When I say atheists can’t answer these questions, I mean they can’t answer them smoothly, persuasively, coherently, or popularly. Of course, any question can receive a stumbling word salad from the person questioned. But these questions completely defy the system because it is false.
- Why are some things always bad? Why is there a category of badness, evil, or wickedness?
- Where do the laws of logic come from?
- How can we call people, nature, music, or virtues beautiful without a Great Beauty? Why beauty, if no Beauty?
- Where did the first material come from?
- Why do all (or nearly all) men believe in god, gods, or the God?
- Why are atheist social experiments always violent, authoritarian, and cruel like Russia’s or China’s communism?
- If atheism is true, then why can’t it produce as many good actions as Christianity?
- How can there be truth without God? What does meaning mean without a Personal, Absolute, Logical Word?
- Where are the inspiring historical examples of atheists who sacrificed themselves to serve an honorable cause like Corrie Ten Boom in World War II, Jim Elliot in Ecuador, Paul Carlson in the Congo, and the thousands of defenseless missionary martyrs like them?
- Why are the great works of beauty in sculpture, orchestra, architecture, and literature all created by theists and mostly from a culture steeped in the Trinity?
Atheism is bankrupt. It does not have a good historical record to receive the investment of your soul. Better to hear the words of the wise Man who said, “Strive to enter at the narrow gate because many will try to enter, but will not be able.”
1 we get our ideas of what’s good and bad from the culture we grew up in. Some people pretend that their morals actually come from a holy book, but te amount of mental gymnastics they have to pull to make verses like exodus 21 not say what it very obviously says shows that none of that is true.
2 logic is a system of thought invented by humans. it comes from the brain.
3 beauty is in the eye of the beholder. to claim there is any sort of objectivity to it is utter nonsense.
4 don’t know. if you think it was your god, prove it.
5 don’t know don’t care. just because many people believe something doesn’t mean it’s true.
6 communists like Stalin and Mao just replaced religion with another set of dogmas that could not be questioned. their regimes are functionally identical to theocracies. I also find it curious that you fail to mention Western Europe, which which has some of the highest standards of living in the world while being among the least religious places in the world.
7 if christianity produces so many good actions, why are atheists heavily underrepresented in the prison population? Not that this is relevant; someone’s behaviour doesn’t show in any way whether what they believe is true.
8 truth is that which accurately reflects reality. please explain why god needs to exist for something to accurately reflect reality.
9 i’m sure if i went looking, i could find inspiring examples of atheists. but i’m not going to because it doesn’t matter. whether or not someone did good or heroic things says nothing about whether the things they believed are true. don’t conflate goodness with truth.
10 because that’s where the money was. Artists need to eat.
You scored, Ashley. Your answer to #6 is devastating to atheism.
how is stating that communism is basically a religion devastating to atheists? you’re aware that the vast majority of atheists are not communists right?
WordPress sent your reply to spam, Ashley. Sorry! But I fished it out. I’ll try to fix that.
Stalin replaced religion with a set of dogmas–in other words a religion. How could men live without a set of dogmas? That set is a religion. If an atheist replaces Christian dogmas with her own, then she is actually replacing one religion with another.
A set of dogmas, guiding principles, ultimate loves, these are the core ideas behind a religion. So, in this sense, no one can live without these. If it offends you to call this a religion, I don’t mind not using the term.
But let us be clear: Christians are guided by a set of dogmas that transcend themselves. Stalin was too. And all atheists are because there are no other ways to live.
By acknowledging that Stalin had to replace dogmas with dogmas, I am saying that is a good example of what all atheists–and all men–must do at all times in order to make decisions or order their world.
Thank you for your patience and replies. I don’t want to be tedious, but feel free to push back if you’d like.
it’s true that i have a set of principles i try to live by, most notably the golden rule. (no, the golden rule does not hail from christianity; it existed well before the bible was written and is mentioned in some form in virtually every moral code ever written). If you want to call this a religion, cool. Not how i would use that word, but you do you.
The big difference however is that religions have some authoritative source on what’s good and bad whereas i use my own judgement. Religions will say things like homosexuality is bad or eating pork is bad for no other reason than because an ancient book says so. Even though these things do not harm anyone in any conceivable way. Communism is a lot like this in that anything that resembles a free market is bad regardless of how these communist policies actually affect the lives of the people.
Would your own judgment then count as your final standard, your highest authority? Would your preferences then count as your set of dogmas?
I call it religion because it bears the marks of religion.
1. Ultimate Trust: Your trust your own judgment about what to do when you feel guilty, how to face death, and how to make moral judgments.
2. Final Authority: How can I tell what is true or false–the questions of how to know are very clearly seen when we look at political debates. But whatever your ultimate authority is sounds very much like god. This authority tells you what is good or bad, true or false, beautiful or ugly.
3. Always Personal. You get to decide loves and hates because you are a person, but if you are the final Person, then you are again like god.
It seems to me that atheism has these ultimate loves which I see in my soul when I worship. So in these ways, atheism is very religious even if atheism in other ways is very irreligious.
Perhaps you don’t find these persuasive. I can understand.
so many wrong things, you do know that lots of countries and western Europe, England and Scandinavian to be exact have state churches
1 true, i do trust my own moral judgments and my judgments on how to make things right when i feel guilty for something. Wouldn’t say i have ultimate trust in myself though; i second-guess myself all the time lol. Not sure what you mean about how to face death; death happens regardless of any judgments we make.
2 i decide what is good or bad according to my moral compass. same as for everyone else. you also decide yourself what is good and bad. the difference is that you then cherry-pick parts of your book that agree with you while pulling mental gymnastics to make the inconvenient parts of your book not say what they really say.
My authority on what’s true isn’t me, it’s reality. The truth is true regardless of how i feel about it. I can use my fallible senses to try and determine what’s true or false, but i most definitely am not any sort of authority on what’s true. reality itself is that authority.
As for beauty, that’s in the eye of the beholder. to claim there is any sort of objective or ultimate standard of what’s pretty is utter nonsense.
3 i do not understand what you mean here with the final person.
I do indeed not find this persuasive. i do not see myself as some kind of god, or some ultimate arbiter of what’s objectively good or bad. The idea of something being objectively good or bad is silly anyway. Good and bad are value judgments based on opinion. even if an all powerful being exists who created the universe, what that being thinks is right or wrong is still that being’s subjective opinion.
1. Actually TWO questions here… so we’re off to a flyer.
Also, they’re leading questions. More like rhetorical statements. You assume I agree with your… TWO… premises. `
1 (a) Well… I’m not a philosopher… but I suggest some thing’s are “always bad” because they’re inimical to wellness and best interests… without the possibility of any good outcome.
Ex. Jeffrey Dahmer kidnapped people, not to perform medical experiments on them with a view to curing cancer… which still would have been presumptious of him!… but rather, so he could eat them. Pure self-interest. One-hundred percent bad. No redeeming features.
(Yeah, okay… the nazis put people to medical experiments. Was that okay? Another time, maybe….)
Tying a rock to a puppy and kicking it into a lake is “always bad” because it causes suffering… we know that because, as sentient beings we can empathise with the victim… and no good can possibly come of it. (Except that it provides fodder for contemplation. *****…!)
1(b) You assert ‘categories’. Do you mean, like, murder is worse than stealing a paperclip? You tell me. Would you rather get murdered or be out one paperclip? When a judge retires to consider their verdict, it’s to take into account mitigating factors or aggravating ones. So, yeah, let’s take individual cases on their own merits rather than bust out that ***** cookie-cutter.
2 (Actually question 3) They’re a part of the make-up of the universe. I suppose. And as inescapable. You simply can’t have a universe with three-sided squares in it. Those ‘laws’, for want of a better, were ‘discovered’. Observed. Geometric shapes don’t care what humans think.
3 Another TWO questions. (?!)
3 (a) You seem to be suggesting that there needs to be a benchmark. I don’t see why. Ask 1000 people which celebrity they’d *****, given half the chance, and the same handful of names will keep coming up (Elisha Cuthbert). Of course, what’s considered attractive in one culture may well not be in another. So these notions appear to be acculturated. (Elisha Cuthbert)
In terms of works of art… have you ever listened to a piece of music and gotten goosebumps? That’s what I look for. Something that hits on a visceral level. (Elisha Cuthbert) Can I explain that? No. But not because I tend toward a-theism. You can’t explain it either. You’re just going to say “god did it”… which is just a claim. In terms of the natural world… we haven’t been out of the jungle that long. It’s probably in our hard-wiring.
One for the Psychology Department, perhaps?
4 The lads and lad-ettes at the Hadron Collider are working on that one. Have you asked THEM? The reason I don’t have an answer for you is not that I tend toward a-theism but that I’m not an astro-physicist.
Was this really supposed to be a ‘gotcha-question’?
5 I submit that the propensity toward religiosity is, likewise, in our hard-wiring. Religious practice, back in the day, would have promoted tribality, social-cohesion and safety in numbers. All keys to survival.
And as I suggested… we haven’t been out of the jungle that long.
Similarly, there are present-day advantages.
* It means you needn’t waste time contemplating anyone else’s point of view.
* Swanning around like you’ve got a few answers is great for your otherwise crappy self-esteem.
* You have a priest to provide you with a religious context for all the sexual activities you’ve always found unhealthy, unhygenic and innatural… and who will moreover, in many cases, PERSONALLY ASSIST YOU in overcoming those reservations.
Speaking of reservations, I’m off to lunch. (See what I did there? That’s called a “segue”.) Sadly, not with Elisha Cuthbert.
Catch you later for 6-10. (Although we’re actually up to question 8….)
Thank you, Ant, for a fuller reply than a tweet.
I would be content if all men would simply take time to think through questions like these. My hunch is that if humanity spent more time on topics like these, there would be fewer atheists. But apparently you disagree.
We’ll see in the final day.
Hi, Seth
Here to take a run at 6-10. So let’s start at the beginning 6. I mean 9. I mean 6….
6 Leading question. Presupposes (!) all “atheist social experiments” are violent and cruel. I’d venture you’re not altogether familiar with all “atheist social experiments”. You offer up all of TWO examples. So this is a brazen assertion on your part. For that matter, neither am I. So you MAY factually be correct, for all I know. But the claimant carries the burden of proof. Something I suspect you find to be an ongoing inconvenience.
Stalin was raised in a theological seminary (Russian Orthodox) and, I understand, actually studied for the priesthood. Makes you wonder where he got his ideas from. The bible’s endorsement of slavery would no doubt have offered up handy hints when it came to ‘staffing’ the gulags.
I suggest communism might be more aptly described as an ECONOMIC experiment. Any more intrinsically radical than capitalism? I submit the excesses and shortcomings of Stalin’s junta were in no way a reflection of Marxist economic theory.
As for Mao… seems to me he BECAME the ‘god’. As I proposed in 1-5, humans seem to be hard-wired for worship. You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum”. Take away religion, everyone has pictures of Mao on the bloody wall instead. All over the world… or at least in the ‘global north’… bedroom walls are festooned with pictures of athletes, pop-stars…. Seems like humans are at our happiest when we’re kissing arse.
While we’re on the topic… how about The Crusades for a social experiment…?
7 Again, a bald assertion on your part.
You’re going to have to flesh that claim out. (Ever heard of Medecins Sans Frontiere”?)
Moreover, whether or not “good actions” result from a doctrine in no way illustrates that the claims made are actually TRUE. This is what I’m chiefy interested in. Is this claim TRUE?
8 You seem to be suggesting there has to be some absolute benchmark. And furthermore, that that just so happens to be the bible. To be sure, christianity offers up an objective moral code. So does hinduism. So does buddhism. So do judaism, jainism, sikhism, confucianism… “Mein Kampf” offers up an objective morality. There are so many objective moralities that morality, perforce, must be subjective.
I stand by the comments I made in 1-5. I won’t belabour them.
The “without god” part of your question is neither here nor there. There’s no need to bring ‘gods’ into this. Sharpening our ability to filter bullshit would have the same effect. So the question becomes; “how can there be truth?” Truth is that which corresponds, or appears to correspond, with demonstrable reality. I can’t PROVE anything with 100% certainty. I don’t know for a fact I’m not dreaming this right now. “Prove” is actually a mathematical term that’s been appropriated. (Or MIS-appropriated!) The burden of proof in the real world is lower. Reasonable doubt.
What reason do I have to think this? Does it seem likely?
9 This is a re-hash of your “atheist social experiment” question.
(This time you offer all of THREE examples.)
Do you seriously doubt that a little research wouldn’t disclose a raft of selfless, heroic acts by people who don’t also happen to claim that the planet’s 6000 years old?
You’ve done yourself a real dis-service with this one.
My nigga, please….
10 Another brazen, bare-faced claim. Another point I choose not to belabour.
A-theism is neither “bankrupt”… ‘rupt’… or anything in between. It’s a response to a proposition. You’ve told me about this ‘god’ you believe in. I find the claims hinky, so you won’t be seeing me in your synagogue… or temple… or church.. or mosque on Friday… or Saturday… or Sunday….
The gods get a three-day weekend! As well as tax-exempt status. It’s a great racket….
You haven’t successfully illustrated that a “soul” exists. The bible is not a “good historical record”. (More of an ‘HYSTERICAL record’!) It’s full of inconsistencies, contradictions, factual innaccuracies… and crass absurdities. As such, it absolutely sinks under the weight of supposedly having been inspired by some form of supreme being. If that were the case, these problems simply woudn’t be there. It can’t carry that freight. So there’s no point in you quoting it to me. I don’t consider it an authoritative source.
To be sure, I don’t know everything about every religion. No one does. There may be a religion out there that makes perfect sense, at least to me, and I know nothing of it. (Probably because its adherents have long-since been buggered to death by either christians or muslims, as seems to be the pattern. Where that lot are concerned, if the smallpox doesn’t get you, the syphilis will.)
First book on religion I read was the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Then I read The Book of the Tao. (That’s three weeks of my life I’ll never fucking get back.)
Then I took a run at The Bible. I made it up to, I think, Kings 2, at which point I concluded; “This is fuckin’ banana-balls…” (Get the Ray Comfort reference? Way to out yourself, Ray!) … and that was that. As you can imagine, I was going a bit septic on organised religion by this point but I flicked through the Q’uran nonetheless. I liked that part about how, when a muslim is trying to convert an ‘infidel’… and fails, he takes their ‘sins’ on himself. So now they’re both going to hell. Sure makes you want to talk to more muslims! That Ayeesha stuff was a bit dodgy. Doesn’t mean the claim isn’t TRUE, though. Plenty of scody crap is TRUE. But then came something about someone climbed onto a flying horse… and flew up and split the moon in half and… remember what I said about demonstrable reality?
My hunch is, if humanity spent more time contemplating this, there would be FEWER theists. Because it really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
P.S. There’s no reason to wait till “the final day”. That’s just passively kicking the can down the road. These issues are subject to inquiry. Let’s do it now.
Hello again, Seth.
Looking forward to my second installment being uploaded at your earliest convenience.
“We’ll see in the final day”, eh?
If I had a buck for every time I’ve been subjected to this refrain I could erase the national debt of a small, third-world country. Neither do I appreciate the implicit threat. And sooner or later, this is what it seems to come down to where ‘you guys’ are concerned. The passive-aggressive indercurrent of violent reprisal for having refused to join your club. I don’t respond well to threats. I think you’ll find that most people don’t. So you may want to re-think this tactic.
“Maybe he sells fear because he’s got nothing else to sell.” -Dayna Jurgens
Looking forward to my second installment.
Ant, I don’t know what is up with my WordPress comments feature. It refuses to announce when some comments come in. Thanks for your patience.
I’ll try to fix that, and give a reply later today.
Have a good day!
Ant, I’m not trying to teach you patience, but I’m grateful that you seem to be willing to take up when you have time. I just returned from the government office where our visas were rejected–high stress, but sorry to worry you with that.
Hey, you gave it a try to answer each one, so I thank you for your time. Any reader is welcome to evaluate our words and come to his own conclusion.
But your most intriguing line to me was:
“There may be a religion out there that makes perfect sense, at least to me, and I know nothing of it.”
Personally, I would be very glad if every man, woman, and child gave the heavy matters of life, death, invisible realities, souls, spirits, and the next life more time. So it sounds like you are not closed off to that, and I would only add some encouragement: What have you got to lose for pressing matters like that more and more?
I would say, God bless, but instead: I’ll look forward to hearing back if ever you have time or interest.
No worries, Seth. Technology, eh? Can’t live WITH it… well….
You appear to run an honest, forthright forum, anyway. I’ll give you that much.
‘God’ bless us all. Every… one….
Nice echo chamber here!
As a recovered christian who came to her senses as soon as she was able to remove herself from chritian brainwashing: none of your ʻquestions atheists cannot answerʻ have any actual intellectual content. And the word salad you use to ʻproveʻ your point lacks logic.
My life is infinitly better since i no longer am forced to worship narcissitic men – because thatʻs what modern mainstream christianity really is: a bunch of abusive narcs getting supply by absorbing all the worship and money their congregations pile on the imaginary charachters in their story. My granddaddy was a preacher, and we didnʻt get to not go to church EVER, iʻve read the whole bible more times than the VAST vast majority of christians ever have, and i can tell you there is no logic in that book. If you think there is, you have cognition problems.
Now to the rare person who actually tries to live a christ like life – cheewhoo! As an atheist i am often the most christ like person in the room – especially when iʻm around ʻavowedʻ christiansʻ busily judging and gossiping as they are prone to do. You have to turn your cheek to christians a lot hecause they are usually mean and selfish and unjustifiably self rightious.
Maybe a better tack than trying to ʻdebunkʻ atheists, (which isnʻt possible – just like proving god exists isnʻt possible) would be to do good works for those less fortunate than you and never mention religion, at all – exactly like many many avowed atheists do every day.
I’m very glad you were saved from worshipping narcissistic men. And it saddens me to hear again that so many false Christians in the service of Satan can yet again distract another from the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
It will be an intoxicating joy, and a sweet rest to look again and again at the glory of the infinite beauty in the Son of God. May you by degrees come to the same happy end.
1. Why are some things always bad? Why is there a category of badness, evil, or wickedness?
Answer: that depends on what you mean by the question. If you mean “why do we have ideas like good and evil?” that’s simple. We regard things that harm us as bad. Furthermore, we are a social species, so we regard things that harm group cohesion as bad. Every improvement in morality from that point on is just expansion of who we regard to be part of our “group.”
If, however, you mean “why do we have objective moral standards?” the answer is we don’t, and neither do you. Genocide, for example, is evil – unless god says to do it. Human sacrifice is evil – unless god says to do it. Slavery is evil – unless god says to do it. Adultery and rape are crimes – unless you’re the man after god’s own heart. On and on it goes. As many apologists insist, anything god commands is automatically good – so even for christians there is no objective moral standard.
2. Where do the laws of logic come from?
Answer: humans invented them as a means of assessing the validity of arguments. Next question.
3. How can we call people, nature, music, or virtues beautiful without a Great Beauty? Why beauty, if no Beauty?
Answer: how can we say a person is tall without a Great Tallness? How can we say a runner is fast without a Great Fastness? How can we say a shower is hot without a Great Hotness? Silly concept, just as silly as when Aquinas invented it in the 13th century. We assess beauty based on how pleasing something is to us – thus what constitutes “beautiful” music or a “beautiful” person varies from listener to listener and from observer to observer. No magic required.
4. Where did the first material come from?
Answer: we don’t know – yet. Most likely at present appears to be quantum fluctuation. It may turn out to be something else. Standard god of the gaps argument, of course…”we don’t know” does not mean “invisible magical superbeing.”
5. Why do all (or nearly all) men believe in god, gods, or the God?
Answer: people believe in lots of things that have no relation to reality. Back when the bible was written pretty much everyone believed the earth was flat. So what? Religion, like all mythologies, has three main sources that align with its three main purposes: 1) an attempt by pre-scientific societies to explain the natural world by a species (us) that has a strong tendency to impute intent to things that clearly don’t have it (like storms); 2) maintaining a social order the inventor of the myth finds desirable (Adam and Eve story, for example, reinforces male supremacy); 3) supporting a given authority structure – explaining that the current authorities are “established by god” and therefore should not be questioned. It’s a grift, in other words. The fact that it’s been a successful grift does not change the fact that it is a grift.
6. Why are atheist social experiments always violent, authoritarian, and cruel like Russia’s or China’s communism?
Answer: they aren’t. New Lanark in England, for example, operated harmoniously based on the idea of equality of all residents. The countries with the largest proportion of atheists/religious “nones” in the population are also consistently the happiest, also have the lowest crime rates and nowhere near the incarceration and imprisonment rates of religious-dominated societies like the U.S. (highest murder rate and highest incarceration rate in the world, by far).
If we want to go down this road, though, one could equally ask why all white supremacists are Christians? Why Christianity invented anti-semitism, and race-based slavery, and apartheid, and Jim Crow, and the KKK, and the John Birch Society, and the inquisition, on and on…why? Lest you think this is all just history, one could ask why Christians are at the forefront of efforts in the U.S. right now to run hate campaigns against gay people, and trans people, and immigrants, and Muslims, and to end civil rights, democracy, and the rule of law? If we want to go down the “why don’t you answer for this” road, you have loads to answer for. Take all the time you need.
7. If atheism is true, then why can’t it produce as many good actions as Christianity?
Answer: your evidence for this statement is…? Provide some and we’ll talk about it.
8. How can there be truth without God? What does meaning mean without a Personal, Absolute, Logical Word?
Answer: truth = what accords with observed reality. One needs merely to observe reality. This requires eyes, ears, etc…no invisible magical superbeing required.
9. Where are the inspiring historical examples of atheists who sacrificed themselves to serve an honorable cause like Corrie Ten Boom in World War II, Jim Elliot in Ecuador, Paul Carlson in the Congo, and the thousands of defenseless missionary martyrs like them?
Answer: you can call someone traveling to foreign lands in the hopes of imposing their religion on other people “inspiring,” but that is a matter of opinion, not fact. If we want to get into things like WW II, resistance to the Nazis came primarily from Communists – christians, in every country the Nazis occupied, provided ALL the collaborators, as well as recruits for the SS. The defeat of the Nazis was primarily the work of the Red Army, an avowedly atheist institution (and much better behaved than the avowedly christian Wehrmacht with its christian chaplains). One can go further. Germany in 1933 was 95% Christian – the Nazis could not have come to power without overwhelming christian support, which they got easily, and held without difficulty all the way through 1945. Christians and their churches objected to nothing the Nazis did, with the single exception of appointing bishops…because the “confessing church” insisted on controlling internal church politics.
10. Why are the great works of beauty in sculpture, orchestra, architecture, and literature all created by theists and mostly from a culture steeped in the Trinity?
Answer: and ONCE AGAIN, opinion without facts to back it up. “Beauty” is entirely subjective. Because you were raised in a Euro-centric tradition, you regard certain things from the past to be “beautiful.” Many of those things were created when at least pretending to be a christian was mandated by law. Whether or not they constitute a superior level of “beauty” is something you cannot demonstrate. Whether or not their creators were christians or even theists is also questionable, given the environment they lived in. One can think of classical sculpture, literature, the philosophy of Epicurus, Lucretius, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza – none of it Christian and much of it by non-theists – which is the foundation of all those creations you try to take credit for.
Here’s a question in return (just one, not ten): “why is it apologists, after two thousand years of failure, STILL cannot generate an original argument (much less evidence) for their god?” You just keep recycling the same failed arguments. Why?
Nathan–I am honored that you gave such a thorough reply to this post. The questions of life, death, authority, and purpose certainly deserve this amount of time, and it seems that you and I both agree on that.
You did give answers, so perhaps my title has been refuted.
But I will offer my thoughts to your closing question.
“why is it apologists, after two thousand years of failure, STILL cannot generate an original argument (much less evidence) for their god?” You just keep recycling the same failed arguments. Why?”
Maybe because originality is overrated. Personally, I would much rather have a dependable vehicle than a merely original one. Give me a simple truck that always starts, rather than a flashy concept car for which I can’t find parts.
But your question incudes evidence as well: Why can’t we give evidence? Probably because both sides looks at the other side and shake their heads. I am often surprised by what evolutionists or atheists or Muslims or democrats take as “evidence.” Your reply shows that you too are shaking your head at what seems so obvious to me.
Why do we keep offering these old, tattered arguments? From me at least, it is Love. I genuinely love God as my Father, His Son as my Savior, and His Spirit as my Guide. And I love you too–at least in some way–though I’ve never met you. My book speaks about eternal fire and eternal joy–and I think you can agree with me, right?, that if someone really believed that was coming, he should try to speak about it.
I’m not going to bother going through the list, suffice to say that the author suffers severe cultural myopia. To even ask these questions requires being entirely ignorant of history or awareness that most of the world exists. Questions like why is all art influenced by Abrahamic religions shows ignorance of how much of the world predates interaction or even existence of said. Likewise similar questions rely on pretending nations like India and China don’t exist. Oh, except to try to demonize them, ignoring the sins of Christian nations, like the USA’s dalliance with slavery or repeated attempts at outright genocide re Native Americans. I’m sorry, Son of Carey, but your agenda is born of ignorance, hate and bigotry and you look like a fool.
Hope it’s not too late to comment.
Agnosticism, the ideology that does not believe or disbelieve in God because of the lack of evidence on both sides, has not been adequately represented in this comment section. I’ll take a shot at answering these questions, without resorting to personal attacks or flawed arguments as I have seen in other comments.
I’ve grouped 5, 7, 9, and 10 together because they are best answered that way.
One thing I would like to note before I get started is that I appreciate how Seth is not combative, as has been my experience with christian apologists. Thank you for promoting honest and intelligent discourse. I’ll try to do the same.
1. We are (somewhat) moral beings because morality oils the wheels of society.
The world isn’t a zero-sum game. When we look out for one another, all parties involved come out stronger. A moral society will triumph over an anarchic one in which members of the society are constantly murdering, raping, and pillaging one another in a war, all other factors being equal. In addition, a society in which people’s rights are respected fosters innovation and loyalty to said society. Large-scale cruelty can work for a while, but eventually it backfires (as a general rule). In the long term, morality (to some extent) triumphs. That is one explanation as to why we have morality that fits with an atheist worldview, but there is no evidence as to why that would be the only explanation.
I also want to add that this question seems to stem from the principle “there can be no objective morality without God”. I agree with this principle, but there is no evidence that objective morality exists. As I said earlier, the benefits of morality outweigh the downsides for society, so every society develops some kind of moral compass, even if it is artificial.
However, philosophers throughout history (including those in the Bible) have questioned what we consider moral, and created new systems that work in the interests of everyone (or try to), instead of toward the best interests of society. My personal opinion is that something is “good” if the improvements it causes to the human condition outweigh the suffering it causes (utilitarianism). This is not religious, nor does it demand belief: it is self-evident that the philosophy of mitigating the total suffering in the world mitigates suffering. As to how to measure the benefits and the evils of a choice, that is why we have second opinions, such as from other people, literary works, and other mediums of philosophy, not to mention the rule of law.
Am I the “final person”, meaning it is ultimately with me that the choice rests? Yes, because every philosophy, including that in the Bible and other religious works, require interpretation in the real world, even though they may seem ironclad. I’ll give you an example. In religious circles, especially those directed towards children, you often hear the phrase “what would Jesus do” (WWJD). How are we, as mortal beings, supposed to guess at what the perfect son of God (as you believe) would do, especially in a world that is radically different from the one that he lived in? You also are the “final person” as well, because there is no one constantly whispering in your ear what’s right and what’s wrong. You have to interpret what the Bible says to match the situation.
2. I don’t know. You have an explanation that you believe in without empirical evidence, and atheists have empirical evidence without an explanation. You need both.
I’ll skip the part where I talk about how vague “laws of logic” is, because you don’t mean a specific one anyway. You are asking why they exist. This question is rigged in your favor (which, of course, is why you asked it). You already have a version that you believe in, and don’t demand empirical evidence of, as it’s a sin to “put your Lord God to the test”. People who don’t accept that explanation are looking for a different one through scientific means (just to be clear, by scientific, I mean “in a way that can be empirically proven”), and though science has begun to explain more and more natural phenomena, this one is too vague to answer with current scientific means. Maybe one day in the future we’ll be able to answer that question, and maybe it’ll support the existence of God. Or not. For now, the jury’s still out.
3. As for human beauty, atheists have an explanation and some plausible evidence, and for the beauty of art, atheists have no evidence nor an explanation. Theists have an explanation for both but no evidence.
I assume your claim here is that all that we know as beauty stems from the divine beauty of God. The problem is, the concept of beauty is subjective, and every individual and culture has their interpretation. If you look back, you can see that even the Western ideal of beauty has changed radically over the years. Except for in the most extreme cases, being healthy is seen as beautiful. This is supported by the atheist worldview: healthy people have been, for much of history, both the most “useful” to society, as well as the most likely to be able to provide for children so that they live to adulthood. In other words, there is no consensus on what “beauty” is, except sometimes healthiness (or what societies thought was healthiness), which supports an atheist worldview. As for music and art, there is no indication that they come from a divine beauty. Neuroscience has made strides in what viewing art does to your brain, but they haven’t nailed down a cause. Theists think beauty comes from a god. Atheists think it doesn’t. Neither have any evidence.
4. I don’t know. You have an explanation that you believe in without empirical evidence, and atheists have empirical evidence without an explanation. You need both.
This question is part of a pattern that I am seeing, and that is this: You have a belief system that gives you an answer to this question that cannot be proven or disproven. Anyone else with different beliefs must have a coherent theory with empirical proof. So this question, like so many others, is doublethink: you don’t need proof, but everyone else does. It also does not respect scientific humility, in which people, (especially scientists) admit that they don’t know everything (I know that not all scientists have this philosophy, but I choose to associate myself with those that do). You seem to think that because science doesn’t have a tidy explanation for the most complex, vague, and ridiculous questions, it can’t be trusted and your unfounded hypothesis must be, by default, the correct one and can’t be questioned.
6. There are many.
Interestingly, both you and the atheist commenters overlook one atheist social experiment that actually went quite well: the United States of America. Although most Founding Fathers were Christian, and they did mention Christianity in their founding documents, they did not base their new government off of the “divine right to rule” but instead championed the separation of church and state, meaning they allowed their citizens to worship (or not worship) as they liked, not creating or endorsing a state-sponsored religion, and creating a secular government that was not permitted to mix religious matters with matters of state.
If you think that the Founding Fathers had Christianity in mind when creating their government, as some people do, I’ll offer a few more examples. The EU (most of it at least), Japan (I swear if you bring up WWII. The government’s changed completely since then), New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, etc. etc…
What do you mean by “atheist social experiment” anyway? By the examples you gave, you seem to think that for a social experiment to be truly atheist, religion must be abolished or outlawed. This, by definition, is “violent, authoritarian, and cruel”, making this another loaded question.
8. This question has no basis.
To answer this question, imagine that the universe came into existence by random chance and that there is no God. No need to substantiate it, just imagine it. This is a purely hypothetical scenario. Can something be true? Yes. Is there still a universe? Yes. Do the laws of physics, mathematics, and science still apply? Yes. Could life be created? Maybe. Scientists have created the foundations of life (amino acids) in a lab with conditions mirroring early earth, but no actual, fully functioning cells. It might be possible, but not proven, that life could be created from random chance.
Is there a meaning of life without God? Depends on what you mean by “meaning”. Do you mean that without God, we don’t have a reason to live? If that was the case, all atheists would have committed suicide. Do you mean that without God, we are not part of anything larger than ourselves? This is also not true. People are part of things larger than themselves all the time: societies, social movements, cultures… Maybe I misunderstand the question, but you didn’t articulate it properly.
5, 7, 9, and 10: These have nothing to do with whether religion is true or not, but they do merit some thought.
I am not saying that religion is not beneficial to society: I am willing to admit that in most cases, the benefits of religion in society outweigh the costs. These questions are compelling arguments to the benefits of religion.
Religion can unify people, and people always want to be part of a group. Occasionally, a religion will be forced upon a culture by war, as in most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Americas, but that normally isn’t the primary way of diffusing a religion. Religion unifies people, gives them a sense of identity, and provides meaning to an uncaring universe (Question 5). Religion not only actually (meaning verifiable through empirical evidence) allows people to be part of something larger than themselves through community, culture, and society, but also gives them the sense of being on the side of, literally, all that is holy. This makes them more likely to put their lives on the line for a cause, especially a religious one.
For this reason, religion can cause extreme good as well as evil (Question 7 and 9). I’ll use Christianity as an example, because that is your belief, but what I say applies to all religions.
Christianity has inspired many great acts throughout history. For instance, the founder of the religion, Jesus, spread love and healed people (you say through miracles, I say through medicine until proven otherwise), even when that meant getting tortured to death. This is the most extreme example, but Christianity also inspired martyrs and missionaries to do the same (minus the miracles, if they actually happened), as well as social movements such as the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, and labor reforms (to name only a few, and even then, only in the United States).
It has also legitimized evil, because it empowers individuals to feel that they are “on God’s side”. You can see this in the brutality of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, oppressive monarchies, the treatment of natives in the Americas, and countless other violations of even the most twisted interpretation of what a benevolent god would support (I’m not saying this is what the Bible tells people to do, I’m saying it’s something that supposed christians have done and that the christian institution has been complacent in).
Religious institutions also support the creation of art (Question 10) that praises their religion, and are able to do so on a large scale given that they usually possess extensive resources, monetary and otherwise. Think of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. He couldn’t have done it without a ton of paint and payment for his work . So-called “starving artists” don’t last long, because the body can go only about 3-8 weeks without food. For most of history, a religious institution would be the only way anyone could get enough money to support them making art, unless you wanted to do portraits of aristocrats and generals. Christianity has the most works of art out of any religion because it, historically and currently, has been the largest and richest one.
My own thoughts:
These questions don’t guarantee the existence of God, and my answers don’t disprove it. There really isn’t any argument that can confirm either one, at least from what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot. Besides, arguments for or against God’s existence aren’t too important anyway, because most, if not all, people don’t become religious because of rationality alone. Most of the time, people are religious because they were born into a religious family or because they had a spiritual experience (or at least something that they interpreted as one).
I believe that, although the benefits of religion outweigh the costs, and I don’t particularly want to convert anyone to Atheism or Agnosticism, but I feel justified in defending my ideology (it isn’t really a belief), because there is a tendency among theists, especially evangelicals, to be hostile to the “outgroup” when conversion to their religion has failed. That is why I feel that I need to defend myself. Not so I can feel justified, but so I can get theists to understand and respect my worldview.
So I guess that’s my answer to your questions. I don’t think it was a “stumbling word salad”. Tell me what you think.
James, thanks for such a thorough reply. Several times I had to pause and reread because these are such big matters.
I am a church planter among the Tsonga people, and after returning from a number of Bible studies on dusty roads in a language with around 10,000 words, it is stimulating to read your thoughts. They each deserve an individual reply, or better yet a cup of coffee and back and forth, but at least we have a little bit of humanity together through some comments.
But to stay focused, and because it’s getting late over here, to your comments about beauty, #3. I think there is a consensus.
Don’t all people find the human form beautiful? There may be certain modes that could change from person to person and culture to culture, but man as a class find women as a class beautiful. Don’t all people find the Grand Canyon beautiful? Night stars? A new baby? The ocean? Roses? Regardless of culture or accident of nature or birth or training, these things are obviously known as beautiful. If a man does not count life as beautiful, then we think of him as insane. New, quality roads aren’t beautiful? Living and working in a poorer culture, most of the world immediately knows that properly laid asphalt is beautiful.
My point: At the deepest level, there is a binding thread of beauty and awe. And when I consider my Book that says the Son of God is the Road, the Life, the Flower, the True Husband, and the Morning Star, I find that cognitive rest that every one is looking for.