Although I grew up in a Christian-influenced culture and had a liberal Christian scripture education at school, I don't consider myself as growing up Christian. Thus it was easy to reject such a God when I was old enough to do so. That was half my life ago.
Since that time I've been engaged in arguments with people over various issues related to this question. The internet exposed me to a whole branch of thought that was completely alien to the Christianity I was taught, people had the firmest conviction in the craziest things. The implausible Christianity I was taught seemed almost sane compared to some of this insanity.
I bring this up because there are those who call atheism a delusion. Being an atheist myself, I'm worried that it is. I can see why it's easy to label particular beliefs as false and that those propagating them have been misinformed, but can the same be said of oneself? That is to say, if I were an outsider looking in how would I see my position?
I read "Why I Became An Atheist" by John W. Loftus for this reason. What struck me about the book was not his arguments (they were just fine), but what he was arguing against. The passage where Moses and Egyptian mystics threw down their staves and they turned into snakes was just too crazy for me to takes seriously.
Is that really crazy or just crazy from my perspective? Perhaps transitional forms between fish and tetrapods, or between dinosaurs and birds sound crazy. Indeed there are many creationists out there who highlight the absurdity of transitional fossils (neglecting that such fossils actually exist!) and I would say they are being ignorant of the evidence. Perhaps the evidence really is there that those biblical accounts or modern evidence that parallels what is said in the bible but I'm ignoring that.
My proposal is to ask for what I'm missing. Are there believers out there willing to point me in the right direction? What I'm asking for is essentially the Outsider Test For Faith with myself as the outsider looking to be convinced.
There are many different psychological trappings one can fall into, and being human I'm subject to these same shortcomings. I can't pretend I'll be an unbiased critic (again, I'm human) but I can at least try to understand.
I'm asking for material: books, lectures, podcasts, articles, whatever that would at least try to help me understand as an outsider to properly grasp what it is I'm rejecting. Cost is a factor, I don't have a lot of money to spend but I'd be willing to guess that this could be accomplished relatively cheaply.
One caveat, please no creationist material (biological or cosmic). The science is overwhelmingly against the notion of creationism so it needs not be considered. Beyond that I'm open to pretty much anything. What is the best material to make a case to the outside that your belief is true?
Showing posts with label John W Loftus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John W Loftus. Show all posts
Monday, 7 June 2010
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Book Review: Why I Became An Atheist
When people ask me why I became an atheist, the answer is always the same - I was born that way. The truth is I've never believed in a god, and it's only through television, my peers and the oddly cultural-relativistic public school system in Australia that I even came to know god. When I was 9 I changed schools where I was asked what religion I was, I said Christian because I went to scripture at my old school. At further pressing they asked me if I was catholic or Anglican, I didn't know the difference and said catholic. Needless to say my Mother got me out of that nutty cult room pretty quickly. When I was 12 and finally old enough to understand the question, I rejected the concept of God and have since been an outspoken atheist. So why am I mentioning this? Because my background matters when reviewing John W. Loftus' book Why I Became An Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.
It matters for me to make the case for my atheism because unlike a lot of people in western society, I was not brought up Christian. In scripture at school, we weren't taught from the bible, but were taught of the nature of God and the power of faith through parables. It wasn't a literal reading, it was very liberal, very much about selling a personal relationship with Jesus. So to read a book criticising fundamentalism is not even attacking the Christianity I know, to me it's attacking the extreme right who have no basis in reality to begin with.
To me, a criticism of biblical literacy should begin and end with science. We know the world is more than 6000 years old, we know that life evolved - both these facts have been known for more than 100 years now. Yet there are still those who take mythic storytelling and think of it as history? No wonder my scripture teachers focused on the power of belief instead of trying to warn me of the dangers of talking snakes. That to want a personal relationship with Christ is better than selling children on the dangers of Hell.
I have been an avid reader of Loftus' blog, Debunking Christianity, for some time now and find him to be a reasonable and level-headed man. Which is why the first thing that shocked me about the book was the way he would talk about what he used to believe, that it is so obviously absurd. And as I went on through the book, what stood out was how poor the intellectual reconciliation between the modern understanding of the world and the bible actually is. The reconciliations take an absurdity and make it sound even more absurd. To preserve the notion that the bible is the word (in some sense) of an omniscient deity, the most asinine explanations are presented. The book didn't even need Loftus' debunking those claims - they could not stand up on their own.
This is not to say I hated the book, Loftus is an excellent writer and wrote a mostly engaging argument. I say mostly engaging because I found the excessive quoting of scripture to be tedious. But then again, I keep getting scripture quoted at me so it must mean something to somebody - I'm really not the target audience for this. There were some parts that made the book worth getting - the outsider test for faith is possibly the best argument against religion, and that goes for all religion. The philosophy and explanation of the control beliefs was also really thorough and well presented. And finally at the end, the way he tackled the idea of ultimate meaning was done very well.
I was asked if I were to recommend an atheist book to theists, would it be this or Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I answered this book, and I do thoroughly recommend it. But at the same time I found Dawkins' book to be a lot more intellectually satisfying. It gave reasons to do away with superstition, this book attacked what is in my mind a straw-man of Christianity. But what I've fast come to realise over the last 5 years or so, what I perceive as a straw-man is the intellectual and moral foundations for hundreds of millions of people. Apparently some people still believe we are magic dirt who ate some bad fruit on the advice of a talking snake. Thankfully it's now the 21st century and J.K. Rowling has written a much better tale warning of the dangers of listening to talking snakes, and we don't even have to believe that there's a platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station to heed this advice.
It matters for me to make the case for my atheism because unlike a lot of people in western society, I was not brought up Christian. In scripture at school, we weren't taught from the bible, but were taught of the nature of God and the power of faith through parables. It wasn't a literal reading, it was very liberal, very much about selling a personal relationship with Jesus. So to read a book criticising fundamentalism is not even attacking the Christianity I know, to me it's attacking the extreme right who have no basis in reality to begin with.
To me, a criticism of biblical literacy should begin and end with science. We know the world is more than 6000 years old, we know that life evolved - both these facts have been known for more than 100 years now. Yet there are still those who take mythic storytelling and think of it as history? No wonder my scripture teachers focused on the power of belief instead of trying to warn me of the dangers of talking snakes. That to want a personal relationship with Christ is better than selling children on the dangers of Hell.
I have been an avid reader of Loftus' blog, Debunking Christianity, for some time now and find him to be a reasonable and level-headed man. Which is why the first thing that shocked me about the book was the way he would talk about what he used to believe, that it is so obviously absurd. And as I went on through the book, what stood out was how poor the intellectual reconciliation between the modern understanding of the world and the bible actually is. The reconciliations take an absurdity and make it sound even more absurd. To preserve the notion that the bible is the word (in some sense) of an omniscient deity, the most asinine explanations are presented. The book didn't even need Loftus' debunking those claims - they could not stand up on their own.
This is not to say I hated the book, Loftus is an excellent writer and wrote a mostly engaging argument. I say mostly engaging because I found the excessive quoting of scripture to be tedious. But then again, I keep getting scripture quoted at me so it must mean something to somebody - I'm really not the target audience for this. There were some parts that made the book worth getting - the outsider test for faith is possibly the best argument against religion, and that goes for all religion. The philosophy and explanation of the control beliefs was also really thorough and well presented. And finally at the end, the way he tackled the idea of ultimate meaning was done very well.
I was asked if I were to recommend an atheist book to theists, would it be this or Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I answered this book, and I do thoroughly recommend it. But at the same time I found Dawkins' book to be a lot more intellectually satisfying. It gave reasons to do away with superstition, this book attacked what is in my mind a straw-man of Christianity. But what I've fast come to realise over the last 5 years or so, what I perceive as a straw-man is the intellectual and moral foundations for hundreds of millions of people. Apparently some people still believe we are magic dirt who ate some bad fruit on the advice of a talking snake. Thankfully it's now the 21st century and J.K. Rowling has written a much better tale warning of the dangers of listening to talking snakes, and we don't even have to believe that there's a platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station to heed this advice.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Is Christianity more probable than atheism?
That is the question that John W Loftus wants to debate Christian apologist William Lane Craig on. Loftus was a former preacher and student of Craig who turned atheist and now runs the fantastic blog Debunking Christianity where he along with other former theists try to debunk Christianity. Now Craig has said he won't debate former students, though given the challenge it does seem appropriate to engage Loftus given his current credentials as a "new atheist". Unlike many of the other atheists recently putting out books, Loftus' book Why I Became An Atheist directly attacks Christianity in particular - contrasting the styles of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett who go after faith itself or the institution of religion.
In the spirit of things, here's why I would say that Christianity is not more probable than atheism.
The sheer number of options
Is Christianity more probable than atheism? The question itself is poorly defined as atheism and Christianity aren't competing ideas for the same prize. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any god, whether it be the Christian construct of the Trinity or any other deity. It is the ultimate position of scepticism, the notion that there isn't enough positive evidence for a belief in a higher power to warrant a belief. So to me the question should be is belief in Christianity is more justified than not believing. This means foregoing the choice between all other gods that have ever existed, but to many this is the only choice they have. It is either the religion of their peers or no religion at all, so in this sense the question of whether Christianity is more probable than atheism in this society is akin to asking whether Islam is more probable than atheism in Saudi Arabia.
But therein lies the first problem with the concept of a god - the globe is littered with different versions of the supernatural. Why is it that God in the Trinity form is not the default religion in Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan? Why is it that Hinduism dominates India, or Buddhism dominates Cambodia? Being born in Greece these days may mean a Greek-orthodox version of Christianity but just 2500 years ago it would have been a belief in the polytheistic deities. An Egyptian now would probably have a belief in Allah, but only 3000 years ago it would have been Ra and Osiris (among others) that littered the Ancient Egyptian religion. Aboriginals in Australia had their own tribal supernatural entities, the dreamtime story of the giant rainbow serpent has survived for 40,000 years yet in the last 200 this has been largely relegated to myth as Christianity has taken over.
What this demonstrates is that belief in God is wholly dependant on the time and place of birth. It is an accident to be born into a society where the meme exists or is introduced, which should wave a red flag considering the necessity for the meme in order for salvation. The notion of a maximally loving God that requires belief in order for reward means that anyone unfortunate enough not to be born in the right place and period of history is condemned to eternal torture for an event that is beyond their control. It may be that God will save those who have not heard the message, but this calls into question both the need for Jesus in the first place (as it creates a test where there was none) and the need to proselytise.
The sheer number of different gods also poses a problem for any one god. It can't be that all religions are true as many contradict the others, nor can it be that each religion is explaining the same god as it has the same stumbling block. So any explanation that explains the existence of God also needs to explain why other cultures and religions worship false idols. What makes Christianity so special that all other explanations involving that came before were mere fantasy, but in Christianity's case was an exception. And why if one particular tribe had the one true god did other tribes not fall in line?
The nature of reality
Modern human discovery has changed the way humans look at universe and our place in it. Geocentrism was dealt a fatal blow in the 17th century, special creation in the 19th century, and in the 20th century many of the secrets of nature have been unlocked. The God of the bible was one who created a flat earth where heaven was in the sky and all creatures were created ex nihilo. Even today in 2009, the fundamentalist belief of special creation and the moderate theistic evolution show just how much of a death blow Darwin's theory was to the Christian view of the universe.
We now live in a universe not where the earth is the centre, nor even the sun or our own galaxy is the centre. We are one species of approximately 10 million who orbit one star of about 200 billion in our galaxy alone. And that galaxy is only one of a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. There are more stars in this universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Yet this spiritual geocentric model of the universe remains.
The universe is big, really really big. And in order to see a big universe, the universe must be really old. The standard unit of measure for astronomy and cosmology is the speed of light. It takes 8 minutes for light emitted by the sun to reach earth, 4.3 years for the next closest star. That means when one looks at Alpha Centauri, the light we are seeing left the star 4.3 years ago. So seeing distant galaxies means that the distance measured in light years means that was how long ago that light we are seeing left the galaxy. We have observed galaxies over 13 billion light years away and thus the universe has to be at least 13 billion years old. By contrast the earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, and humans have been on this earth for around 150,000 years.
We have existed for 1/10,000th of the history of this universe, each one of our lives an even smaller fraction of that. We have evolved like every other organism that by all accounts is an unguided process. Yet despite the small part of the universe we occupy, the theist view of us having a special place in the universe by all accounts is putting us into an undeserved special place. Of course none of the science disproves God, but it does highlight the means by which God was created as a substitute for knowledge - and a poor one at that. Quite simply, the ancient Israeli accounts of the nature of reality are no more accurate than those of the Australian Aboriginals and as such the probability of the Christian god grows more and more infinitesimal as more is learned about nature and history.
Conclusion
There are so many reasons to conclude that Christianity is not more probable than atheism, but one argument stands above all. When it comes down to it Christianity requires faith, something of which to be sceptical of. Any idea worth having should be able to stand on it's own merits, survive rigorous sceptical scrutiny, and demonstrate insight into the universe. If the notion of any god, let alone the Christian construct of God were more probable than atheism then it shouldn't necessitate faith. Philip K Dick put it best when he said:
In the spirit of things, here's why I would say that Christianity is not more probable than atheism.
The sheer number of options
Is Christianity more probable than atheism? The question itself is poorly defined as atheism and Christianity aren't competing ideas for the same prize. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any god, whether it be the Christian construct of the Trinity or any other deity. It is the ultimate position of scepticism, the notion that there isn't enough positive evidence for a belief in a higher power to warrant a belief. So to me the question should be is belief in Christianity is more justified than not believing. This means foregoing the choice between all other gods that have ever existed, but to many this is the only choice they have. It is either the religion of their peers or no religion at all, so in this sense the question of whether Christianity is more probable than atheism in this society is akin to asking whether Islam is more probable than atheism in Saudi Arabia.
But therein lies the first problem with the concept of a god - the globe is littered with different versions of the supernatural. Why is it that God in the Trinity form is not the default religion in Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan? Why is it that Hinduism dominates India, or Buddhism dominates Cambodia? Being born in Greece these days may mean a Greek-orthodox version of Christianity but just 2500 years ago it would have been a belief in the polytheistic deities. An Egyptian now would probably have a belief in Allah, but only 3000 years ago it would have been Ra and Osiris (among others) that littered the Ancient Egyptian religion. Aboriginals in Australia had their own tribal supernatural entities, the dreamtime story of the giant rainbow serpent has survived for 40,000 years yet in the last 200 this has been largely relegated to myth as Christianity has taken over.
What this demonstrates is that belief in God is wholly dependant on the time and place of birth. It is an accident to be born into a society where the meme exists or is introduced, which should wave a red flag considering the necessity for the meme in order for salvation. The notion of a maximally loving God that requires belief in order for reward means that anyone unfortunate enough not to be born in the right place and period of history is condemned to eternal torture for an event that is beyond their control. It may be that God will save those who have not heard the message, but this calls into question both the need for Jesus in the first place (as it creates a test where there was none) and the need to proselytise.
The sheer number of different gods also poses a problem for any one god. It can't be that all religions are true as many contradict the others, nor can it be that each religion is explaining the same god as it has the same stumbling block. So any explanation that explains the existence of God also needs to explain why other cultures and religions worship false idols. What makes Christianity so special that all other explanations involving that came before were mere fantasy, but in Christianity's case was an exception. And why if one particular tribe had the one true god did other tribes not fall in line?
The nature of reality
Modern human discovery has changed the way humans look at universe and our place in it. Geocentrism was dealt a fatal blow in the 17th century, special creation in the 19th century, and in the 20th century many of the secrets of nature have been unlocked. The God of the bible was one who created a flat earth where heaven was in the sky and all creatures were created ex nihilo. Even today in 2009, the fundamentalist belief of special creation and the moderate theistic evolution show just how much of a death blow Darwin's theory was to the Christian view of the universe.
We now live in a universe not where the earth is the centre, nor even the sun or our own galaxy is the centre. We are one species of approximately 10 million who orbit one star of about 200 billion in our galaxy alone. And that galaxy is only one of a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. There are more stars in this universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Yet this spiritual geocentric model of the universe remains.
The universe is big, really really big. And in order to see a big universe, the universe must be really old. The standard unit of measure for astronomy and cosmology is the speed of light. It takes 8 minutes for light emitted by the sun to reach earth, 4.3 years for the next closest star. That means when one looks at Alpha Centauri, the light we are seeing left the star 4.3 years ago. So seeing distant galaxies means that the distance measured in light years means that was how long ago that light we are seeing left the galaxy. We have observed galaxies over 13 billion light years away and thus the universe has to be at least 13 billion years old. By contrast the earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, and humans have been on this earth for around 150,000 years.
We have existed for 1/10,000th of the history of this universe, each one of our lives an even smaller fraction of that. We have evolved like every other organism that by all accounts is an unguided process. Yet despite the small part of the universe we occupy, the theist view of us having a special place in the universe by all accounts is putting us into an undeserved special place. Of course none of the science disproves God, but it does highlight the means by which God was created as a substitute for knowledge - and a poor one at that. Quite simply, the ancient Israeli accounts of the nature of reality are no more accurate than those of the Australian Aboriginals and as such the probability of the Christian god grows more and more infinitesimal as more is learned about nature and history.
Conclusion
There are so many reasons to conclude that Christianity is not more probable than atheism, but one argument stands above all. When it comes down to it Christianity requires faith, something of which to be sceptical of. Any idea worth having should be able to stand on it's own merits, survive rigorous sceptical scrutiny, and demonstrate insight into the universe. If the notion of any god, let alone the Christian construct of God were more probable than atheism then it shouldn't necessitate faith. Philip K Dick put it best when he said:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
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