowledge that moral claims tend to be complicated, and subject to disagreement, but I still think it's more useful to consider moral claims as kind of a separate category, rather than trying to shoehorn them into his objective/subjective setup.

Reaction: J Warner Wallace and The Case For Truth, Part 3

Okay, I'm watching this video, because someone said they'd be interested in my response to it. The background post is here. I'm almost certainly over-thinking the whole thing, but hey -- if they didn't want over-thinking, they should have asked someone else for feedback.

In our last installment, I went through about the first third of the fifty-two minute video. That took a long time, since I'd spend anywhere from five to twenty minutes responding to things that took Mr. Wallace no more than thirty seconds to rattle off. Naturally, I'm going to stick with the same format for this installment, because I don't have any better ideas and anyway learning from your mistakes is for wimps. Wrong and strong! Full speed ahead! Here we go...

...Picking up at the sixteen minute and thirty second mark:

17:54: Talking about objective vs. subjective truth: "I'm going to test you on this, so be ready." Laughter. "And by the way, most churches and most groups that I work with will fail the test."

18:30: Now he's comparing a mission trip to explain the only medical cure for tuberculosis with the need to share your faith. By implication, he's tying in the concepts that A) his brand of Christian faith is objectively true, and B) sharing your faith is a matter of life and death. Note that he hasn't actually established either point; he's just sort of sliding those assertions in as an aside.

20:20: He's... using a metaphor about a house to basically point out that people commonly confuse objective truth-claims with subjective truth-claims. That seems like an unnecessarily elaborate way to make a relatively simple claim. Also, this is kind of a false dichotomy. Truth claims don't just fall into objective or subjective categories; there are, for example, claims that might be objective but we don't have enough evidence, or adequate methods of testing them, to be sure.

20:50: Considering theological truth as subjective weakens the truth claim, "because opinions don't really matter, if you think about it." No. Just, no. Not everything has to be Ultimately Important to matter.

21:00: "We have to reunite this idea, and get to one total truth, so we understand that the truth claims about God are every bit as objective as truth claims about math." ::sigh:: Are you really sure you want to go there, Dude? I ask because, as you yourself have pointed out, an awful lot of the reasons that people believe are... well... personal. Subjective. Francis Schaeffer has an entire book entitled He Is There and He Is Not Silent -- which, if it were true, would be far too self-evident to require a book.

Also, I'm troubled by the idea of "one total truth". Are we trying to unite subjective and objective truths here? Because that seems... problematic. Or are we just going to discard all subjective truths as unworthy of the label of Truth, and make sure that theological claims don't get discarded with them? That seems problematic too, but in a different way. Precisely which theological claims are we going to establish as independently-verifiable objective truths?

I'm just going to mention again that I have biases, and one of them is a low tolerance for showmanship. If you have a proof that the existence of God and/or the historicity of Jesus is/are real and verifiable, quit dithering around and show me.

23:38: "Now if I made this statement about Hyundais: 'I'm so committed -- Hyundais can fly you to the moon.' Objective or subjective?" Depends on how you meant it, of course, which is precisely the problem with most so-called "literal" readings of the Bible. Yes, I could assume that you were making a claim of objective fact, which in this case is relatively easy to disprove; but honestly, a statement like that is far more likely to be hyperbole, a metaphorical expression of your enthusiasm for the brand -- what you might call a poetic truth -- which would be based on your experience with the cars, and your opinion of the cars, and therefore subjective, and therefore (according to what you said back at the 20:50 mark) valueless.

Except that this also shows why the idea that subjective claims lack value is at best incomplete, and at worst simply wrong. As a data point, "This person has had such good experiences with Hyundai cars that they're willing to say things like, 'Hyundais can fly you to the moon,'" is actually useful to know. It isn't the Absolute Truth of whether you'll like a Hyundai as much as the person who said it, but it's still a useful indicator.

I'm going to un-pause, now, and see how Mr. Wallace answers his own question...

24:30: He's written it off as an objectively false claim. And, almost immediately afterwards, he's confusing objective and subjective. "If I said to you, 'I believe Chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies in the world,' that's a subjective claim." No, no it isn't. That's an objective claim, because either you do believe that, or you don't. It's a changeable objective claim, since your belief might change if someone introduced you to a new, better cookie, but it's still objective. You have to take the qualifier away to make it subjective: "Chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies in the world" is a subjective claim.

I'm pretty sure that if I were, hypothetically, one of the teenagers listening to this talk, he'd have lost me right there. But, again, I was a weird kid.

25:00: "Now, let's take the test together. We're gonna divide all true claims into two sides. On one side we're gonna put all objective claims, on the other side we're gonna put all subjective claims." That's kind of a false dichotomy -- sort of like any idea that starts with, "There are two kinds of people in the world..." Never trust a setup like that. When you're talking about claims, you're talking about things said by people, and when you're talking about things said by people, it's almost always more complicated than that.

Grouping all claims into either subjective or objective categories (while, as I've noted, a very cop thing to do) completely ignores questions of context, irony, hyperbole, exaggeration, sarcasm, humor, and really a substantial portion of all the rich variety of ways that people use to communicate. To make this division, you basically have to pretend that those things don't exist (and, by extension, didn't exist for the people living in Biblical times or the people who wrote their stories). You have to pretend that people don't interact or behave like people, in other words. You have to assume that people only ever communicate with each other in direct, literal sentences which present clear, unambiguous claims.

That's... functionally illiterate, in most cases.

(I'm sorry. I really set out just to explain why this sort of thing might not be all that persuasive to unbelievers. Instead, I'm being... well, pretty harshly critical of what Mr. Wallace has to say. Admittedly, that's precisely why this sort of thing might not be all that persuasive to unbelievers, but it still feels like I'm shading over from pointing out areas of disagreement and into actively debunking his points. Unfortunately, I don't think I can tone down my response and still offer any sort of useful or honest feedback. So just bear in mind that I don't begrudge Mr. Wallace his Christianity, or his belief that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical person, or any of that; it's just that I have some serious issues with his methodology.)

I'm going to stop here. (That means that this is definitely going to be at least two more installments, as we're roughly half-way through at this point. I doubt I can cram the next twenty-seven minutes of the talk into a single post; in fact, I suspect we'll be slowing down rather than speeding up. Still, I can hope, right?)

Benchmarks for this point in the lecture:

1. I'm seeing a lot more rhetoric than logic. I mean, Mr. Wallace has laid out the problem as he sees it: young people are leaving The Church in droves (and, I suspect, the occasional Hyundai), because they're going off to college without being ready to defend their beliefs. He's suggested a solution: prepare the young people by showing them that Christianity (and specifically his Baptist, definitely-not-Mormon brand of Christianity) is objectively (and, by implication, provably) true. And then, instead of just laying out this proof -- which ought not to be so terribly difficult -- he changes the subject. We're halfway through his talk, and we haven't done more than touch on the idea that this proof exists; the entire lecture so far is basically just background and build-up.

2. The hermeneutic he seems to be laying out here (at least, so far) strikes me as... well... simple-minded, and precisely the sort of thing that falls apart immediately when you try to apply it to the way actual people actually communicate. That isn't entirely Mr. Wallace's fault; a lot of what he's saying is standard, or at least very common, Christian doctrine.

3. I mentioned in the introductory post that a lot of apologetics seem to be designed more to reinforce the faith of existing Christians than to persuade unbelievers. That's definitely the case here (which, admittedly, makes sense when you consider his audience for his particular talk). Sure, Mr. Wallace has mentioned the vital need for people (and especially young people) to share their faith at all times, and the prospect of having solid proof of the historicity of Jesus seems like it could be really helpful with that; but he hasn't offered any discussion on how to approach people about your faith, how to actually share your faith, or when to shake the dust from your heels and move on to the next metaphorical town. This talk is (I think) building up to his core point about how Christians can know that the tenets of their faith are objective true, but it's building up with an explicit emphasis on keeping Christian young people in Christianity, rather than on bringing in new converts.

On to Part 4!

Reaction: J Warner Wallace and The Case For Truth Part 2

Okay, I'm finally watching this video, because... um... mostly because someone said they'd be interested in my response to it. The background post is here. This is probably more feedback than they wanted, but, well, here we go...

Very, very first impressions: he's a good speaker. He's active, dynamic, charismatic; he's talking about his background, his family, offering some personal info to make a connection. He also talks quickly -- that's part of the "dynamic, charismatic" element, but it also means he's throwing a lot of information at his audience without giving them much chance to stop and assess it.

1:50 "I was the kind of atheist that was really pretty obstinate." I have no particular reason to doubt this, but it's worth mentioning that it's sort of de rigeur in this sort of "I once was lost but now I'm found" story. Lee Strobel was an atheist until he turned his skills as an investigative reporter towards finding out if Christianity was really The Truth; Josh McDowell began his journey as an atheist examining the evidence and seeking the truth. Heck, Mike Warnke was a Satanic High Priest before he found Jesus and became an evangelist -- or at least so he claimed, for years, before Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott debunked pretty much everything he ever claimed. Having said that, I know (and occasionally work with) some police officers; and they tend to pretty black-and-white, clear-cut-categories sorts of people. So assuming that Mr. Wallace was an atheist, he probably was pretty obstinate about it. It's just that any time an apologist starts out talking about how much of an atheist they once were, I'm inclined to take it with a grain of salt.

2:22 - There's a really abrupt transition from "I was an atheist" to "I worked on a lot of high-profile cases" and then some talk about statutes of limitations and cold cases. He's basically setting out his credentials here -- he used to be an atheist, he's done a lot of investigation of things that happened a long time ago.

3:24 - "But now we're gonna take some of those techniques that we learn(ed) doing cold cases, and we're gonna apply them to the Christian worldview." That... seems like some heavy-duty conflation. "A long time ago" in historical terms is very different from "a long time ago" in terms of prosecuting a felony. The past is a foreign country, if you'll permit me to borrow a phrase. Mr. Wallace spends the next couple of minutes talking about how he, and his father, and his son all use basically the same equipment and the same techniques -- three generations! Consistency! -- and how those techniques can be applied even further back... but I'm dubious. So, I'm just going to pause here and point out -- again -- that Baby, It's Cold Outside sounds very different to modern audiences than it did to its original audience, and that's only going back to the 1940s. The idea that you can examine historical documents in the same way that you would look at modern eye-witness testimony or other evidence strikes me as hugely, fundamentally flawed.

That doesn't necessarily mean that he's wrong, of course; but to my mind it's a good reason to be wary.

5:00 - "The problem we're facing with young people ... Christians who attend college leave Christianity in large numbers. It's pretty ugly." This comment isn't exactly problematic, since he's addressing Christian youth at the Summit Worldview Conference, and -- being presumably all Christian -- we can safely assume that they agree that young people leaving Christianity is a Bad Thing. So I don't think he's wrong to mention it here, or to describe it the way he does... except for the part where he seems to be blaming colleges and/or the college environment for their departure. Again, this may be my own experience coloring my interpretation, but "going off to college" also happens to coincide with a point at which young people suddenly become much more free to make their own decisions. (I, myself, quit attending church when I went to college. I hadn't actually considered myself a Christian for two full years before that; it was just that attending church helped maintain the Domestic Tranquility Index while I was still living with my parents.) And there seems to be a social and/or historical trend of young people leaving Christianity right now, quite possibly just because there isn't as much pressure on them to stay as there was for earlier generations.

So while I understand and even sympathize with his desire to help young people remain Christians, I think the assumption that college is some sort of hostile environment may be somewhat (though not completely) misguided. Correlation is not causation.

6:00 "I think there's a simple math to the problem we're seeing... We're gonna add three things. The first thing [is that Christian students are poorly prepared]." Again, there's that belief that college is a hostile environment.

7:15 "Why are you a Christian?" He rattles off a list of answers. "Those are the same answers Mormon give -- they give the same answers as Christians give." So, apparently, Mormons aren't Christians. That's... troubling. First of all, I don't think it's his place to judge. Second, that sure as heck isn't how Mormons see it -- they see themselves, very consistently, as a return to the Christianity of the early church, albeit with some additional revelations given to them. Mr. Wallace has just said that his step-mother is a Mormon, so I find it extremely hard to believe that he doesn't know this. The alternative, of course, is that he knows but doesn't care, which indicates a degree of arrogant disdain that doesn't speak particularly well of him either.

Notice, also, that he's kind of jumping from topic to topic -- he's not laying out his thesis in a neat, orderly set of propositions. Part of that is simply a matter of being a good public speaker; if you just lay out your position one point at a time, it's pretty boring to listen to. But it also makes it easy to just sort of nod along in agreement, since you're only seeing one little piece of things at a time. Hopefully he'll do more to tie it all together as the talk progresses.

8:00 Mr. Wallace supplies another answer: "How about, 'We know it's evidentially true'? They can't say that." Um, yes they can. Maybe if you were talking about Shintoists or neo-Pagans or something, but Mormons? Mormons are working from the same starting point that you're trying to prove is "evidentially true". How do you have a Mormon step-mother and not know this?

8:20 He's finally gotten back to point #2 of the three things he referenced at the 6:00 mark: "Aggressive, antagonistic campuses." (Yep, I called it.)

I dunno, maybe I'm biased -- I mean, I started at an Episcopalian university and finished my undergraduate degree at a University founded and run by the Disciples of Christ. So maybe the public universities are hugely antagonistic to the Christian faith? Maybe it's the community colleges? Except I did my graduate work at a publicly-funded, entirely secular University, and I don't recall seeing anything in the way of Christian-bashing there, either.

"Let's face it: most college campuses are not in favor of Christianity anymore." A) In my experience, that's only true in that most colleges don't seem to care about it one way or the other. B) There's a world of difference between not favoring something -- not granting it special status or special standing -- and being aggressively antagonistic towards it.

9:10 "There's a third thing..."

9:40 Finally, we get there: "Innately fallen humans as students." Whew! Again, this is boilerplate Christian doctrine, so no real problem there.

10:00 "We have a pre-disposition as fallen humans to chase our desires anyway." Okay, I was wrong. I do have a problem with this. The idea that people leave Christianity because they're "in love with their sins" or "they want to be able to sin without being convicted" or just "they want to be able to sin" might hold water if being a Christian seemed to, you know, prevent people from sinning -- or even slow them down in any meaningful way -- but that just isn't how it works. At least, not in my experience, and not in any sort of study I've ever seen.

::sigh:: I think I was hoping that "innately fallen humans as students" meant "we're fallible and we get things wrong"... but, no.

11:25 "We have to move The Church in a new direction. That's why we have something like Summit to begin with. You are The Church. You're the most important demographic in the church." Sure, but just try getting the actual leadership to listen to anything you have to say. (Sorry, that was unnecessarily cynical, but A) I'm hearing that complaint a lot from the sorts of people who get called "post-Evangelicals", and B) I have strong memories of being a teenager, and being regularly assured that my generation had an important role to play, just... y'know... not yet, and in the meantime we should stay quiet and do as we were told.)

(I hated that. And it didn't just come from church-folk, either. Not even close. Dude, you're up there lecturing at the front of the class; you're not a "was", and your students aren't an "is". You're an "is", and if you're lucky your students are all "will-be"s. No, I have no idea how to punctuate that. Otherwise they wouldn't be sitting there listening to you tell them what to do.)

14:00 "This is a stupid missions trip. This is dumb, because this is really a matter of opinion." Nice lead-in. So, at the 14:10 mark, we get "This is the first thing we have to get this morning. You've gotta understand the nature of Truth. If there's no truth, there's no truth about God." We've just hit our first major proposition, our first vital starting point, a quarter of the way through his talk.

This is the difference between persuasive speaking, and laying out a cogent logical argument.

16:30 He's been laying out the difference between objective and subjective, and as an example he's compared a missions trip to preach the superiority of chocolate chip cookies as a desert (subjective) and a trip to explain to people stricken with Tuberculosis about the only effective cure for TB (objective). So he's tying the question of objective vs. subjective together with the question of what's really worth arguing over, at least by implication. He also seems to be making an argument that objective claims are valuable, whereas subjective claims are not -- and I don't entirely agree with that.

However, at this point I'm going to stop. We're roughly a third of the way through this; I have now spent something like four hours to get through sixteen and a half minutes of Mr. Wallace's presentation.

Benchmarks for this point in the talk:

1. I'm extremely impressed with him as a speaker. I think I'd still have disagreed with him, back when I was teen and at least nominally a Christian, but I wouldn't have been bored. A bit impatient for him to get to the meat of his argument, maybe.

2. I'm not terribly impressed with his argument so far, or where he seems to be going with it. It's hard to say for sure, of course, because he skips around a lot and seems to be laying his view out more by a process of accretion than by assembling it into a structure, but that's part of why I'm not terribly impressed so far. It's also, very probably, part of why he's a successful speaker; painstaking logical arguments tend to be boring, whereas persuasive speech needs to be engaging.

3. I keep wondering about the apparent teenagers that make up his audience: are they all gung-ho and inspired, or are there any of them who are more like I was: not responding, but weighing up Mr. Wallace's assertions privately, reserving judgement for later? Useless speculation, but in terms of laying out my biases it's worth remembering that I was a weird kid.

On to Part 3!

Reaction: J Warner Wallace and The Case For Truth part 1

One of the parents in the Christian Parents of Atheist or Agnostic Children support group asked for my reaction to this video of a lecture by J Warner Wallace, apparently entitled "The Case For Truth". It's taken me a little while to get to this -- the lecture is an hour long, and I have small children, which isn't a combination that lends itself to convenient review and reflection. Since that wasn't working, I decided to try a different approach: I'm going to watch the video in smaller chunks (at a guess, probably four sections of roughly fifteen minutes each; but that depends on how the lecture is structured) and write down my reactions here.

For anyone coming in new, it will help to understand my perspective: I'm an atheist (or an agnostic, unbeliever, or whatever label you prefer, really. "Unregenerate sinner" is not the worst thing I've been called). My role in the support group is to help -- or at least try to help -- the Christian parents get a handle on how non-believers and former believers look at things. (That's insofar as there's any one particular way that unbelievers look at things, which usually isn't the case.) So I'm not going to try to debunk or refute whatever Mr. Wallace has to say in his lecture, but I will almost certainly be trying to explain why his arguments may not be as convincing to unbelievers as they are to believers. (It's been mentioned before that a lot of Christian Apologetics seem to serve more to reinforce believers than to persuade unbelievers; I don't know if that will be the case here, but it seems likely.)

J. Warner Wallace is the author of Cold Case Christianity, which is a book and apparently (unsurprisingly) also a ministry. I have not read the book, and I don't follow the ministry, but his biography says that he was a vocal atheist who used his skills as a police detective to investigate the evidence for Christianity, and became a convinced and passionate Christian (and Christian apologist). That's oversimplifying a bit, but I think it's a fair summary.

According to the blurb on Amazon, "In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs." This isn't an entirely new approach; the basic idea isn't so different from Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict (which I've read) or Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ (which I haven't). This... and I say this now now, so you'll understand my bias going into this... this whole approach is one that strikes me as fundamentally flawed, because it depends on treating the accounts given in the Gospels as if they were separate from Christianity. (There are other, nearly-contemporary accounts, but as independent evidence they're not that helpful; they're second-hand, written well after the events they describe, and/or open to question about how much of the text is original, as opposed to being later interpolations.)

Now, none of that may have anything to do with whatever Mr. Wallace discusses in this particular lecture; I don't know. But since I've run into his name and some of his ideas before, I thought it was worth laying out my background and the way it shapes my responses before diving into the video itself. Unfortunately, that's eaten up my writing time for this evening; so we'll actually start watching in a day or two (or three), in the next installment.

Christian to non-Christian: how the transition happened for me

A little while back, somebody asked me how I got from being raised Christian, to being... well... not. It wasn't a simple process, so it seemed worthwhile to stop and write it out. And it really isn't meant as a defense of my present beliefs, or a condemnation of the beliefs I was raised with. Sill, for anyone who's interested in a bit of anecdotal personal history, here's my answer:

Okay, here goes: somewhere in there, Christianity just stopped making sense to me as a way of looking at the world.

Like I said, I was raised Episcopalian: the sky was blue, water was wet, and Jesus died for my sins. Like any kid in a church environment, I picked up bits and pieces of Christianity as I went along: Noah's Ark, David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, Jesus dying on the cross, Paul on the road to Damascus, Samson and Delilah; all jumbled together in an inchoate mass. I didn't even really think of it as Christianity; those were just the things I'd learned at church, and not much different from the things I learned in school.

(Somewhere in there I picked up the concept of Hell, but that never really frightened me. I think -- though I don't really trust my memory on this -- that almost in the same breath I picked up the idea that Jesus had already undone that for us, and that God expected us to do our best but also knew we'd make mistakes and wouldn't hold them against us. No, the bit of Christian doctrine that really creeped me out was the idea that God was all-seeing. I was -- what? Six? Eight? Five? -- and I was perfectly appalled by the idea of God watching me poop, or seeing me in the shower. Can't a fellow have a little privacy around here?)

Then, somewhere when I was around twelve or thirteen, I started trying to take all those pieces I'd been given and fit them together: stories, lessons, bits of doctrine, and some things that I suspect are more like Bible fan-fiction than actual Christian teaching. And it... didn't quite work. When I started trying to assemble all that into a coherent whole, it just didn't make a lot of sense to me.

I was kind of used to that. I think I've mentioned this before, too, but I was a weird kid. A lot of things that seemed compelling and important to other people really didn't make much sense to me: sports, cars, fashion. Christianity was just another item on the list, and naturally I assumed that the problem -- insofar as it was a problem, which it mostly wasn't -- was with me.

(True story: our priest -- our head priest, I should say, since at any given time we might have had one or two other priests and/or deacons -- our priest, who was a deeply sleazy and I suspect not-terribly-bright man, once took it upon himself to inform the youth group that we could safely ignore beliefs about things like walking under ladders or having a black cat cross one's path. Those, after all, were mere superstitions -- isolated beliefs with nothing to support them. I thought about that for all of maybe two seconds, and then asked him, "So the difference between a superstition and a religion is that a religion is complicated?" Deadpan. Perfectly serious question, in fact. Flustered him completely; I think he answered something along the lines of, "No, because Christianity is true," but I'm not sure. What sticks in my mind wasn't his answer, obviously; what I remember most clearly was how completely unprepared he was for the question -- for being questioned at all, I suspect, by a twelve-year-old.)

I think the first thing I really stumbled over (intellectually) was the Doctrine of the Trinity, and the dual nature of Jesus. Jesus, of course, is the Son of God -- but He is also, somehow, God Himself. Well, y'know, okay: an all-powerful being should be able to do things that would otherwise be impossible. Only, the more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Not only was the whole idea starting to seem impossible in a way that no amount of Being All Powerful would fix, it also seemed to change according to which section of the Bible I was reading. And after going back and forth (and round and round) about it for a while, I started wondering if maybe it wasn't just me -- it maybe the text itself just didn't make sense.

Shortly after that, the entire concept of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross stopped making sense to me. As a child, it seemed glorious: Jesus dying horribly, but willingly, to save the whole world. To my teenage self, well... What did this have to do with me? How is somebody else dying supposed to affect the things that I'm responsible for?

And then there was the whole concept of Original Sin. If there was a sequence to that one, I don't remember it; but I got a kind of nuanced view of Genesis from a fairly early age. So that could have been before or after either of the other two, or it could have been one of those things that just never made sense to me; I just don't remember. The Christian doctrine that I understood said that, fundamentally, all of modern humanity was paying the price for a mistake made by a distant ancestor. That seemed... unjust. And God, whatever else he might or might not be, was supposed to be just. But if that wasn't the case, if the whole story of The Fall was a metaphor, then what exactly was Jesus' death on the cross supposed to be saving us from? Don't answer that, by the way. I realize that there are good, faithful answers to those questions, but leaping in to provide them would be missing my point. I already know those answers exist, and I already know they don't work for me.

I went back and forth for a few years, between This Is Something That's Really Important To A Lot Of People, Including People I Know And Love, and This Just Doesn't Make Any Sense To Me. I looked at other religions, other belief systems -- or the watered-down versions of them that get marketed to impressionable Westerners, anyway -- but I couldn't really get into them for the same basic reasons that I couldn't stay with Christianity: they didn't match the world I saw around me; they didn't offer any useful new insights or concepts; they didn't resonate. I went through an "Animist, Pantheist, Moon Worshipper" phase (which was only partly tongue-in-cheek), and eventually I settled into a sort of experiental materialism.

One of the issues I have with (some flavors of) Christianity is the idea that we choose our beliefs. In my experience, that's not how it works. We consider the evidence we find; we compare our thoughts and observations with other people; and we reach conclusions, whether we like them or not. (Given what I hear from a lot of former believers, the idea that maybe God isn't out there and never was is almost never a welcome, desired result.)

So, yeah: somewhere in there, Christianity just stopped making sense to me as a way of looking at the world. It's not that I have anything against it; it's that I just can't do it.

Am I hurting God by having a relationship with my atheist son?

This question came up in a support group recently. (I'm reproducing it here with permission.) The question was:

I'm so lost. I feel I'm dishonoring my Father in Heaven. I just want to love my son who is a devout atheist. I'd like to know am I hurting God by allowing my son to be in my home and share his feelings? I am desperate to be a good Christian and still have a relationship with him.

Here's my answer - offered, again, in the hope that it might help:

Bear in mind that I am not, myself, a Christian. Also, bear in mind that the answer to this sort of question is going to vary according to denomination, individual church, and quite possibly by whether or not the pastor has had coffee yet. So this isn't going be The Christian Answer; it's just how I look at it, based on the kind of Christianity in which I was raised.

First of all: being a Christian is about following Christ, right? Well, if there's one defining characteristic of Jesus' earthly ministry, it's that he was willing to hang out with inappropriate people. Tax collectors, prostitutes, beggars - he talked with them, ate with them, came to their homes. He didn't avoid them or keep them at a distance. He loved them where they were, and as they were.

Second, I don't think God finds human doubt or disbelief anywhere near as troubling as humans do. Yes, sure, you have the Apostle Paul talking about how God's presence and nature are completely obvious from the world around us, and unbelievers have no excuse... but this is the same guy who had to be struck down by a blast of light and spoken to sharply by the Almighty before he could recognize his Lord and Savior. I'm not sure Paul is the best one to consult on the topic. Instead, let's consider another Apostle: Thomas, Doubting Thomas, who had to touch the wounds before he could believe. Jesus didn't curse him, or rebuke him, or cast him out. He said, "How much more blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe." Thomas gets kind of a bad rap, but as far as I can see Jesus still counted him among the blessed.

Finally, there's the nature of God to consider: all-knowing, all-loving, all powerful. If He is all knowing ("to you all desires are known and from you no secrets are hid") then He understands our failures and our limitations. He understands your son's disbelief, not just the fact of it but the why of it as well. And He understands it with love and with compassion.

So, no: I don't think you're insulting God by sharing a home or maintaining a relationship with your atheist son. If God exists, and if He's anything like I was raised to believe, then I don't see how He could be offended by anything done out of love.

A response to Dear Abby for a young agnostic

This was written in response to Dear Abby's answer to a letter from a young agnostic in a devoutly Catholic family.

I am writing in response to the December 14 letter from the young woman whose devoutly Roman Catholic parents were unable to accept her lack of belief.

While your response to her was not terrible, it didn't strike me as particularly helpful, either. She asked, basically, how she could get her parents to take her seriously on this topic, and where she could find support if they wouldn't. Your advice on the first point, if I'm reading it correctly, is to avoid arguing over the topic, and ask the parents to support your spiritual "exploration". While I agree that it's important for Agnostic to try and maintain a good relationship with her parents, sometimes it simply isn't possible to avoid arguments - especially on a topic like this. Far too often, "don't let this become a contest of wills" amounts to "suck it up and be miserable so that the rest of the family isn't discomfited". As you might imagine, that isn't really a sustainable approach.

You answer to her second question was... nonexistent. So, let me fill in: there are a large number of resources available to young agnostics and atheists. Permit me to recommend The Young Atheist's Survival Guide, by Hemant Mehta, as a resource book; it should be available through Interlibrary Loan, if nothing else. There are resources and communities available online; I myself help to moderate support groups on Facebook for both Christian parents and atheist or agnostic children who find themselves in these situations. My advice to Agnostic in Stockton would be to look around. There are all sorts of unbelievers around, and many believers who wrestle with doubts or questions. Her situation is far from unique, and there's no reason why she should have to deal with it alone.

Is atheism a choice?

I'm phrasing this as a question, but honestly it's something I hear as an accusation ("How could you turn your back on God?") or as an assumption, sometimes implicit and sometimes stated openly. ("Romans 1–3 makes it plain that the knowledge of God is written on our hearts—every human being knows there is a God and every human being is 'without excuse' (Romans 1:20). So there are no true atheists." -Ken Ham) However you phrase it, it's a very common conception: this idea that becoming an atheist, like becoming a Christian, is a choice.

I don't think that's true. I think it's untrue for many Christians, maybe even most Christians. But I'm sure it's untrue for a great many people who started as Christians, and later lost their faith. I know it's untrue for me.

The problem is, I don't think the opposite is true, either. So, I don't want to just say, "It's not a choice," because that makes it sound like unbelievers have no volition - as if we're hopelessly at the mercy at forces beyond our control. That isn't really how it works, either.

It's more complicated than that.

Mainly, I don't think that the language of choice is a good way to talk about faith at all. When it comes to the loss of faith, it's even worse: it isn't just insufficient, it's misleading.

I've said this in various forms before, but - as far as I can see - the loss of faith isn't a decision in and of itself. It's one possible conclusion to a much larger process.

It starts with questioning. There may be some particular slight or injustice that acts as a catalyst, and it's easy to focus entirely on that. ("She just had a bad experience with that one church." "He's just angry at God because his puppy died." "If her Youth Minister had been able to answer her questions, she wouldn't have left.") Or, there may not be any obvious cause; a lot of people start into this process precisely because they were trying to take a deeper look at their faith, or simply because they were trying to put things together and couldn't quite get the pieces to fit. But even if there's one particular moment or incident that seems to have started someone on the road to disbelief, it's a mistake to put too much focus on it. It might have been the trigger, but almost certainly isn't the cause. Again: it's more complicated than that.

So: it starts with questioning. The questioning is the important part: what a person is wondering about, or troubled by; what they find as answers; how they sort through possible answers and reach their conclusions. Everyone, believers and atheists alike, is doing the best they can with the information they have... but we don't all have the same information, and we don't weigh particular pieces of data in the same ways, and sometimes there are other factors as well. (It's possible, for example, that a bad enough experience can basically spoil someone for a particular faith - it's possible for someone to have personal reasons that make them unable to take part in something, without necessarily believing that the thing itself is evil and wrong. Presumably God, if He is as all-knowing and all-loving as advertized, would understand and even sympathize.)

So: after the questions, there's a period of evaluation. Some people find answers. Some don't find answers, but retain their faith anyway - faith being, for them, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Some lose their faith in particular doctrines, or churches, or denominations... but retain a fundamentally Christian faith, either changing denominations or becoming "Christian but unchurched" or "spiritual but not religious".

Some change religions entirely, but remain religious. They become Wiccans, or Buddhists, or... almost anything, really.

So atheism isn't the only possible result of this process. I suspect it isn't even the primary result of this process. Atheism is where you end up when you conclude that every religious, spiritual, or supernatural way of looking at the world just doesn't work for you.[1] And even then, it isn't necessarily an end-point. Some people leave religion, and remain unbelievers for the rest of their lives. Others pass through a period of unbelief, and eventually return to some sort of faith - either the religion of their birth, or something similar, or something else altogether.

That's what I see. That's what I hear from other unbelievers. The idea that someone would "choose" not to believe sounds... odd. Off-key. It seems like the sort of thing that only works as an answer if you're asking the wrong questions.

The idea that unbelievers are "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" (because everyone knows that God exists and that He looks exactly the way that particular strains of American Christianity describe Him) is worse. It says that I cannot possibly be what I am. It says that I'm either lying, or I'm delusional; possibly both. I suppose that might be reassuring to believers, but it's utterly useless to me. I know I'm not lying, and I really have no choice but to assume that I'm not delusional.[2] Once someone says that to me, the conversation is pretty much over; there's nothing I can say to that, and there's no reason to listen to it.

Atheism isn't a choice, and asking if (or assuming that) it is... is a fundamentally misguided approach to understanding it.

[1] I've seen arguments that everyone is born as an atheist, but I don't think that's entirely true; I think the truth is a bit more complicated than that. People are born without any specific religion, but the tendency towards religious belief in general - towards belief is some sort of Unseen Forces That Shape Our Lives - seems to be wired into the species.

[2] Also, if I am delusional - or even just wrong - a loving God would understand and accept that.

Becoming an Atheist - A Response

I can never tell if Ray Comfort is serious, or if he's engaged in a long-running practical joke that has become so successful that people think it's a genuine ministry. Honestly, for me here in America, it doesn't really matter. By and large, what he has to say doesn't pick my pocket; nor is it in any danger of breaking my leg. However, on the off chance that anyone takes items like this as a serious or credible assessment of atheism, well... that could cause some confusion on both sides. So:

Becoming an Atheist – Ray Comfort

There are two main hard and fast rules for anyone who would like to become an atheist. If you are tempted, beware. It's easy to take the first step, but it is very difficult to walk the walk.

First of all, is anyone ever actually tempted to become an atheist? I mean, what would anyone find tempting about losing their faith? Where's the payoff? What sort of angle does he think we're working, here?

Second, well... I'd agree that it's hard to "walk the walk" - just, not in the way that Comfort means. Since he's talking about atheists who used to be Christians (and, for that matter, since he assumes a priori that all atheists secretly know the truth of Christianity), I'm going to point out that everyone that I know who went from Christianity to atheism doesn't consider it a "choice" at all... and found the transition disconcerting, at best.

The first rule is to ignore design in nature. You will see it everywhere; from the planets, to the atoms, to the birds and the bees, to the seasons, to the design of the human body, the design of fish, flowers, fruits, feet, and even fungus. And of course, the amazing-looking human eye--everywhere you look and everywhere you can't look, you will see design.

No. This is a classic bit of Ray Comfort sleight-of-hand: nature has patterns, therefore it must have been designed. But here's the thing: pattern is not evidence of design. Pattern is evidence of, well, pattern. That's it. The same goes for complexity.

(Sure, if I find a watch in the desert, I'm going to assume that it's man-made... but that's because I know what a watch is, I know they don't occur naturally, and by the way I have a great bloody expanse of desert all around me to provide some non-designed contrast. If the world is designed, then metaphorically speaking we're all standing in the middle of the watch, and we have no desert available to compare it with.)

Now here's the hard part. Ignore your God-given common sense.

You know, every time I point out some part of the Bible that conflicts with my conscience, I'm told that my common sense isn't trustworthy; but let's ignore that. And, in fact, common sense frequently isn't very trustworthy, since human beings tend towards things like confirmation bias and pareidolia; but let's ignore that, too.

The real problem here is that Ray Comfort is setting this up with an underlying assertion that atheism is a choice - that some people, for incomprehensible reasons of their own, decide that they're going to become atheists, and then start looking around for ways to justify their decision. In my experience, that's essentially never how it works - it's almost always the other way around. In general, the process starts when someone finds a reason to doubt what they've been taught, and begins questioning and searching; they're almost never looking for a reason not to believe. And atheism isn't the only possible end of that process, either - plenty of people go through a phase of deep questioning and reassessment, and return to their religion with their faith strengthened.

Admit that everything man made is man-made, but be uncompromisingly adamant that everything in nature came from nothing, with no Designer.

This again? Yes, it appears to us that the world as it currently exists is the result of impersonal natural processes; but that isn't some bizarre view that we stubbornly insist upon despite all evidence to the contrary (because, again, pattern is not design). That actually is how the world appears to us; that view, and the interlocking theories that cover more specific patterns and phenomena, seem to better explain the world we live in than the idea that some all-powerful Creator willed it into being.

Note, however, the way that Comfort sets up his argument so there are only two possible sides: belief in his version of the Christian God, or uncompromising insistence that "everything in nature came from nothing". There's no room for nuance here, no allowance for honest disagreement; it's either Acknowledging The Truth or Stubbornly Refusing. That's a slick little bit of rhetorical setup, that is.

Once you have set aside your acumen to do this, crown yourself as being intelligent. Very. Then find other atheists and they will confirm to you that you are indeed, intelligent.

This is actually funny, because atheists (especially the ones who frequently end up discussing religion) do tend to assume that we're the smartest people in the room. And, as a general thing, we like hang around with people who agree with our views and values. Of course, so does everyone else - Ray Comfort included, as witnessed by this exact essay.

The second rule is to "believe." This is very important, because if you let doubt in, it will let in fear, and that can be a scary thing when the issue at stake is a place called "Hell."

Whoa-hoah! Slow down there, Tex. Show your work. It's a big enough leap from "nature has patterns" to "therefore God". Now you're jumping all the way from "nature has patterns" to "therefore Tha Fires O' Hell Await Ye!" and you're just expectin' the rest of us to follow 'long as if that were a given.

And no, I have no idea why I just slipped into a bad Old West Gunfighter accent, there.

My point stands, regardless. You can argue that nature shows clear evidence of design, just by existing. You can argue that anybody who really looks can see that. I'm not going to agree, of course, because I really have looked and I really don't see it, so by your logic I can't possibly exist. (So, um, "Hi!") But even if I'm wrong, and nature really does show clear and undeniable evidence of design (and I'm just, I don't know, theologically color-blind or something, that I can't see it), it's a long stretch of road between "the Universe must have been created," and "Hell exists, exactly as my particular brand of Christianity describes it."

You can only skip directly from the idea of an all-powerful Creator to the specifically Christian concept of Hell if your starting point isn't actually some sort of perceived design in nature, but rather the Christian Bible. Even then... The idea of Hell as an actual place where the souls of the unredeemed are punished for eternity is only loosely Biblical. It has a lot more to do with Christian popular culture than it does with the three (that's right, only three) passages in the Bible that mention the matter at all.

As far as letting doubt in... Look, quite a few of us live our lives pretty comfortably with quite a bit of doubt, ambiguity, lack of complete knowledge, and varying degrees of uncertainty about a variety of topics. (The poet John Keats referred to the ability to operate this way as "Negative Capability" and considered it both a virtue, and something of a prerequisite for honesty.) So once again, either Comfort is wrong, or I don't really exist - because letting doubt in, as a matter of fact, doesn't let in fear.

Believe that you are right in your beliefs.

Okay, quick show of hands: is there anyone out (Christian, atheist, or something else altogether) there who doesn't believe that their beliefs are correct? No?

...I didn't think so. Which brings me back to an earlier point: people don't become atheists because (for reasons that Ray Comfort presumably understands, but I do not) they choose to. They come to be atheists because based on the evidence they have available, and their best analysis of that evidence, they think atheism is the likeliest conclusion.

Believe that evolution is indeed true. Believe that it's scientific. Believe that there are no missing links, and believe that Richard Dawkins knows what he is talking about.

Wait, what? How did atheism and evolutionary theory suddenly become one and the same? First of all, there are plenty of Christians who find the Theory of Evolution perfectly compatible with belief in a divine Creator. Second of all, it's perfectly possible not to believe in God, and not to believe in terrestrial evolution at the same time. (See, for example, some of the Fortean theories of Ancient Aliens.)

As for missing links... did you know that it is absolutely impossible for an arrow shot at a target to reach that target? Because, you know, it passes the halfway point. And then it passes the halfway point for the remaining distance. And then it halves the remaining distance. And it covers half of the remaining distance... And since it must cover an infinite number of these halfway points, it can never actually reach the target. We have transitional fossils. Yes, occasionally we find new transitional fossils that contradict our previous conclusions. You know what happens then? Our model gets updated to incorporate the new information. What Ray Comfort is doing with his "no missing links" schtick is setting up the Zeno's Paradox of transitional fossils.

And how on Earth did Richard Dawkins get in there? Was Comfort just conflating unrelated topics, and decided to throw him into the mix, too?

Okay, I realize that Richard Dawkins is kind of a Big Bad for a certain strain of evangelical(?) Christianity, but out here among the atheists, a lot of us know him only by reputation. I've never read his stuff, I've never seen him in a debate - in fact, I'm not entirely certain that he participates in debates. Either way, an awful lot of atheists - again, going mainly by the people I know - came to their disbelief mainly on their own. They weren't following any "leaders", particularly among the New Atheists. They were just asking questions and looking for answers.

Believe that you are an ape, that you are not morally responsible because apes have no moral absolutes. Believe that your conscience was given to you by your parents and society, and not by God (always use a small "g" for God, if possible).

Granting a bit of hyperbole on Comfort's part - current evolutionary theory suggests that we share a common ancestor with apes, not that we are apes ourselves - we're still back into "Slow down, Tex, and show your work" territory, here. This idea - that if God doesn't exist, then there are no moral absolutes - simply isn't true. "We have a responsibility to take care of each other and do each other as little harm as possible," is a moral absolute... and it requires no belief in the supernatural whatsoever. All you need is a degree of empathy and a willingness to acknowledge that humans are social beings.

But set that aside, because the real issue here is that Comfort has taken us completely off-track. Atheism isn't a starting point; it's a conclusion. All its says is, "As far as I can tell, there is no God and there are no gods." That doesn't absolve you of any sort of moral responsibility to your fellow human beings; it just means that your moral responsibilities only extend to beings you can perceive and interact with.

To grow as an atheist, you will need to learn believers' language--phrases like "There is no creation," "Evolution is a proven fact," and the powerful "Flying Spaghetti Monster." Learn the fine art of cutting and pasting, and responding with "Straw man!" That means you won't have to respond to anything challenging.

I find it somewhat telling that the phrase "Straw Man!" so typifies atheist reactions to Ray Comfort that he's included it here as a Standard Atheist Boilerplate Response. Except, well, I think that says more about Ray Comfort and his assertions about atheism than it says about atheists themselves. (If you keep asking people out on dates, and they keep turning you down, maybe the problem isn't with them...)

I don't know any atheists who make a habit of saying, "There is no creation." Maybe they're out there - maybe - but I haven't run into any. The folks who are interested/literate in science tend to make careful, qualified statements like, "The best evidence that we have at present indicates that life diversified gradually over millions of years through a process of evolution." I do know some who will point out that the alternative to the Theory of Evolution - the theory that God Did It - isn't much of an explanation... especially if you insist on the belief that the Earth itself is 22,000 years younger than certain aboriginal rock art. (To be fair, I'm not at all sure whether Ray Comfort is a young-Earth Creationist or not. I get him confused with Ken Ham, to the extent that I'm not entirely sure where their beliefs differ.)

All this will give perceived intelligence. Never question evolution, and don't think for yourself.

Again, this is a nice bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Apparently, having been "tempted" by atheism (what's so tempting about it?) and having "decided" to become an atheist (because, um, why?), you're now supposed to never think for yourself. At least, that's the way Ray Comfort sees it, even though according to him it was thinking for yourself that led you here in the first place.

Notice, again, the absolute connection (at least in Comfort's mind) between evolution and atheism. Is it possible to accept the Theory of Evolution and remain a true Christian? Comfort doesn't come out and say it here, but judging by what we've read so far, his answer is a resounding "No!" So, you know, an awful lot of mainstream American Christians aren't, in Ray Comfort's mind, really Christians at all. Never mind the whole "followers of Jesus" bit.

Do these things, and you will be able to call yourself an atheist, or even a "new" atheist. How cool is that!

Well, um, judging by the studies that show that atheists are among the least trusted groups in America, I'd go with "Not Very Cool At All."

Again, almost nobody decides to become an atheist so that they can be part of in "in-crowd". If there are benefits to being an atheist - social benefits, financial benefits, career benefits, or maybe psychological benefits - I'm sure not seeing them. I'm just lucky to live and work in an environment where being a reasonably open atheist isn't actively career-limiting.

Which brings me back, once again, to an earlier question: why, exactly, does Ray Comfort think anyone would find the idea of becoming an atheist tempting?

Well, I should say, as much of one as you can be called one. No one can be a true atheist because you need "absolute knowledge" to say that there is no God.

This is another cute bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand: set the bar so high that nobody can possibly meet it. Yes, I would need absolute knowledge to say that I absolutely know that there is no God. But I don't need anything even close to that to explain that Christianity - and Ray Comfort's version of Christianity, in particular - fails to explain my perception of the world or reflect my experiences in the world. I don't have to conclusively prove that every possible version of God absolutely doesn't exist before concluding that my current views (of the world as the result of impersonal natural processes) provide a more accurate, if less satisfying, explanation for why the world is the way it is.

So until you are omniscient (like God), you will just have to do with pretending to be one.

So, finally, Comfort closes his essay with another common misconception (and another reason why he might might be ever-so-intimately-familiar with people using the phrase, "Straw Man!"). The implication - stated here as a given, that all right-thinking people naturally accept - is that atheists think of themselves as gods, or want to be God, or are pretending to be God.

That... isn't possible. An atheist who thought he (or she) was a god would necessarily believe in gods, and would therefore (by definition) no longer be an atheist. I don't know what you'd call such a person - autotheist, perhaps? Or in more practical terms, maybe just a Narcissist?

Regardless, we're back to the part where atheists don't believe in God, or gods. We really just don't think such things exist. Some people have trouble processing that ("You have to worship something!"), and so, I think, conclude that if we won't point to something external, we must be worshiping ourselves - or maybe each other; see the reference to Dawkins, above. That... simply isn't so. However strange it may sound, there are some of us who seem to have been born without a compelling need to worship anything. (The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is, say it with me, a lovely little bit of satire.)

This also sort of conflicts with Comfort's earlier assertions. After all, if God's existence is so perfectly obvious from The Evidence Of Design In The World(tm), then there are no real atheists. That is, there isn't really anybody who genuinely thinks that God just doesn't exist. Anyone who claims to be an atheist is... well, from this essay, I don't know. But based on some previous conversations with certain sorts of believers, I'm going to go with "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness," and I'll leave you to figure out what that means, exactly.

It seems to mean that I don't really exist, though. So again, um, "Hi."