timeimmortal

Well, I see that Joel hasn’t linked to me since the last article he wrote, so I don’t know if he’s had anything more to say about my last response to him. And to be fair, I also don’t care; it’s nice to engage with people who come knocking on the door, but I’m not going to be bothered to go and chase them down once they depart the area. Joel is, of course, welcome to continue misrepresenting me in his impotent rage — in fact, I would expect no less.

There are just a couple loose ends I wanted to tie up for myself, O Reader, and some thoughts I wanted to collect in one place.

Firstly, Joel responded rather poorly when I suggested that in my view, atheism was a rather peculiar sort of Religion. In his reply, he suggested that the only reason I thought this was that atheism stated an opinion concerning God (or gods), and that because it said something about God it must necessarily be a religion.

Of course, this is an error I could have predicted Joel would make, given his insistence on seeing no particular differences between different religions or denominations thereof. Had he been a little more interested in scholarship in this regard, he would have known what I know, and would have been able to rattle off a good five examples of religious forms that involve no gods (singular or plural) at all. Taoism and Buddhism are perhaps the biggest examples (especially Buddhism, since atheists — Sam Harris, for example — do seem very fond of pointing it out as a deity-free religion), but other examples can be found in various forms of pantheism, panentheism, and Animism. It is quite possible to have a religion without also having a deity of any sort.

So obviously, O Reader, when I talk about atheism as a sort of odd, counter-intuitive quasi-religion, I am not specifically speaking of something which has an opinion on the existence of a deity. My categories are, as I explained, somewhat broader than that — I merely noted that atheism was a philosophical conjecture indefensible by any evidence or theorem (in other words, it has the same inherent weaknesses that my own religion does, if one employs only empirical categories). Atheism is not grounded in facts; it is a “belief” as surely as my own Catholic faith is a belief. Not that there’s any shame in that, of course — belief is an integral part of the human condition, and a key factor in (among other things) every relationship we are in, whether professional, friendly, or romantic. Things like love and trust are acts of faith.

And indeed, the question is not whether we believe, as the atheists would have it. The question is what we believe. We may not believe in God, and we may not believe in many gods. We may not believe that the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah contain the answers we are seeking after. But we may believe that science holds those answers (Joel seems to…). We may believe in reason. We may believe in rationalism. The point is: we all worship something, whether a transcendent divinity or our own wallet and/or genitals.

That is why truly, genuinely non-believing atheism (if it exists) can only, at most, be a temporary fad in the transition between Christianity and whatever belief system follows it down the way, whether that’s the same or another form of Christianity or some sort of paganism. Humanity can’t not believe; it’s in the very fabric of our being to worship. As I’ve noted, the only question is what we will worship. Will we worship what is true, or merely a simulacrum of the truth?

Grace read my responses to Joel over the weekend and noted that he — along with Nicholas, incidentally — seemed to be a very bitter person, and then one who was hurting. I can’t say I disupte the analysis, having read some of the personal entries on Joel’s blog; neither he nor Nicholas seem to be genuinely happy individuals. Moreover, there seems to exist in them a pervasive need in them to spread their unhappiness to others. This is, I have learned through bitter experience, a fairly common feature of atheists (or rather, of those atheists who care to speak up about their atheism) — they are not happy until all around them are unhappy.

And so, to both Joel and Nicholas, Grace and I pose the following questions:

1. What do you feel entitled to?
2. Why do you feel entitled in this way?
3. Why are you so angry/sad/bitter?
4. If you had to define happiness, what would it be to you?

Honestly, the more atheists write in to Time Immortal, the more I pray for them. And no, I don’t necessarily pray for their conversion (although I sometimes do). More often than not, I pray that God helps them with whatever it is that has saddened or embittered them, that they may find a way through it through His guidance, even if they couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the guidance itself.

Such men as this are to be pitied.

Joel responded fairly quickly to my last post about him. He feels that I’ve missed the point. Interestingly, he doesn’t exactly do a great job of citing an example, preferring instead to approach it thusly:

He’s decided that I think all religions are the same.

Which is not what I said.

My point was that they are all equally crazy. Medicated or not, violent or not, oppressive or not. They are all people who hear voices from dogs. The difference in how far you must stretch believability between Scientology and Christianity is negligible.

(Actually, I think scientology is much more believable)*

I’m not sure how you can deny that.

Equally, O Reader, it could be argued that the statment above isn’t defensible either. It has not been conclusively established that belonging any Religion is a form of being “crazy.” That remains a matter of opinion (obviously not one which I, nor around 5 billion people world-wide — if not more — share).

As to the matter of stretching believeability, there’s still a gulf of difference between believing in Xenu and levels of mental proficiency, and believing in God and Jesus. With all due respect to L. Ron Hubbard, at least a few historical records (from different authors, even!) concerning Jesus’ life. Scientologist fiction might be interesting, to some, but it’s far harder to swallow and accept as factual than are the Gospels.

And the Gospels are better corroborated by external historical sources.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s refresh our memories with what Joel said about schizophrenia:

For example, lets suppose I’m schitzophrenic. And I believe that the dog is talking to me telepathically. Would you see any real difference between me and the other schitzophrenic that believes the dog is talking to him vocally?

Now, Joel is kind of trying to have his cake and eat it too; he asserts that I am incorrect in saying that he thinks all religions are the same. And yet, what is he saying above? From here, at least, his statement would seem to be saying that in his view, there isn’t any tangible difference between the two schizophrenics; they are “the same” for all intents and purposes. Except that they aren’t, as he later assures us.

Which is it?

And as much as Joel chides me for missing his point, he has missed mine:

He thinks that, since I don’t believe in god, then thats a religion as well since, of course, it has the word ‘god’ in it.

That is similar to saying I have a significant belief that there is not a gorilla in my closet.

Now, I am not currently looking in my closet, so I suppose there MIGHT be a gorilla in there.

But I have zero reason to believe there is.

Thats one of the tragic mistakes most theists make. They believe that there’s a decision to be made. Do you believe in god or not, in short.

In my experience, it tends to be atheists who adopt the “either/or” stance; most theists I know tend to first approach things from a “both/and” perspective (for example: the dialogue between science and Religion). Now, I admit that I’m the victim of a somewhat biased sample; most of my religious friends are Catholics. And I further admit that where belief in God is concerned, it’s hard to take a “both/and” stance — if one doesn’t believe in God, one can hardly be said to believe in God, can one?

Still, in my experience, it is atheists who tend to prefer dichotomy.

To be fair, I have talked about atheism — being just one more entrant on the spectrum of beliefs — from an angle that suggests decision-making. And I do think that there is a decision to be made. But it is not whether to believe, because belief is an unavoidable part of the human condition. We are all believers, even if we aren’t all members of religions according to the dictionary definition of the word.

The question is what we believe. We may not believe in God, and we may not believe in many gods. We may not believe that the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah contain the answers we are seeking after. But we may believe that science holds those answers. We may believe in reason. We may believe in rationalism. The point is: we all worship something, whether a transcendent divinity or our own wallet and/or genitals.

That is why truly, genuinely non-believing atheism (if it exists) can only, at most, be a temporary fad in the transition between Christianity and whatever belief system follows it down the way, whether that’s the same or another form of Christianity or some sort of paganism. Humanity can’t not believe; it’s in the very fabric of our being to worship. As I’ve noted, the only question is what we will worship. Will we worship what is true, or merely a simulacrum of the truth?

And here’s the rub: we all believe in things that “the evidence” cannot explain. Joel’s atheism is no grounded in empirical realities than is my Catholicism, and I do hope that Joel can appreciate that just because something is not “seen” does not mean that it is not real; it may mean that we lack the means to see it. The point, then, is that atheism is as much a “faith” — in the sense of being a philosophical conjecture and a belief in a metaphysical reality (or, perhaps more correctly, the lack thereof) that cannot be defended from evidence. It’s not necessarily accurate to call it a religion, but neither is it wholly inaccurate to do so.

Consider:

I don’t actively think there isn’t a gorilla in my closet. It would be INSANE to think that I had to make a choice about whether or not there’s a big old beastie in my closet. The default position is for me to not believe in such a thing in such a place. Assuming that my bedroom isn’t part of the gorilla migratory pattern.

No one would say that one of my characteristics is that I believe my closet to be gorilla-free.

This is technically true. Equally, though, the fact that there is no gorilla in Joel’s closet does not mean that there are no gorillas. And the presence or absence, in Joel’s closet, of something we have the capability to detect with one or more of our five senses says nothing at all about the presence or absence of something we lack the capability to detect in the same area.

Nor, would anyone say, as a another example, that a significant trait I hold is that I don’t believe squirrels talk, or that my mother walks through walls, or that men rise from the dead.

These are, I think we can agree, aberrations from the norm. Without evidence to say that these aberrations are occuring, the default position is that they aren’t happening. But given that this is the default, the significant aspect is choosing to believe in them.

The norm is to not.

Of course, you can’t have these conversations with many theists because they believe there is evidence of god. No one has shown me any.

There is one word, I think, that applies to Joel’s beliefs here: Positivism. I’ve written about that many, many times, and see no need to re-hash prior content here. Suffice to say that if Joel’s atheism is based primarily on a lack of empirical evidence for faith, his atheism is weak indeed, and possessed of a fundamental illogic.

And as I have noted above, the fact that we don’t have evidence for a thing does not necessarily mean that the thing in question does not exist; equally, we may lack the ability to perceive or otherwise detect the thing. Certainly that was true of atoms until recently, and most stellar phenomena as well. Over time, we have developed methods of seeing those things, but other things yet remain unobserved: gravitational waves, for example, or the Higgs boson. Or, for that matter, extraterrestrial life. Perhaps, in time, we will observe these things as well. Then again, perhaps we won’t ever observe them directly.

The existence of a thing is independent of whether we have seen it. If there are aliens on some planet way out there in the depths of space, we don’t know it. But if we (and they) die out before either of us ever has the chance to meet the other, that does not mean that we both did not exist, does it?

Yes, there isn’t any hard evidence for the existence of God or Jesus — not anymore, at least, since Jesus hasn’t taken an Earthly stroll in nearly two thousand years. But then, if there were evidence, it wouldn’t be “faith,” would it?

They only thing they ever do is show examples of things we can’t explain…yet.

But they don’t like that last word.

These closing sentences of his illustrate, yet again, why Joel’s refusal to distinguish between different religions and/or denominations thereof hampers his ability to argue effectively. Methinks that he is too used to debating Evangelicals — personally, I take no issue with the word “yet” (as in, say, “Christ has not returned…yet,” perhaps?). It is, after all, just a word to describe a possible future.

Joel also seems to assume, erroneously, that a dichotomy exists between the sciences and religion, and seems to assume that given sufficient time, science will enable us to completely do away with religion. Obviously, I don’t share that viewpoint; there is no inherent contradition between religion and science, and in fact both are pathways of revelation. And as science continues to discover new and exciting things, I do not find my faith weakend — if anything, it is strenghtened as I become better able to comprehend the magnificence of the works that God has wrought.

We cannot know everything about how God works in the Universe, but it does serve to note that there is nothing to say that God, having built the Universe in a certain way, cannot effect his plans for the Universe and those living in it via the natural processes that are at work within creation. There is nothing to say that God didn’t forge humanity out of successive generations of progressively more complex lifeforms. Nor is there anything that says that God, having devised gravity, could not have used gravity to fabricate the stars and planets that now pepper the cosmos.

Atheists seem to expect that everything about God necessarily has to involve whiz-bangs and lightshows. It isn’t necessarily always so.

* perhaps this statement tells us all we need to know?

Not directly, at least. Fortunately, Wordpress keeps an accurate list of inbound links. He has his own blog, and has decided to issue his response to my latest reply to him there. That’s just as well; he wasn’t doing all that well via the contact form.

He seems to be clinging to insisting that all Religions are basically the same (a common fallacy among atheists, I have learned). To which I can only say, again, what I said to him before: “While you see a distinction between various sports, as an non-sports fan I simply don’t see those as significant. Honestly, the difference in rules and methods between almost any two sports is virtually meaningless to me. I don’t see a massive difference, in many ways, between playing golf and playing football…”

(All I’m doing in the above quote, O Reader, is repeating a statement Joel made about religions, re-dressed to cover an alternative topic; the absurdity of Joel’s stance is pretty clear.)

Joel posits thusly:

Once you believe in an all-powerful supernatural entity that controls the universe and his divine son that was killed and then rose from the dead, any distinctions between particular interpretations of these beings and stories really does fall by the wayside**.

For example, lets suppose I’m schitzophrenic. And I believe that the dog is talking to me telepathically. Would you see any real difference between me and the other schitzophrenic that believes the dog is talking to him vocally?

Of course not.

Once again, Joel’s ignorance shows through: there could be any number of differences between two schizophrenics talking to the dog. The question of the magnitude of symptoms comes up — of what duration, and what severity, are each person’s episodes? The question of medication comes up — is either person medicated? What kind of medication, and in what strength, is each person on? Is it perhaps time to adjust each person’s medication? The question of response comes up — should we let each person continue talking to the dog? Should we inform someone? Should we call the police? We might even ask what kind of dog is being addressed. Are the two schizophrenics speaking to the same dog? Is the dog (or “are the dogs”) responding, in any way, to either schizophrenic?

The point is that there is more to the scene than just what the eye glimpses at first. There is not only room for, but a need for, greater inquiry, because we cannot understand the situation until we ask some follow-up questions. And I might also point out, since Joel seems of a mind that atheists should “do something” about the pervasiveness of religion in America (”the battle we fight,” he termed it), the only way to properly respond to any situation is to dig a little deeper in order to better compose your response in a manner that is specifically tailored to the person being dealt with.

In other words, the proper response to schizophrenic #1 might be wholly different than the proper response to schizophrenic #2 — if we treat them both the same, there is a risk of doing unnecessary damage to at least one of them, until and unless we allow our actions and responses to them to be informed by additional inquiry. Dismissing them as just another couple of schizos is simply unacceptable, in addition to being dishonest.

Not that Joel seems to care all that much: he flogs the death of a single child as an indictment against all religion, even though the parents of the child were members of a cult widely derided and disavowed by mainstream Christianity. Had Madeline Kara Neumann been born to Catholic parents, she’d probably still be alive — whither Joel’s big issue* then? Moreover, whither Joel’s point that all religions are the same — there are religions out there in which young Madeline would have easily survived, grown up in, and thrived in.

But Joel has no interest in digging any deeper than he has to, and cares not for the fact that even though he himself is not a member of anything he would recognize as a religion, the vast differences that exist between the different religions are not a side point in the debate; they are the debate. Because what is atheism, if not a rather odd — and somewhat counter-intuitive — form of religion (in that it is a philosophical conjecture, a belief in a universal negative)? Funnily, I’m pretty sure that Joel would be offended if I called him a racist, and would rush to disprove the charge. At least, I would hope he would.

But if one thinks about it, O Reader, how is what he has said any different from the sort of bigotry that necessarily informs Racism? His basic contention, at least as regards Madeline Kara Neumann, seems to be that if a religion has at any point caused the death of a person, all religions are to be held accountable. Applying similar logic, we could argue that we should jail all black people the next time a Jamaican gang banger guns someone down on Jane Street in Toronto.

Hmmn…and here I thought it was us theists who were supposed to be closed-minded and bigoted (not to mention uninquisitive).

Joel also asks:

Its sort of like trying to talk with someoine who believes magic runs every little bit of the world. How could you talk physics?

Numerous science fiction authours demonstrate a rather handy fusion of physics and magic in their works, O Reader. Not that I believe in magic, of course — I merely observe that several works of speculative fiction nicely bridge the two concepts. But then, realizing that would require a person to have an inquiring mind, wouldn’t it?

Amusingly, one of the people commenting on Joel’s article added this nugget of “wisdom”:

To the point where they can’t actually understand anyone who might find their beliefs to be, well, insane.

Their very identity and that religion are so intertwined as to be inseperable.
Therefor, no significant dissent is really allowable.
(oh, you might allow it, but you treat it as if it were spoken by children)

What moleboy doesn’t realize, of course, is that much the same can be said both about atheism and those who follow that particular philosophical conjecture, and about the way many Catholics — including, more than occasionally, myself — wind up having to speak to them because of it.

But then, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. There is no such thing as someone who does not believe, after all. The great question is not whether we shall believe, but what we shall believe, and atheism is just one more entrant in list of beliefs that can be found the world over. And everyone who believes — every human being, then — is rather strongly wedded to their beliefs. Joel and moleboy’s identities are strongly intertwined with their atheism, and I’ve already had to speak to Joel…well…if not like a child, than at least like an intellectual inferior. I don’t really enjoy doing so, preferring discussions to be between equals whenever possible. But that hasn’t been possible in this case.

* ten blog posts in the last month and change; easily one of his most talked-about subjects

** I’m sure Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Wiccans, and various other religions would have something to say about this, since they do not acknowledge one or both of a) God and b) Christ. But hey, what do I know, being a deluded theist? Fortunately, I have atheists nearby to correct my thinking.

I’ve always been fascinated by atheism, or rather by secularism in general. Not in a “sign me up” sense of the word, but in the sense of regarding them as a curiousity of sorts. I can understand that person could believe that there is no God, no spiritual dimension to our existence, but what I cannot understand — what fascinates me — is the smug self-assurance, the 100% conviction of empirical correctness, the arrogant dismissal of those who do believe in something supernatural as under-educated and ignorant, or delusional, or in need of an emotional crutch. I’m not saying that believers aren’t 100% convinced of the correctness of their position — many are. But I am saying that what fascinates me about atheism as a belief system is that it arrogantly dismisses every other belief system as a child’s fairy tale, a coping mechanism, at the same time refusing to acknowledge its own nature.

Because what is atheism, and indeed what is secularism, if not a belief system unto itself, one that worships as deity such things as the individual person, or government, or science?

I was visiting Meta Religion, another of those websites devoted to promoting understanding between all the varied and often eclectic faith systems of the world. Unlike Religious Tolerance.org, however, I found that some of the articles on Meta Religion were somewhat meaningful. In particular, I was impressed by their inclusion of articles by Ian Barbour, one of the leading proponents of dialogue between faith and science today.

However, Meta Religion showed many of the same biases that Religious Tolerance.org shares with the modern atheist/secularist. If you bother to browse all the non-Christian faith descriptions on the website, you’ll find links to transcriptions of their holy texts, analysis of their beliefs, and a generally open-minded view of even the more bizarre belief systems in the world. But if you flip over to the Christian faith description, you’ll find something else. The analysis, the transcribed holy books, and even some lesser-known books (Gospel of Thomas, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.) can still be found, but also included is a section of “anti-Christian” articles.

When I saw that, I immediately clicked back to the description of Islam, and then to that of Buddhism, then of Judaism, and then randomly through other belief systems from there. In no other place, for no other religion, did I find articles of refutation and harsh criticism. In no other place did I find links to articles proclaiming that religion evolved as a comforting response to stress. In no other place did I find links to atheist literature. In no other place did I find links to the holy texts of other religions and discussions of the ‘parallels’ that exist. In no other place did I find links to lists of Biblical ‘contradictions’.

And that got me thinking.

In years of debating in web forums, in years of discussions with friends who are atheist, or at least secular humanist ‘agnostics’ (which is different from atheism…how?), it has become clear to me that the average atheist does not reject all concepts of God, despite claiming to. Instead, the rejection is almost exclusively that of the Christian God, and it seems to me that the majority of an argumentative atheist’s energies are directed into refuting Christian beliefs almost exclusively. Which I find interesting, to say the least — for a group that prides itself on its ability for logical and rational analysis, atheists seem only too willing to conflate all religions into Christianity, or a distorted perception thereof.

And at the core of it, the arguments aren’t even that well thought-out. Take my one friend’s quick criticism of the Bible: that it was written by a bunch of old men. Well, granted that most of the authors were male. Were they senior citizens at the time it was written? Some of them probably were older, but others were probably quite young. We really can’t say with any certainty — not that this minor factual error seems to be an obstacle to my friend’s hasty condemnation.

Take the other favourite condemnation of Religion, Christianity in particular: that religion is an evolved response to external emotional/psychological stress and worry, that it is a coping mechanism to deal especially with the problem of death. As an argument, this might have some merit, but there is a converse argument that has equal merit that most secularists are unwilling to discuss. Is it not possible that, as the pinnacle of evolution on Earth that humanity seems to be, we have evolved in such a way that our minds and hearts, our psycholgical and emotional selves, are ‘tuned in’ to God in a way that no other animal can enjoy? Is it not possible that God has used the process of evolution to create at last a being that He is able, in a small but powerful way, to actually communicate with? Is it not possible that an understanding of God, an ability to perceive the works of and perceive the call of purpose from God, is the ultimate outcome of neurological evolution? Perhaps the believers are not the ignoramuses after all, but the more evolved among us after all. Jesus taught that the meek shall inherit the Earth — perhaps this is the victory of the simple, the mundane, over the intellectual secular elite.

At this point, those of you of the atheist/secular persuasion are probably scoffing, and you’d be right to challenge me to produce evidence of such an evolution, or evidence of God more preferably, and of course I cannot provide either. I am, first, a man of faith, and though I believe that God is real and that He sent His only son Jesus to die for my sins, I will be the first to tell you that I cannot prove to you that any of that is true. I have personally experienced the touch of God, and in my own life my faith has made many positive changes and differences, and helped me to hold on to things long after anyone else would have been inclined to let go. But this is anecdotal, and nothing you would, or should, believe as empirical evidence.

But if, o reader, you think that my lack of evidence for God is proof that there is no God, think again. The scientific method dictates differently. A lack of evidence does not correspond to a disproof. It only means you haven’t yet found the evidence — you haven’t looked under the right rock. If you want to prove there is no God, you cannot point to a lack of proof on my part, but must instead produce proof of your own (cognizant, I would hope, of the fact that it is harder to prove a negation) to show that there is no God. Otherwise, any atheist/secularist statement you make falls on my ears as a statement not of fact, but as a statement of faith.

Atheists/secularists will tell you that they do not believe in God, but that in and of itself is not an atheistic statement. A Wiccan might easily make the same claim, but nobody would accuse a Wiccan of not believing in something supernatural. Likewise, a Hindu might make the claim, for Hindu is not a monotheistic religion…but nobody would accuse a Hindu of not believing in other gods.

No, an atheist instead believes there is no God. And it is a belief, because like me they can present no empirical evidence to support their claim. In many respects, it is more than just a belief or a faith — it is a religion. Ever visit an atheist website, or tripped over a militant atheist in a web-forum? There is not just a belief there — there is a vested interest in proselytization there. And a strong anti-Christian focus. If you asked me if I’d ever met an atheist who was openly critical of Allah, I would have to answer you “no”.

I realize that throughout its history, the Church has caused a number of problems, and been involved in some despicable practices. But if you think about it, that’s all in the Bible. We as humans are not perfect — we screw up from time to time. That’s what sin is. Usually it’s greed, or lust, or a desire for power and control, that has led Church officials and members into scandal and worse. Where I think many people make a great logical error is equating that with an evil underpinning of the religion itself. But ultimately, that’s not what it’s about. Yes, religious people make mistakes and commit sins. That means that (surprise!) religions are composed of people with the same human flaws and weaknesses that afflict the non-religious! It categorically does not mean that the religion itself is flawed, or evil, or sinful.

So if you’re an atheist, be consistent — denounce all religions with equal fervor. Or denounce none — just do as you ask Christians to do and keep your beliefs to yourself.

And to Meta Religions, I would just like to express my disappointment. Again, be consistent — if you’re going to publish denunciations of religion alongside the links to pro-Christian articles and transcriptions of our holy texts, please also publish those denunciations alongside the analysis of other religions. Or better still, put them in an Atheism section of the site.