Why I'm an Atheist, part 2 from DarkSyde's diary at DailyKos

[beam me up scottie]

Why I'm an Atheist
by DarkSyde
Tue Nov 15, 2005 at 08:54:04 PM PDT

Once again, a fair warning to all, this might be offensive as hell to some. Just try and understand that even though I think religion may be crazy or irrational, that doesn't mean I universally dislike religious people or that I think everything they do outside of religion is worthless. Point of Fact: This two-part series came about last evening during a friendly e-mail exchange with a Kossack friend who is definitely a believer and s/he happens to be someone whose integrity, character, and compassion, I greatly admire.

***

Your religion may be inspiring to you. It may have stories that are inspiring to me. It may have mnemonic value; critically important value at that. It may be rich in tradition and culture, it may encapsulate important events in human history. It may offer hope to people who have no hope left. It may serve as a useful insight into human nature. Humans may indeed have a preexisting facility to acquire belief systems similar to the one for language. It may provide a valuable ethical and behavioral framework. It may spread like a virus and mutate like bird flu. I don't necessarily think you are weak minded for buying it, I think enculturation and peer pressure is some powerful gumbo. But this diary isn't about any of that.

This is about why I am an atheist, not why you should be one. And by atheist I mean that I strongly suspect that the core, underlying, supernatural claims of religion are nonsense. If you want me to not be an atheist and share your particular flavor of supernatural belief, you need to be able to perform the magic or produce the supernatural being you claim exists and subject that creature to a battery of tests under controlled conditions.


Why am I an Atheist?

In my Santa Claus analogy I mentioned near the end to imagine why it is you don't literally believe in Santa and his North Pole factory. I bet for most of you, it's not because you hate Santa, I mean who would? It's probably not because you hate Christmas or despise giving or receiving gifts. I doubt it's because you detest having days off or eating kickass food with your family and friends. You probably can't prove there is no Santa and even if you try, I assure you from long experience in dealing with creationists* I can offer a counter argument.

No, none of that is the reason: Your disbelief in a literal Santa Claus, flying reindeer, nocturnal visits, toy factories, elves, etc., likely centers on three concrete objections:

1. "It" makes no sense

2. There is no evidence for "it"

3. We're adults who can get by fine at Christmas time and enjoy ourselves without "it" having to be true


Evidence by far is the key. Something might not make sense, like Quantum Mechanics, but we accept it because of the evidence. OTOH something might make sense, like the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, but we don't accept it as valid, yet, because we have no evidence. The reason for this asymmetry is, as the late Carl Sagan said: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Combine a bunch of bundled extraordinary claims that have no evidence to support them, not even mediocre evidence, with the fact that the set of claims don't make any sense at all kinds of levels, and that's a real problem for someone like me to get past.


It makes no sense

There is so much in the Bible (And the Quron and everything else) that makes no sense, it's pretty hard to pick a place to begin. I suppose a good enough place would be the beginning of the book: It makes no sense to create some kind of paradise in which man and woman have no inkling of right and wrong, and then hold them responsible for doing something wrong. It makes no sense to hold their descendants for all time responsible for them doing something wrong even if they did in fact have some mysterious way of determining right and wrong prior to being taught how to distinguish right from wrong.

It makes no sense for YVHW to kill off every living thing on earth with a flood or any other psychotic method of genocide if he can do whatever he wants and his goal is to engender love for His masterful and benevolent rule. It is in fact an act far, far, to the right of Hitler and Ghangas Kahn combined; it makes those two pikers look like candy-stripers. And the flood is just one of many monstrous acts.

***

This example of what I feel is nonsense bears special emphasis by graphic comparison: Casey Sheehan was sacrificed; Pat Tillman was sacrificed; People in New Orleans were sacrificed; Every fireman that ran into the WTC was sacrificed. What makes those tragedies a sacrifice is not just that we know they happened or the cause they died for, but that it meant they were gone forever. OTOH, being unconscious for three days and then coming to as the Immortal Ruler of the Universe is not a sacrifice, it's a stunt. And the consequences for the stunt man are the sweetest deal in the history of mankind.

It makes no sense that God would disguise himself as a human, fake his death, and expect us to drop to our knees in abject awe at his 'sacrifice', because it pales in comparison to the ones we mere mortals face. In my view, it's frankly a grotesque insult to humanity to try and pass that off as anything close to the fear, horror, and pain that real people have to deal with under torture and execution. And it makes little sense to me that a being which creates Quasars and butterflies would come up with such an empty and downright bizarre stunt as a solution to problems they intentionally created in the first place and expect us to whimper in admiration at their sense of compassion. Especially since by all accounts they could have remedied it with the snap of their supernatural fingers, or just not let the problem happen in the first place.

***

We owe it to try, to shoot for the stars, for all the people who came before us and helped pull us out of the pit of animal savagery. We owe it to the wonderful diversity of life on earth of which we are a part and which gave birth to our species; an unbroken lineage stretching back four billion years of which we are the managing agent. Is there anyone who doesn't feel that's special enough?

We owe it to ourselves to keep that flame burning, keep pushing the boundaries, so that each and every generation will more and more inherit the promise of what can be, while leaving the grimmer world of what was behind. I may reject the deities that human intellects have cooked up, but I don't doubt the potential of that intellect. That's what I 'believe in' if I could be said to 'believe in' anything; I believe in our future, because I believe in us. I believe in you.

And that's why I'm an atheist.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/15/23544/992

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. ... The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

~Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

[MineralMan]

1. A lot of words, to be sure.

I just say that I'm not able to believe in any supernatural entities.

[Warpy]

2. Or I just don't believe a word of it.

The bible is a great read with a lot of wonderful stories and if you want to understand the mythic basis of our culture, it's a must read, one of several.

I just don't buy it as history or as religion. It's a collection of all of the above by a group of people exiting a nomadic existence and entering a more agrarian, mercantile and urbanized one. It's a compendium of all the stories, tall tales, and religious myths they'd heard on their extensive travels. For that, it's worth a lot. As fact, it's worthless.

I'm an atheist not out of anger, just out of disbelief. I have no dogma, no liturgy, no hymns, no holy writ. I just don't buy a word of it.

And that's all.

[AlecBGreen]

3. just one point

"It makes no sense..." I suspect that is a reason many dont believe in God, because so many things that God supposedly did/does/will do dont make sense. But why should that stop us? Many things 'dont make sense' yet we accept them, or at least dont fight their existence.

1) In my college calculus & physics classes, I asked "why" more than once. Concepts were explained that I just never understood. They didnt make sense, I couldnt wrap my brain around them. In the end I was often told, "You dont have to understand why, just memorize the formula and you'll be OK." That was true. I didnt have to understand exactly what was going on as long as I could figure out which formulas to apply and how to solve the problems.

2) An infant is given a vaccine and cries and cries and cries. It simply cannot understand why its mother would sit by and let this bad man stick it with a needle. "My mother loves me but why is she letting this happen?" To that child, it makes no sense. To us, as adults, we understand that the vaccine, while painful, is necessary.

3) Back to physics. How is it possible that light can behave simultaneously as a wave and a particle? We are told that something must one or the other yet light somehow defies this. It doesnt make sense, yet we just accept it and move on.

4) In my class my students take many notes. "Cant you just print these out for us?" they ask. I explain that when you write, it activates a different part of brain, and in combination with SEEING the words and HEARING them in your head as you write, it leads to more effective learning. They dont get it, it makes no sense, but its true and I thats why I do it.

Im sure someone will find errors with all these examples (i love our critical thinking skills...feel free to shoot me down :)) but in the end, I simply believe that just because something doesnt make sense doesnt mean its not true.

[beam me up scottie]

4. You really don't get it, do you?

DarkSyde is not telling you why you shouldn't believe, he is telling you why he can't. It just isn't an option.

Like DS, I can't believe in your god or any other, not won't, can't. I am simply not able to suspend or disconnect the part of my brain that is responsible for critical thinking and reasoning.

I was born this way, I never believed, to me it is as natural as breathing.