Want to be right all the time? Then stick to the evidence.

Everyone likes to be right. We all engage in discussions at some point in which we disagree with someone else's point of view. Depending on how well we know or like the person might determine the flow of the argument and how heated it gets. But one thing seems to be consistent in arguments; most people don't change their mind part way through. They want to be right. They want the other person to eventually come around and see things from their point of view and acknowledge that they are indeed right about whatever the issue is. This, of course, rarely happens. Sometimes it is painfully obvious who is right, but even then the person who is shown to be wrong will often still claim that some part of their position is correct, or they may subtly adjust their position to fit with the right position. We see these kinds of discussions in public all the time, especially in politics. Two politicians arguing over who has the right vision for the country, or whose policies have benefited the citizens, is a common scene.

Wouldn't it be great if you knew what the trick was to always being right? What if you could go into any argument knowing that you are always going to be right, and anyone who opposes you is wrong? Many people behave as if this is the case, but in reality are only showing their stubborness and close-mindedness and their refusal to acknowledge when they are wrong. But there is in fact one simple thing that anyone can do to ensure that they are always right in any argument. There is one simple trick you can engage in a discussion that will ensure that you are never wrong. Seem to good to be true? It's actually very straight forward. But, unfortunately, most people are not willing to do it.

Build your argument on evidence, not on an agenda or preconception.

If you do that, you will always be right. (Assuming the argument is something for which there is evidence. You're not going to win an argument about what colour fairies are by always engaging the evidence). But, most people find it impossible to do so because they don't want to give up their preconceived idea about something. There are numerous examples of issues that are debated today in which people are unwilling to give up their entrenched position despite the evidence to the contrary. An obvious example is the religious debate over creationism vs. evolution. There is no way to be correct about creationism since the evidence doesn't support it. If you go into any discussion about evolution vs. creationism in support of evolution, you will always be right, because the evidence supports evolution. You may be outwitted by someone who is more clever than you, or someone who has more knowledge than you, and tries to twist the facts to suit their needs, but in the end you will still be right even if they think they've won the argument. You are still right, because your position is supported by the evidence. Simple as that.

Examples of political arguments abound. Conservative vs. liberal tax theory...which one is right? This is a more complex example because the answer likely depends partly on the particular situation that the economy finds itself in. There are times when either may be correct. But, as an example, an economy that finds itself in a huge debt and deficit is not correct to lower taxes indefinitely and increase spending indefinitely The evidence shows that this policy is unsustainable. Therefore it is wrong.

Evidence is a wonderful tool because it shows you the answers to many of life's questions. The sad thing is that most people, even when they are aware of what I've written above, will simply go about things backwards and approach an argument with an agenda and try to find some evidence in support of that agenda. Every politician does that. Then they attempt to claim that the facts support their position simply because they've found a few facts that do support their position, even if 99% of the evidence is opposing their position.

Willful ignorance

I recently read this story about how being sedentary may increase the risk of some cancers. The story itself is somewhat interesting in that researchers isolated the knowledge that a high frequency of physical activity during each day seems to have some benefit for health, particularly related to inflammatory markers that might be related to cancer. This is fundamentally different than the traditional knowledge of the relationship between physical activity and disease which leads to the standard recommendations of regular exercise 3 - 4 times per week. In this study the information seems to indicate that the act of being sedentary between bouts of physical activity is also a risk factor. In other words, you can be active and fit, but if you sit for 8 - 10 hours per day without moving around, you are increasing the risk of some cancers.

But what really shocked me was the response to this study by the people who commented on the news story at the end of the article. Comments (and the rough estimate of readers' views based on the amount of "agree" vs. "disagree" votes with each comment) seem to indicate that the majority of people who read this either dismiss it or are flippant about the data merely because it is inconvenint.

A few sample comments follow:


"This just in: Everything causes cancer. Doctor's prescription: Live your life."

"SITTING? Are you kidding me? Sitting, standing, lying dan, peeing the wrong way, breathing at the wrong time, eating the wrong food (it's all wrong at this point...so it doesn't much matter), looking at the moon at the wrong angle....I mean really...this is GETTING RIDICULOUS."

"A little more fear-mongering...pretty soon they will determine that breathing causes cancer too."

These comments can be summed up with the attitude of: "Sitting may lead to an increase in cancer risk. How inconvenient to me. I'll just dismiss the data because I don't want to deal with it."

Everything does not cause cancer. Cells do degenerate and some factors cause an increase in this process. Stand around some radioactive materials and you'll increase your cancer risk in some cells. Is that inconvenent? Why does no one say: "Radioactivity??? Are you kidding me? You can't do anything these days without getting cancer!" The fact that being sedentary for long periods might cause cells to increase the risk of becoming cancerous might be true (more data will illucidate us). So, if you find that annoying, should you just dismiss it and assume that everything causes cancer?

"This is getting ridiculous." What is getting ridiculous? The fact that we have so much data, or the actual nature of the data? (The nature of nature).

The last comment is perhaps the most ludicrous. More fear-mongering. Yeah, right. There is a huge group of well funded people out there making up data that is specifically designed to get you to stand up from your desk once an hour and go for a 30 second walk. Maybe this is the same group of people that killed Kennedy.

Why are my fellow humans becoming so willfully ignorant? Why do people not want data? Why do people refuse data when it isn't convenient to them? If you had heart disease, wouldn't you want to know so that you could take the appropriate steps to avoid a heart attack? So why is this any different? This trend is very frightening because it denotes an overall mistrust of science. Science is not taught well these days in educational institutions. Science is seen as abstract and relatively useless in our world, rather than as the fundamental process of discovery by which we find answers to everything. The less understanding of science and more importantly, the scientific process, then the more opportunity that people in power with an agenda have of ramming their agenda down your throat. Just look at the state of politics in the United States these days. There are millions of voters who base their vote on things that are known to be false, such as creationism. We know that evolution is true and that the world was not created as described in the Bible. This is established fact, and yet millions of voters cast their ballot dependant on a candidate's acceptance of the known falsehood of creationism. This concept can be extended to any reach of government. Some people like the notion of small government and cast their vote accordingly, but are too un-schooled in scientific unbiased observation to notice that the very people they vote for enlarge government rather than reduce it.

Science education is an absolute must in a healthy society. The process of learning scientific knowledge is only one small portion of scientific education. Equally or more important is understanding the process of science so that, when a politician stands up and makes claims such as climate change being "made up", one can dismiss it as an unscientific claim.

Evidence. Love it or be deliberately blind.

The Limits of Science...Part I

My blog writing is suffering. I have blogger constipation. Not that I don't have things to write about, but I am having a hard time finding the time at the moment. Other things in life are keeping me very busy and away from writing. I realize that is the death march for any blogger. Blogs need to be regular in order to draw any interest. If anyone is visiting my blog on a regular basis (I'm still not sure if that is happening), they are likely getting bored and tired of checking back and seeing no new posts. I apologize and hope to find more time in the near future.

I did have an interesting discussion about science on Facebook  recently. A friend of mine had commented about the recent Nobel prize winner announcements and rhetorically pondered what science will discover next. (This friend is a Christian, as far as I can classify, but also very open minded, knowledgeable, and science-friendly). A friend of his, someone I don't know, commented on his status that he was fed up with science and scientists. This person ranted about all the problems that scientists had not been able to solve yet such as poverty, third-world hunger, wars, the common cold, etc. I thought this was an excellent representation of the pervasive public misunderstanding of science. I added a comment about how his rant really illustrated this misunderstanding of science. I pointed out that science is capable of any discovery so long as enough time and resources are available, but that that does not mean that scientists are capable of solving every human problem that is considered inconvenient. Lumping the common cold in with world peace, for example, is not only like comparing apples and oranges, it is more like comparing apples and Bengali tigers. One is solvable by science (assuming there is a solution) given enough time and resources. The other is not because it does not involve a process of discovery. There is not some phenomenon that would solve hunger and bring world peace if only it were discovered.

The interesting part of the Facebook conversation then began with my original friend. We had a bit of a discussion about the limits of science. This friend pointed out that science has not been about to solve certain things such as the existence of angelic beings and dark matter. Again, I pointed out that the two examples raised are in completely different categories. Given enough time and resources, the whole story about dark matter (and all particles in the universe) is solvable by science since it is a real phenomenon in the natural world. Angelic beings are not a natural phenomenon in the real world (at least, we don't have any evidence that they are), and therefore their existence will never be solved by science. My friend then rightly pointed out that scientists have often been wrong in the past, but the scientific process corrects itself as it goes along, and tried to produce the neat trick of then lumping super-natural phenomenon into that category. Perhaps in the future scientists will find out that they have been wrong about angelic beings. This warping of the limits of science is very common and pervasive. It is by using a bit of truth about science (the process, applied imperfectly by biased scientists sometimes produces error), people often try to point out that science is limited in its ability to discover knowledge in the natural world. It is not. My friend went on to point out a few examples of the usual questions that people think science cannot answer such as, "Why are we here?" and "What should we do?". The first question, of course, has been more or less answered 150 years ago by Darwin. The answer isn't always one that people like or are comfortable with, so the answer gets ignored or rejected and people claim that science cannot answer it. The second question simply needs qualifying before science can answer it, since it isn't a reasonable question as it stands. "What should we do...if we want more elephants in the world?" is a very answerable questions in science. "What should we do...in general with our lives?" probably isn't. This IS an example of the limits of science. Science cannot answer questions for which there is no answer. But, for any real phenomenon, science can provide an answer, given enough time and resources.

Got the Silly Thing in Reverse

 Image courtesy of Google Images.

In follow up to my recent post about responding to “evidence for God” raised by a Christian, and in particular the issue of life existing despite what seems like overwhelmingly small odds, I came across an analogy that I think fits quite well. It shows how the religious tend to go about things backwards when trying to examine evidence to make it fit their point of view.

Picture walking out into your yard in winter and finding a small natural hole in the ground. The hole in the ground has some natural features to it such as branches and bumps. That day it rains and then freezes and then you go back outside and now notice that there is a piece of ice fitted perfectly into the hole in the ground. You pull the little piece of ice out of the ground and notice that it perfectly matches the hole’s shape. There are little bumps wherever there were little holes, and there are little dimples in the ice wherever there were little bumps in the ground. No one would seriously be tempted to think that some higher intelligence must have place that piece of ice there by design because we all understand the relatively simple science of how water flows to fill a hole and then freezes to the shape of the mold. Yet, for some reason, when life is observed, the immediate reaction by some is to assume that it was placed there by the design of some higher intelligence (i.e. God), because they do not understand the science of evolution and life formation. The hole in the ground was there. Given that it rained and then froze, and given the nature of water, there is no other possibility but that ice will form in the shape of the hole in the ground. By analogy, the earth exists with the conditions of temperature and chemical composition that it has. Given the nature of biological life, there is no other possibility but that life will form in the way it has. (Of course, there are lots of possibilities of how life might have ended up, but that it formed at all is the given in this example). The whole point of view of the religious is in reverse. Yet again, they form the conclusion and then find evidence to support it.

[I owe whoever authored this analogy the credit for coming up with it. To date I have not found the source, but will update it when I do so].

Another more philosophical example is one I came across in written conversation with a Christian. After voicing what I considered a reasonable point of view about an issue, I was told by this person that it was ironic that I (as an atheist) was the one that had the “Christian” point of view on the issue while the Christians he had engaged with did not. Again, the whole point of view is in reverse. His assumption that a point of view of tolerance, love, and rational thought is a Christian one, and that therefore it was ironic that an atheist held that position, is in backwards. The position assumes that all goodness originates from Christianity and God and therefore it is impossible for an atheist to be “good” without having adopted some of the Christian message. Pure bunk. I’ll expand on this example with a few more details for interest sake.

The conversation in question involved an questioning by the Christian in question (whom I think is a very open-minded, liberal thinking, almost non-Christian) about the response to the assassination of Osama bin Laden by American troops. He was basically questioning the celebrating people were doing over someone else’s death, even if that someone else was an evil person. (This is a very simplified summary of his position, but adequate for my purposes here).

I responded by writing: “Finding a reason to justify killing other humans is easy, but never right, and either "side" can always claim outrage at the actions of the other in their justification. The only logical position I can take is that killing humans is wrong under any circumstances.”

A number of Christians then responded as well and some of their responses were downright crazy (or as another ex-Christian has called it, funny-mentalist). Although it is lengthy, one such response should be included in full here:

“I think that as a Christian who accepts the Bible as the being the word of God..the actual inspired preachings/teachings/words​ of God, I cant help but come to some different conclusions than many of you.

I think that God's justice is a combination of his love and his wrath. We can not read parts of the Bible..the love parts, and ignore the anger of the Lord.(in case you think its only the old testament that talks about his Wrath its mentioned 10 times just in James, including James 1:18 "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness").

Paul says this wrath of God “is revealed.” The Greek word is apokaluptetai, a present passive indicative. It denotes a continuous revelation of the wrath of God. Just as the righteousness of God is continually revealed in the preaching of the gospel, the wrath of God is also being revealed continuously. These are two parallel yet antithetical revelations. [Reverend P. G. Mathew, M.A., M.Div., Th.M.]

The Bible tells us to Fear the Lord...not just snuggle in for some love. We should fear the justice of God because if we lose touch with the fact that we also deserve His justice then we are in a heap of trouble.

I think that when God had his people march around the walls of Jericho singing, dancing and shouting praises to Him as the "walls of a nation" were cast down, he was sending a clear message that it is ok to rejoice when God shows his power and his justice. It is ok to rejoice when God brings to an end the reign of the wicked.

When a man makes it his life's mission to attack a people group that God claimed as his own (Israel) and those who stand beside them (to this point the US..who knows for how much longer)...then it is ok to rejoice when God chooses to reveal His power over the wicked. I dont think we take this event and rejoice that a man had been cast into an eternal fire of damnation, but we can rejoice that the reign of tyranny, oppression and murder has come to an end.

Osama Bin Laden was a gifted and powerful speaker (much like Hitler) who was VERY influencial in a continual pattern of leading people into a life of Direct Contradiction to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Many young lives were lost because of his teachings and I for one rejoice that he is no longer able to influence young men with his poison to hate, kill and make choices that condemn themselves to the fires of hell.

(for the record im not saying that [name of original commenter] was saying that Osama should have been left alone, in love. I am saying that although i DO NOT think chanting in the streets and having weekend parties is the right way to take this news....i rejoice in the fact that God has shown his Justice [and i do believe that God can chose to use the US Navy Seals as the tip of his sword] It reminds me of how valuable his mercy is to me personally!”

[Bolding is my addition. I thought the bolded section needed highlighting for its intense…craziness. No other word will suffice.]

In response, then, I wrote:

“Against my better judgment, I feel the need to comment again. Wow. If I needed any illustration of my point about how easy it is to find a justification for killing people (or celebrating the death of people), I think I got it. It is just as easy (and illogical) to find a justification for hating George Bush for killing tens of thousands of people as it is to find a justification for hating bin Laden for killing thousands. It all depends on which doctrine of hate you happened to be raised on.”

Now for the irony…my Christian acquaintance wrote, in response to me:

“It is a little weird/ironic, don't you think, that YOU are the one arguing vehemently for what (I believe) is the actual response that Christ would argue for? Perhaps there are no Christians, except atheists :) (Or agnostics - not really sure where you'd place yourself and I certainly wouldn't want to place anyone else).”

An astounding statement. It is ironic that I, as an atheist, are making the argument that Christ would make. Got the silly thing in reverse! Whether “Christ” would make such an argument or not, I have no idea nor interest. What I do know from observation is that not many Christians would make such an argument while I think many atheists would. The presumption that anything that anyone says that is leaning towards peace and forgiveness (not that I have any forgiveness for Osama bin Laden, please understand), and rational thought about the conflicts in the world we live in, must stem from God. Are you joking??? The same god that was so blood-thirsty and condoning of genocides in the Bible? The same god that is willing to send people off to an eternity of hate, suffering, and pain because of the culture they happened to be brought up in? No, my statements are utterly rational and in line with my atheistic beliefs. There is nothing Christian about what I said. The Christian message in this case is much nearer that of Anne Coulter, a certifiable funny mentalist:

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Please, put the silly thing in forward gear and start thinking for yourself.

Evidence-Chasing

Anyone who knows me or has read much of my writing knows that I try to put value on evidence. I always have in my daily life, and have always tried to approach life in a rational way. My logical, evidence-based approach to life is probably just part of my personality, and one that does occasionally drive people around me a bit crazy. Humans are emotional beings. We often make snap illogical decisions in life that have profound consequences. I’m no exception, I’m still an emotional person too, but I do think I have a more evidence-based approach to life than most. This is probably the biggest factor in eventually leading me to leave the Christian faith. Sometimes I think people think this means I think I am always right. It doesn’t, of course, though I can understand why I sometimes come across that way. When you try to align your beliefs and opinions with evidence, and then back them up with evidence when challenged, it can appear that you are close minded because you’ve already examined your positions quite carefully. Often, though, I’ll realize that my position on something is not evidence-based and then I must alter my position.

One of the very difficult things to do in life, however, is to really objectively examine evidence without bias. We all have biases, and we are all tempted all the time to try to make our observations of evidence fit our conclusion or opinion about something. On a simple everyday level this happens all the time in the world of sports. Any fan of a sports team will typically make observations fit their held belief that their team is best. This might manifest itself as bias in observations of officiating during a match, or ignoring evidence that doesn’t support a held opinion that a particular favoured athlete is the best at what they do. In the world of sports this probably doesn’t matter so much and does lead to the exciting, passionate, and endless debates about who really is the better team or player. However, in the world of science or religion, this is not a good approach. Making evidence fit a preconceived opinion or belief is disastrous in science as it can easily lead to false interpretation of results or findings. This happens all the time in science, but fortunately the process of modern science is relatively good at catching mistakes. An example is the “finding” some years ago that child vaccinations lead to an increased risk of autism. In 1998 The Lancet, a highly regarded medical journal, published a study that found an increased risk of autism among children exposed to routine vaccinations. It is generally accepted now that this is not the case, and that the lead scientist had allowed his biases to cause a misinterpretation and some bad science. The Lancet has since retracted the publication, but unfortunately this mistake has had major implications in the health of many young children as their parents have foolishly avoided vaccinating their kids against some diseases that are easily preventable. This is an example of some major consequences of a relatively minor bit of evidence-chasing.

In religion too, this sort of thing happens. Sometimes the consequences are even more profound. Sometimes the result of evidence-chasing is that thousands of children are raised to believe something that is not true, and perhaps even worse, to turn into evidence-chasers themselves (think of the common rejection of evolutionary biology in high schools in the U.S., for example). To someone with an education in science, spotting evidence-chasing among things like creationist opinions is relatively easy, but it can crop up as a much more subtle way that might initially appear like authentic rationalism even when it is not. I recently encountered an example of this in an exchange I had with someone on the internet with respect to their writing. In fairness to this person, they will remain anonymous as I have not gained their permission to use their opinions in this example. My example requires a bit of background.

There are a number of websites that act as forums for people who have left Christianity and embraced agnosticism, atheism, or who have simply stopped believing in the god of their upbringing. On one such website recently, a Christian started to make comments. He then reported on his experience on this forum on his own blog in an article that talked about his experiences in an atheist community. I felt that his post on the blog was deliberately intended to be a bit inflammatory and deliberately designed to not give people (“the atheists”) on the webpage the benefit of the doubt. A photograph was attached to the blog, one which showed a large crowd of people (the majority of whom were incidentally non-white; Time magazine’s O.J. Simpson legacy of skin darkening sadly lives on) shouting and holding their hands in the air with thumbs pointed down. I can’t imagine for a moment that the photo is either a group of atheists or a group of former Christians. It is clearly just a group of people protesting something loudly. I think the photograph was attached with the intention of supporting the overall impression that “atheists” (it was not a group of atheists per se that the blog author had engaged with, but a mix of former Christians) are unreasonable, loud people who like can't be reasoned with, much like any large group of protesters. To be fair, there were a number of impolite and unreasonable comments made towards this person on the web page forum, but I felt they were done out of frustration at a persistently dogmatic point of view. Again, the web page is not an atheist website and a number of the people he engaged with were not atheists. This was pointed out to him a number of times by various people making comments on his blog but, as far as I know, he never acknowledged the error or misrepresentation.

The crux of his blog post was five points about atheists that he summarizes from his experience on the (non-atheist) web page. As you can see, some Christians have a real problem distinguishing an atheist from anyone who isn’t a Christian. Briefly then, his five summary points of the views of atheists, where:

1. Christians are idiots.
2. Atheists are morally superior to Christians.
3. God is evil.
4. The Bible is a bunch of bunk.
5. Anyone who would question non-belief is not wanted.

I don’t need to go into the details of his explanations of these five points because they are not really what I want to discuss, though he does attempt to justify them reasonably and back them up through his experiences in the exchanges he had. My point is not to refute or critique his blog posting in general, but rather to establish the background of some serious evidence-chasing at the end.

I wrote a comment expressing my point of view on these five points as follows:

I would agree with points 2 - 4. Points 1 and 5 I would disagree with.

1. Christians are not idiots. An idiot is typically considered to be someone who is mentally deficient. It is further normally intended as a derogatory term, though technically it need not be. To claim that a large group of people are idiots (presumably of lower I.Q.) based on their religious beliefs is inaccurate and likely easy to disprove. I have met many highly intelligent Christians and many atheists of lower than average intelligence. What I would say about Christians, though sweeping generalizations are often inherently unfair, is that they are typically irrational, ignorant (often deliberately so), illogical, and very dogmatic, specifically when it comes to thinking about and discussing their religious beliefs. Unlike idiocy, none of those descriptions are derogatory. They are simply descriptions. But, in my pretty extensive experiences in relating to Christians and in having been one myself, I would state that the most accurate description of Christians is that they are typically not actually interested in discovery and truth, but rather in making any piece of information gathered to fit a preconceived conclusion and world view that they have decided from the outset will never fundamentally change.

2. Yes, with a qualifier. I would say more accurately that atheism is morally superior to Christianity rather than comparing individuals. One need not delve into the darker parts of Yahweh's character and instructions to decipher how horrendously evil his morality is. One need only think of the notion of teaching children about hell without a shred of evidence to support it.

3. Yes, assuming that you are talking about the Biblical god Yahweh. God, of course, doesn't exist as an entity, but the concept of him is horrifically evil, and his entire raison d'etre (within the Bible, not in reality) is to allow people to control other people. That in itself is an evil notion. I can't imagine anyone reading the Bible with an open mind and coming to any other reasonable conclusion. If humans behaved in the way God condoned in the Bible, they would make Hitler look like a normal political leader.

4. Without doubt. The Biblical contradictions with established science are astounding, sometimes amusingly so. The book was clearly written by men who had the knowledge you would expect of the times that it was written. Many events in the book are so physically impossible that they have to be taken as allegory by any rational human. Once you start taking the book as figuratively then you realize that they whole thing can be discarded as fiction. Further, the contradictions within the book itself make it completely unbelievable.

5. Certainly not. Questioning anything and everything is always a good idea. Though, in practice I'm not sure how you question non-belief in a phenomenon. A more logical approach is to question belief. I don't believe in the tooth fairy, but I also don't feel any need to question why I don't believe in her. The question never has reason to enter my consciousness. If someone presented themselves to me as an honest believer in the tooth-fairy and presented some evidence in support, then I would examine the evidence and my position. Same with Christianity and God. But I have yet to see any evidence ever presented in support of the existence of the Biblical God.

Now we finally leave the background and get to the real point of evidence-chasing. In response, the individual in question stated:

Thanks for the comment; it seemed very well-thought-out.  One question for you... in my short amount of time studying these things (I'm trying to start with fundamental scientific questions about God and atheism and the existence of god before I delve into questions about Christianity more deeply), I've run into several strong points of evidence about the existence of a god (not necessarily about the Christian God).  How do you deal with these issues:

1. The laws of nature: that nature obeys laws (and has regularities) is evidence that there is a God.
2. The existence of the cosmos: that there exists any universe at all, and that it is fine-tuned for the existence of life, is evidence that there is a God.
3. The presence of life: that there is life at all is evidence that there is a God.  Scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated in the early 1980s the probability of life forming, and placed the odds at one in 10^40,000.
4. Human consciousness: The existence of consciousness in humans is something that science cannot explain.

The first three of those questions were things that Antony Flew cited as reasons he stopped being an atheist, after years of being a prominent atheist, and started believing in a god (deistic).  The last question is just one that I have tacked on, because it's something that troubles me.

These are things that I cannot yet reconcile with an atheistic viewpoint, and I wonder how you've answered them?

As you can see, this is no run-of-the-mill Christian evidence denier that we’re dealing with. This is not someone whose first attempt at debunking atheism is to run to the tired old arguments in support of creationism. Learning to examine the evidence and then form your conclusions is relatively simple when dealing with things like Noah’s flood or talking donkeys, and at first glance you might be tempted to think this individual has genuinely examined the evidence and finds a few major pieces of evidence in support of a god. But, this is nothing more than basic evidence-chasing yet again. My response to these four points:

Perhaps I can assume from your response that you accept that lack of evidence is a valid reason to reject the notion of deities, and your position is that there is evidence and therefore you accept the notion of a god. In response to your four points:

1. I don’t see how the laws of nature are evidence that there is a god. Regularities occur in nature. There is gravity where there is mass. So what? Why does that mean there is a god?

2. We know a lot about the origins of the universe, but we still know precious little about it compared to what remains to be known. Lack of understanding of the origins does not logically provide evidence that the origins were magic (see my comparisons below to phenomena that used to seem like magic to less knowledgeable humans).

3. Hoyle’s numbers are widely rejected by mainstream science. Hoyle also believed that life did not originate on earth but came about by panspermia which is not scientifically supported. But even if you accept that the probability of life forming is slim, life did form. Therefore it must be both physically possible and statistically possible because we do know that it happened. Looking around us and saying that we’re so unlikely to exist that there must be a god who put us here is to go about it backwards. We are here, we know how life evolves given the right conditions, and therefore the probability is, by definition, within the realm of possibility.

4. As with your first point, I fail to see how human consciousness is evidence for a god. I would disagree that science cannot explain it. Neuroscience has a lot to say about the nature of human consciousness, as does evolution. That we have self awareness, prior knowledge of our own death, language, etc., are all within the process of human
evolution.

Even if you don’t accept my explanations point by point, they can all also be dismissed outright since none of these issues is specific evidence for a god, they are simply problems some people have with the, as yet, partly unexplained. Two analogies to help explain what I mean. Firstly, if we were having this conversation several thousand years ago, similar points you might raise as evidence of a god could be: occasionally the earth moves uncontrollably and randomly; sometimes healthy people suddenly and randomly get sick and die; on some nights huge flashes of light shoot from the sky and destroy things on earth, therefore there must be a god. In other words, I perceive all four points as essentially the same argument: we can’t fully explain certain things yet, therefore there must be a god responsible for these things. Secondly, suppose I was having this conversation with someone who believed we are all living within a computer programme much like the movie The Matrix. They might logically try to use all the same four points in support of their belief. In other words, there is no specificity towards deities in your points. Not to mention narrowing it down to a specific god such as the Christian god.

As you can see from my response, I point out that these four points are nothing more than a modern day exasperation at gaps in our scientific understanding. They are nothing more than a modern day version of the Ancient Greeks' formation of a Poseidon hypothesis resulting from observations of ocean storms. The point about Hoyle in particular is classic evidence-chasing. This individual effectively goes about his search for evidence to support his conclusion (that life could not have happened without the intervention of a deity) by wondering: “There must be a scientist out there somewhere who supports this notion. Ah yes, Hoyle, he’ll do.” Rather than examining all the evidence about the beginnings of life, examining how Hoyle’s theories were received in the scientific community, and realizing that he is clinging to one piece of false evidence in support of a pet theory rather than vice versa. So far the conversation has ended at this point and I’ve had no further response.

So, evidence-chasing comes at all levels of sophistication. It can crop up in conversation between two NBA fans in support of their pet favourite team, it can crop up in the study of vaccinations and health published at the highest levels of science, and it can crop up in a personal discussion involving the same old tired process of trying to find a reason to support your conclusion that god exists.

Dichotomy of Views on Evidence

Does God exist? It is a question that almost everyone must have asked of themselves at some point. From a scientist’s point of view it is an inherently unanswerable question. Disproving a hypothesis for which there is no scientific test is impossible. That it is unanswerable does not increase the likelihood of God’s existence, however. There are many inherently unanswerable questions in life. By definition, a research question can only be answered if one is able to gather data and test hypotheses. This is not possible of the question of God’s existence. (Actually some have attempted to address this as a research question by establishing a controlled study on the effects of prayer on those suffering from ill health. And, while I personally think this type of approach is a waste of resources and amounts to hypothesis chasing, it perhaps has some validity in addressing the overall question. Christians, of course, argue that scientific tests on God like that are invalid because of what amounts to a supernatural Hawthorne effect!).

There seems to be a continuum of views amongst humans in terms of the requirement for evidence to support belief in God. On the one extreme are believers who essentially require no evidence whatsoever for their belief in God. In fact, some believers state that their belief despite the lack of evidence is actually a sign of strong faith, which can only be taken as a good thing. On the other extreme are many atheists and scientists who reject the notion of deities due to a complete lack of evidence. Many people seem to lie somewhere in the middle, generally living their lives without being entirely convinced of the existence of God. Occasionally when something inexplicable happens or they lose a loved one or have a near death experience, they feel “something” and put it down to some sort of spirituality. Many people seem willing to sort of throw out their normal expectations of evidence in the face of adversity and whisper a prayer on the off chance that God does exist and might help them out in a pinch. Many shrug and accept that there is no evidence for God, but are also very quick to point out to atheists that they also can’t prove God doesn’t exist, so both positions are equally likely. How wrong this last statement is. I probably don’t, at this point, need to delve into all the limitless analogies of other things that cannot either be proven or disproved, yet which most people are perfectly willing to dismiss (fairies, invisible unicorns, etc.). While this is simply another example of the inconsistency of logic in many people’s minds when dealing specifically with the notion of God, there is another point I wish to make in support of the atheist’s point of view.

I find myself firmly on the skeptical end of this continuum. Why? In short, because the onus is on those making a claim to provide evidence, whether applying to the topic of God or any other claim. Think of our legal system. Do we require anything less than evidence before conviction when one is accused of a crime. How bizarre and wrong it would be if you faced accusations in court and the judge announced that there is no proof you didn’t commit the crime so you are equally likely to be guilty as innocent. I remember, following the verdict at the conclusion of the drawn out O.J. Simpson double murder trial in the mid-1990s, one of Simpson’s lawyers, Robert Shapiro, stating in an interview that the American legal system erred on the side of innocence. That the burden of proof lay with the prosecutors rather than the defense attorneys, and that it was worth paying the price of a guilty man occasionally going free in order to reduce the chances that an innocent man might go to jail. Apart from this sort of obvious suggestion of guilt towards Mr. Simpson by one of his lawyers, I thought this was a very clear statement of the basis of the system. The system requires a level of proof (typically reasonable doubt in the legal system) to convict. So too does the question of God’s existence require a level of proof in order to make a claim. Pascal, of course, has claimed that it is better to err on the side of belief than skepticism. Is it though? What if you lived your life consistently and erred on the side of belief in all things. Fairies might exist, unlikely though it is, so you’d better err on the side of belief.

It is interesting, though, how many people are happy to accept religion without evidence. Many Christians I’ve conversed with claim personal experience as the most convincing aspect of their faith. Indeed, in debate over the issue of my position as a former Christian, and in their claim that there is no such thing, I have heard Christians claim that the reason I wasn’t really a Christian was because I didn’t experience the Holy Spirit. If only I had, I would have known that it were the truth. This seems like a most hollow argument to me. Firstly, almost every religion will make similar claims. People of other religions will adamantly claim that their personal experience is equally convincing as a Christian’s personal experience. Yet, of course, they can’t all be true since many religions are in opposition to each other. (Well technically, of course, they are all true personal experiences because they are simply that: a personal experience. Just as two people in the same room who take a hallucinogenic drug may both claim different things happened in the room, both are true personal experiences though neither reflect the reality of what went on in the room). Secondly, this sort of claim as a replacement for evidence puts someone in the position of zero accountability. Their position is simply that they have had a personal experience that proves their faith, and if you haven’t happened to have the same personal experience then that is your problem though it doesn’t change the truthfulness of theirs. This attitude is in opposition to the nature of truth: it is freely available to anyone to discover.

I’ve had an interesting discussion with a Christian recently, all conducted in writing, so I am in the position to be able to reproduce some of his points here. I think he is a very good representation of how Christians are willing to dismiss evidence in order to allow themselves to continue believing what they want to believe. This particular individual even claims to be a scientist, though when pressed on this issue, his reason for making that claim is that he has completed a degree in psychology. I thought it would be an interesting illustration to publish a few of the exchanges we’ve had. Typically, the pattern or our conversation involves him making a claim about the nature of God, with me then asking for some evidence to support his claim. Often he will then quote the Bible as supporting evidence for his claims about the nature of God, to which I will then point out that many (most?) of the events Bible can be largely dismissed as false.

In this particular dialogue below, the bold text represents the quotes from this particular Christian; the italics are mine. The conversation begins with him asking me to explain my claim that the Bible has been shown to be false. I responded with:

“As for scientifically proving the Bible is false, one need look no further than the story of creation in Genesis. It did not occur. Neither did the global flood to a height of 30,000 ft. I could go on and on and you could try to explain them all away, but anyone who has the least understanding of science knows that the Bible is fiction.”

“I'll skip the sixth day and go straight to your flood argument. The Bible does not say 30,000 feet. The Bible says fifteen cubits up and that the mountains were covered. Many people think that fifteen cubits equals 23 feet or 6.8 meters. I don't have an explanation for how that covered the mountains but there are several plausible explanations to consider: mountains weren't that tall yet, the Bible was referring only to local mountains, or the flood really was 30,000 feet deep.”

“Did you really just use the phrase "plausible explanations" and then go on to suggest that mountains weren't that tall yet or that a global flood occurred to the depth of 30,000 feet (and mammals survived on a floating boat at that elevation)? Do you understand now why I doubt your claims to be a scientist?”

“I stand by what I said. They are plausible explanations. My evidence of God's existence is personal experience but that is not merely an emotional experience. God exists and therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations. This isn't wishful thinking. God will accomplish his purpose whether we are for or against him.”

“You think it is plausible that the highest mountains on earth have developed to that height in the past 10,000 years. Or you think that it is plausible for mammals, including humans, to survive at 30,000 feet for months at a time, without freezing to death or dying from hypoxia? And you think this is scientifically plausible? I find that hard to accept.”

“I think it is plausible that the highest mountains on Earth could have developed to that height in a matter of days. (Genesis 10:25) I think it is plausible when the flood waters rose that the atmosphere was also pushed up to supply oxygen and warmth.”


This conversation is almost humorous. Here is a Christian so intent on clinging to the dogma of his religion that he is actually willing to state that it is plausible that the highest mountains on earth, the Himalaya, developed in a matter of days (without offering any hypothesis or evidence about how that might happen). Total blindness to evidence. We know without any level of reasonable doubt that the Himalaya, though they are relatively young as mountain ranges go, began to form as the Indian subcontinent drove northwards into the Asian landmass 70 million years ago. Yet, here is a person (who claims to be a scientist no less), stating that it is reasonable to believe the Himalaya developed in the past few thousand years. And the only reason he is willing to say this is to allow a continuation of another belief founded in the Biblical book of Genesis. This is the kind of ignorance that is out there in our world in support or religion.

Of particular interest is his statement, “God exists and therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations.” First he establishes his cart (God exists), then the horse is attached and dragged along (therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations). Others might call this circular reasoning. Remember what this conversation was all about to begin with. When asked for evidence that God exists, this person goes to the Bible as evidence. When I pointed out that the Bible (or certainly large portions of it) could not be literally true, he insists that it must be true because God exists. The amazing thing is the blindness with which this sort of “logic” is upheld. This particular individual claimed to have an I.Q. of 136 and he was adamant that he was a logical thinker (to his credit, he was able to list a number of qualities and facts about logic, whether they were simply copied and pasted I don’t know). Eventually, as is often the case, the dialogue with this individual broke down. He insisted I was a “propagandist” interested only in advancing my own agenda. He called me a bully (and a wanker!), claimed that I was likely to go an try to bomb churches, and told me to shut up unless I engaged in scientific dialogue. (Yes, I recognize that this particular individual may well have been suffering mental illness, but yet his dialogue was quite representative of what I’ve encountered from other lucid Christians).

Once again, I plead, examine the evidence first, then draw your conclusions from that evidence rather than the other way around.

Evidence First, Then Conclusions

Image courtesy of Google Images.

There is a fundamental difference between the religious and scientists, atheists, and rationalists in how they approach examination of the natural world, of the question of the existence of god(s), of virtually every philosophical question. The religious (and the superstitious) tend to have a conclusion (or at least a strong pet theory) about some phenomenon for which they then attempt to find evidence to support that conclusion. Scientists, on the other hand, observe the evidence as objectively as possible with the removal of bias as much as possible, and then slowly draw their conclusions from the observed evidence.

Once when I was traveling some back roads in a remote forested area and trying to find a particular location on the map, I realized I was sort of lost. I couldn’t quite figure out how to match the various markings on the map to my observations around me, but I was sure I was generally in the right location. I kept approaching the map from a slightly different point of view, trying to make it match what I saw around me. Eventually, most of it did fit and started to make sense. I realized that what I saw around me could potentially fit the map. A bend in the road on the map seemed a bit out of place, but maybe the map wasn’t drawn perfectly. Another bend did fit well, and the general shape of the area I was standing in did fit the map, if I ignored small parts of it. I must be in the right spot, I concluded. After driving back down the road, I started to question myself as I looked more carefully at the surroundings. Eventually, I realized that the area I had been looking for was actually 2 or 3 km away from the place I had thought it was. When I found the right location, it fit the map perfectly, there was no need to try to make it fit. I had made a classic mistake: drawing my conclusion (I was in the right spot) and then making the evidence fit (if I overlook a few inaccuracies on the map then it seems to fit).

This mistake is made over and over by the religious and the superstitious. The underlying assumption is that god exists. That overarching conclusion can never be thrown away if you are religious, no matter how much the observed evidence contradicts or fails to support it, or even seems to support it except for a few major issues that you overlook. Just like my experience in the woods with the map, when you draw your conclusion first, you can often find some evidence that seems to support your conclusion. Imagine for a moment that all religion was removed from the world and we were all starting from scratch with the question of whether a god exists or not. Imagine there is no Bible, there are no stories about Jesus, Moses, or Mohammed. Imagine no one has ever heard of Christianity or Islam. Then we all set out to examine the world and gather evidence about the natural world. Do you really think it would lead us to a the god described in the Bible, to Jesus dying to save everyone from their sins, and to a personal relationship with this god? Surely not. When you actually stop and observe the natural world for evidence, as scientists have done and continue to do on a regular basis, what we get is all the explanations we do have: that the earth is billions of years old, that it revolves around the sun, the theory of relativity, gravitational and germ theory, evolution, and so on. All of these things were developed and discovered as the result of observation followed by conclusion. But the concept of god is exactly the opposite. The religious begin with the conclusion that god exists, and go from there to try to support that position.

This is a fundamental difference between most atheists and most religious people. My wish is not to convert others to atheism, but that they start to examine the world rationally and logically and then draw their own conclusions about the truth. Do most religious people share that point of view? How many Christians or Muslims do you know that don’t teach their children to follow their religion, but rather teach their children to think rationally and logically about everything, confident in the knowledge that one day they will find the truth? Think about it. A Christian parent doesn’t say a single word to their child about Christianity, but instead teaches their child to examine the evidence in the world around them because the parent is so confident that their religion is the truth that the child will come to it on their own if they look for the evidence. Have you ever known this to happen? I haven’t. What makes me confident that I am not indoctrinating my own children is that I will never tell them what they should and shouldn’t believe when it comes to religion. Rather, I will simply teach them to examine all things in our world rationally, confident in the knowledge that if they do so they will discover truth.

I submit that all religious beliefs fall into this category of trying to make the observed evidence fit a preconceived conclusion, or a prior belief. This issue is, in my opinion, at the very heart of the reason that religious people so often are negative or even hostile to science and scientists. I have met many Christians who actually claim to believe that scientists are motivated to try to prove that god doesn’t exist and that scientists’ bias of not wanting god to exist causes them to interpret their findings to support that bias. I’ve even met a handful of people who have claimed that all scientists are part of a conspiracy to cover up the evidence and truth of creation. This attitude perfectly reflects this bias I am writing about. The assumption is that scientists must, since they all (or very nearly all) seem to reject the notion of a god, have interpreted the evidence to fit their preconceived notion that there is no god. This is exactly the kind of modus operandi that many religions people take and therefore don’t even notice when they apply it to others. They fail to notice the enormous error in their position. The reality is that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in god because when one examines the world through a scientific point of view, there is simply no evidence to support that belief. (There is a small percentage of scientists who believe in god, but these are typically people who grew up with religion and have simply had a hard time walking away from deep-founded beliefs. The number of bona fide scientists who truly believe in a personal and interfering god is staggeringly small – probably much less than 1%).

Some more open-minded religious people try to meld together their belief in god with their observations of the world around them. Some accept that the Bible cannot be literally true, that much of it must be allegory or should be interpreted figuratively. Perhaps, some claim, we need to simply focus on the message of love and forgiveness that is the dominant theme in the Bible, and that when we do so we find god. I’ve have conversations with well-meaning Christians who are genuinely nice and caring people who are trying their best to make the world a better place, and to treat their fellow humans with respect and love. A common theme amongst these more tolerable brand of Christians is the notion that we must all respect each others’ points of view and not assume that we have all the answers. Setting aside for a moment the fact that most of the Bible has nothing to do with love and forgiveness, this attitude still ignores the issue of evidence. Why should we take this attitude seriously for even a moment? Would you take seriously someone whose position was that we simply don’t know (we can’t know in fact) whether fairies exist, and we shouldn’t claim to know everything. Certainly we should not claim to know everything (most scientists that I know make no such claim), but let’s also be realistic about what we do know. We know, without almost any doubt, that fairies do not exist. We can carry on with our lives secure in that knowledge. We also know, without almost any doubt, that gods do not exist. We should therefore carry on with our lives secure in that knowledge. I try to treat every human with respect and allow them their beliefs. But understand that I respect someone who claims we simply don’t know whether god exists or not in exactly the same way as I respect someone who claims we simply don’t know whether fairies exist or not. That is to say, I respect them as fellow humans, I respect their right to believe whatever they want, but I don’t take them seriously for a moment.

Evidence. For every truth there will be evidence. It may sometimes be hard to find, but the evidence will be there. If god were a truth, then there would be some evidence for him considering men and women have been looking for it for thousands of years. There is none. Claims of personal experience and Bible stories are not evidence any more than the Brothers Grimm writings are evidence that Cinderella is true.

My (de)conversion to atheism - part 1

Image courtesy of Google Images.

Why am I an atheist?


This question requires a fairly lengthy explanation and some background. I was born into a Christian family. While we were less fundamental or fanatical than some, we were very active in our church, our family life focused on Christianity, and we were brought up to believe that the Biblical God is the truth, and that following Jesus was the only way to happiness in life and to an afterlife in heaven.

[I should pause here and explain my etiquette when using the term "god". To me, the word god is not generally capitalized because it refers to an improper noun like any other item in our lives: table, cat, car, banana, etc. But, occasionally I need to capitalize the word when it refers to a specific proper noun, the Biblical god who Christians often think is named God. In fact this god's name is Yahweh, though one could make the case that the god has evolved over time to actually be quite distinct in personality from Yahweh, so perhaps he does deserve an individual identity and the name God after all. However, if it seems like I am inconsistent in my use of the terms god and God, please remember that they each have very specific and different meanings.]

As a child, there was no doubt in my mind that God existed and that I had a personal relationship with him and his son Jesus. I believed that this man, who was also God, had lived on earth as described in the Bible, had been executed by the Romans, and then had risen from the dead as part of a divine plan for human salvation from eternal death. It is likely safe to assume that most who read this will be familiar with the sorts of things I believed. My actual belief in the existence of God went on for a very long time, well into adulthood. But even as early as my teens I started to have big problems with the way Christianity was presented to me. For one, I was embarrassed about Christianity. (In retrospect, of course, this likely reflects my sub-conscious disbelief. After all, why would someone be embarrassed to believe something that they know is true). In any case, questions started to arise. Difficult questions for which I had no answers. In addition to that, once I was an adult and responsible for my own life, I stopped attending church on a regular basis, which likely provided me with the distance from Christianity that I believe is necessary for anyone to make the move away from their religious upbringing. Christians often view this sort of thing as a weakness of faith, or a drifting away due to apathy, and in my experience they tend to guard against it fervently and shun those who explore outside the faith. This is the very reason it is so difficult to leave a religion behind, because most people don't ever give their mind time and space enough to consider their religion objectively.

But, for many years as an adult, even though I no longer attended church, even though my friends were all non-religious, I still actually believed in all the pillars of Christianity that I grew up with. And I often worried about my future death and the chance that I would spend an eternity in hell if I didn't get my spiritual act together. Occasionally, usually when I was with family, I felt guilty about my lack of religious zeal and made some sort of half-hearted self promise to change. This went on for some years in my early adulthood.

Not much changed for quite some time in my religious beliefs, and it is possible that I could have drifted along like that for the rest of my life. But some factors in my life precipitated further change.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I think I have an inquisitive mind. I want to know the truth. I am not satisfied just telling myself that no one really knows the answers to certain questions such as the existence of god. I think that, ultimately, anyone who is very inquisitive (and honest with themselves) must in the end have a problem with their religion. I found that Christianity demanded that I ignore a number of difficult questions. Or, if not outright ignore them, eventually come to an acceptance that the answer to them might entail some sort of magic, handily taken care of by our God. In any case, this natural curiosity spurred on a number of questions about my religion that I had difficulty answering logically. A major question I had was why were Christians (and people of many other religions as well) not encouraged to really examine their beliefs objectively? Why not "step outside" of Christianity and look at it rationally? Surely any truth will stand up to rigorous examination, so what are Christian authorities afraid of? Why were we as Christian children taught that to even question our faith could be considered sinful and therefore deserving of death? Surely if god did exist, he would want followers who had examined their belief in him carefully. Yet Christian (and other religious) doctrine is full of suggestions that weak faith (really another term for questioning things) came from the devil. One should guard against it and stand firm when those doubts (questions) arose. Another difficult question was the one of the afterlife. If we were to "go" to heaven or hell, then there would have to be some part of us that actually survived death in order to be there. So, which part of us would that be? Much of our personality is mapped out through neuroscience. Indeed people's personalities do sometimes change as a result of brain trauma, indicating that our very persona is only an expression of the physical structure of the brain. Our ability to feel pleasure or pain depends on the physical existence of a nervous system. So then, isn't the description of who we are dependant on our physical existence? Wouldn't god have to magically re-create us physically in order for us to exist, with some recognizable facets of our current persona, to be able to exist in an afterlife? Sure, a magical god could do that, but that model was neither logical nor rational. As soon as I permitted my god to be a non-rational being, then ANYTHING was possible. Why, the world could have been created yesterday by a god who uploaded all our memories. Wasn't that just as rational and likely as a god who would re-create us after death (rather than leaving us non-existent for eternity of course) just so we could either enjoy heaven or suffer in hell?

Secondly, I studied science in university. During many years of university scientific education, I was forced to look at the world more and more rationally. I was trained to try to put aside my biases, to examine the evidence around me and then to draw a conclusion based on the observed evidence, rather than to start with a conclusion (or even a pet theory) and try to examine the evidence in light of that conclusion (or try to make the evidence fit the pre-conceived conclusion). More and more I realized that this was the process that allowed humans to gradually leave behind superstition, and examine the world objectively and actually understand the reason for natural phenomena. This seemed to be in complete contrast to the religious indoctrination I had received as a child. In that case I was encouraged to hold strong to my faith no matter what evidence came to light. If it appeared from time to time that god had abandoned me, then that was only a test of my faith. I should stubbornly hold firm in my beliefs, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and I would eventually be rewarded. Imagine where we would be scientifically if scientists practiced that way.

Thirdly, I started to encounter more and more Christians who believed all of the Bible literally. Though I grew up in a religious environment that was fully supportive of the authority of the Bible, much of it was taken figuratively. But now I started to engage with people who actually believed that the earth was created in six days less than 10,000 years ago, and who believed that a global flood to the height of Mount Everest happened within the past few thousand years. I knew this things to be untrue, given the scientific evidence to the contrary, and I've never been tempted to take those parts of the Bible literally. But, for the first time I started to ask myself why some of the Bible should be taken seriously if other parts of it were clearly complete fabrications? Why should I believe the parts of the New Testament that were critical to the Christian faith if much of the rest of the Bible could be discarded as allegory? Could it be that the whole thing was just fictional writing very loosely based on some events that bore little resemblance to the Biblical descriptions of them?

Fourthly, I began to read a number of books that looked at religion in a different way than I was used to. I read all the usual atheist-written best sellers such as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great, Sam Harris' The End of Faith, and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell. In addition I read In Defense of Atheism by Michel Onfray and Why God Won't Go Away by Newberg, D'Aquili, and Rause. All of these books helped me examine the religion of my upbringing much more objectively. But a couple of other books had the most profound effect on my religious thinking. Jared Diamond has written a couple of books called Guns, Germs, and Steel, and The Third Chimpanzee which are relatively scientific examinations of the history of the human species. In these books Diamond describes some of the processes of human evolution and development that lead to differences in agricultural and technological advancement that occured in different places around the globe. By examining human history so carefully, one is forced to either reject the science outright and cling to the creation story in Genesis, or to accept that no god played any sort of role in human development over the past few tens of thousands of years. This, of course, doesn't rule out gods altogether, but it does very much weaken the meddling, prayer-answering god of the Bible. I also read a book called Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. The book basically follows two stories: a general history of Mormonism and a specific case of murder in the 1980s by two Mormons who believed they were instructed by God to perform the murders. I knew virtually nothing of Mormonism prior to reading the book, but it served as a striking example of how religion can cause people to believe the unbelievable. The religion is clearly a fabrication from 19th century America, with roots that are distinctly American in culture. Yet, there are millions of followers around the world, in what I can only understand as blind faith. The book illustrated the strength of religious influence, and how humans clearly yearn for some meaning to their life, which often seems to be filled by instructions and commands by a person in power – or a religion. I had met a few Mormons, and they seemed as convinced that their religions was true as any other religious person, including the Christians I had grown up with. Yet there was no doubt in my mind that the entire religion was a fabrication. If a religion could essentially be constructed by one man in the relatively modern times of the 19th Century to a point that millions of people worldwide were followers, how much more possible was it that a religion could have developed 2,000 years ago in a time when the availability of information was incomparably lower than in the modern era? (Literacy was lower, formal education was rare, books (at least as we know them now) and newspapers were non-existent).

Eventually I began to consider the possibility that there was no god. Though I had of course considered the question before, I had never really opened myself up to the possibility and considered the consequences. Like a child taking the butterfly wings off for the first time in the deep end of the swimming pool and realizing that it can indeed float without them, I considered that the world might work just fine without a god. Julia Sweeney has described a similar experience in her book Letting Go of God:

…as I was walking from my office in my backyard into my house, I realized there was this little teeny-weenie voice whispering in my head. I’m not sure how long it had been there, but it suddenly got just one decibel louder. It whispered, ‘There is no god.’

And I tried to ignore it. But it got a teeny bit louder. ‘There is no god. There is no god. Oh my god, there is no god.’…

And I shuddered. I felt I was slipping off the raft.

And then I thought, ‘But I can’t. I don’t know if I can not believe in God. I need God. I mean, we have a history’…

‘But I don’t know how to not believe in God. I don’t know how you do it. How do you get up, how do you get through the day?’ I felt unbalanced…

I thought, ‘Okay, calm down. Let’s just try on not-believing-in-God glasses for a moment, just for a second. Just put on the no-God glasses and take a quick look around and then immediately throw them off.’ And I put them on and looked around.
I’m embarrassed to report that I initially felt dizzy. I actually had the thought, ‘Well, how does the Earth stay up in the sky? You mean, we’re just hurtling through space? That’s so vulnerable!’ I wanted to run out and catch the Earth as it fell out of space into my hands.

And then I remembered, ‘Oh yeah, gravity and angular momentum is gonna keep us revolving around the sun for probably a long, long time.'

I can relate to some of this description quite well. In addition to what she describes, my situation was complicated by the fear that I might die while I had the not-believing-in-God glasses on and go to hell for eternity just because I happened to die while I was trying out atheism for 30 minutes. It was a bit like coming up to a train track and thinking, ‘I need to cross the tracks, but what if the train comes along out of nowhere and mows me down just at the moment that I step across?’ When I finally overcame my fear of being annihilated in a moment of fury like an Efrafan rabbit, and stepped gingerly onto the tracks, my whole perspective changed. Instead of looking up the track in fear of an oncoming train, I looked down at the tracks in detail for the first time and realized they were decrepit and could not possibly bear a train. No train would ever be coming along those tracks and I could linger as long as I like quite safely. Once that was established, the opportunity to really open up my mind to some serious questions availed itself and it was not long before the whole house of cards came tumbling down. Indeed, once I had my Julia Sweeney moment, the whole ordeal was over in a matter of minutes. I was through with God instantly as I realized that the whole game was a farce. There was no desire at all to cling to a false god for comfort. I simply set god aside and moved on.

It is probably hard for someone who has never believed in god to understand this defining moment for a new atheist. Ironically it is very much like the term that Christians use to describe their own conversion experiences: like being born again. Born into life again, only this time recognizing the world that you are born into for what it is. When I look back now on the years that I actually believed a god was there listening to prayers, intervening in human lives, meddling with nature and so on, I almost feel embarrassed that it took me so long to overcome. Yet, the relief that I haven't gone through my whole life that way is overwhelming. How close I came to wasting the only life I will ever have. The reasons why religion is so very difficult to overcome for someone who has been properly indoctrinated are very interesting and belong elsewhere in another post.

Ultimately I have come to a point where my position towards religion is that the onus is firmly on religion to show evidence of its truth. Now that I have recognized that personal experience is not evidence, and that there really is no objective, verifiable evidence for god, there is simply no reason to try to believe in any religion anymore. Reason is the the key word in that statement. Religion for me has become wholly unreasonable. And this has been confirmed in conversation after conversation with Christians who try to convince that their religion is true, yet often stretch the boundaries of reason to do so. Most (not all) Christians that I now encounter seem less interested in really finding out the truth, but rather in defending their faith no matter the cost. Even if the cost is reasonable, rational, logical thought.

That is the first part of why I am an atheist. It is an abbreviated description of the process I went through. I will likely add more details in the future.