Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit…
G W Foote
When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God, for he does not admit the existence of any such being….
We attack not a person but a belief, not a binge but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.
G W Foote, “Who are the Blasphemers?” in Flowers of Freethought
Atheism, Free Thought, Government, Philosophy | 
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P.Z. Myers and Daniel C. Dennett, in The Reality Club over at edge.org (H. Allen Orr for the defense), have penned rebuttals to Orr’s review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.You really should click over and read the whole interchange. Myers and Dennett are not at a loss for words, so it’s quite a lengthy though wonderfully erudite exchange of opinion.
By far I enjoyed the following, written by Myers, the most of any single paragraph or two.
Dawkins goes so far as to accuse those who conflate Einstein’s abstraction with the the kind of personal god worshipped by hundreds of millions of people of “intellectual high treason.” I don’t quite agree with that, but it certainly is intellectual foolishness. I like Orr’s work, I usually greatly enjoy his reviews, but in this case he is, perhaps unconsciously rather than deliberately, confusing the pantheistic cosmic force he is unnecessarily defending from Dawkins’ argument with the righteous anthropomorphic Supreme Being that is actually refuted.
p.z. myers
And yes, I know it is the nature of religion that everyone who believes will automatically state that their god isn’t the complicated caricature of the Bible or the Torah or the Koran and will retreat to the safety of the Ineffable (but Simple) Pantheistic/Deistic God until the challenge from the atheist subsides. Once the critic is safely out of earshot, though, then they will pray to the fickle deity for the new raise or that their favorite football team will win, and they will wonder if the cruel Old Testament God will torture them for eternity for transgressions against antique laws of propriety. Until that atheist glances their way again … then once more, they will describe God as an abstraction, as Love, as something so nebulous that it is safely removed from any specific attack. It’s familiar territory. Get into an argument with someone over Christianity or Islam or any of the dominant monotheistic faiths, and you’ll see them flicker back and forth between the abstract and the real god of their religion — their only defense is to present a moving target.
I belong to a forum where debating religion is encouraged. What Myers describes is precisely how 95% of debates with theists go.
For about two decades John W. Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity. With three degrees–in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion–he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, as he ministered to various congregations and taught at Christian colleges, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith, brought on by emotional upheavals in his personal life as well as the gathering weight of the doubts he had long entertained.
In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, Loftus carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The bulk of the book is his “cumulative case” against Christianity. Here he lays out the philosophical, scientific, and historical reasons that can be raised against Christian belief. From the implications of religious diversity, the authority of faith vs. reason, and the problem of evil, to the contradictions between the Bible and the scientific worldview, the conflicts between traditional dogma and historical evidence, and much more, Loftus covers a great deal of intellectual terrain. For every issue he succinctly summarizes the various points of view and provides references for further reading. In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering.
This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion. (Amazon.com)
Another point of view for anyone serious about thinking for themselves.
It’s a challenge encountered by non-believers frequently. Believers think that the existence of their god is the default reality. Anyone suggesting otherwise had better explain themselves.
They fail to appreciate that we were all born atheists. To credit their intellectual honesty in at least this case, I’ve never heard a believer even try to say that we are born with an inherent belief in a particular god. They believe the newborn has a relationship with god, but it’s a one-way relationship. God supposedly knows the baby, but there’s no indication the baby is aware of god. So I can conclude that babies are born Tabula Rasa, with no concept of gods.
I’m at a loss to imagine how anyone can present positive proof of a thing’s nonexistence. How could I prove that Superman doesn’t exist, the unicorn, leprechauns? I’m pretty much stuck with if a god behaves the way its followers say it does, then it would have to have left physical evidence, having interacted in a physical way with humans in the past. The lack of evidence and lack of modern day contact would lead to a conclusion that either a god had existed but died, left town, whatever or that it never existed in the first place.
I don’t feel any more inclined to defend my non-belief to believers than I do my nonpartisan position to Dems, Repubs and Libs. I’m not making a positive claim, I’m not asking them to believe anything, not an alternative religion or anything else. All I’m asking them to do is examine their beliefs critically and, if they are to have a faith, have a faith that can withstand rigorous skepticism. I’m asking them to actually think about what they believe. I’m demanding nothing more of them than to use their god given brain. For that I don’t have to prove a thing.
Winning converts to atheism has no purpose. It provides no benefit to other atheists, it offers no reward, it isn’t celebrated. I do like socializing with atheists more than mixed groups or an all-believer group. I am often in mixed and all-believer groups. They don’t scare me and I’m not overly impressed with them. But when I’m around other atheists, just like when I’m around other geeks, other animal lovers (nothing kinky, mind you) or other gays/bi’s, then I’m totally relaxed and find the conversations far more stimulating. Note that every group I consider myself a part of does no proselytizing, doesn’t recruit and firmly believes that one is either born an animal lover, geek, gay and/or atheist (we’re all born atheists) or one is not. And no one is likely to wake up one morning to find themselves magically transformed into one. They’re expressions of our genetic profile. I can’t yet alter the genetic profile of others. That’s why I can’t even think about trying to convert others to atheism.
Theists, on the other hand…
One of the factors that makes religion attractive and atheism unattractive to many people is that atheism offers no community. Humans are social animals. Churches have long exploited this aspect of our humanity. I would wager that many theists place more value on their church membership than they do on the theological implications of belief.
A problem with trying to organize atheists into a community is that we have a single point of view in common, our disbelief in gods. Other than that, we believe a wide range of concepts that we may or may not share with other atheists. I know atheist UFO fanatics, atheists who follow politics “religiously” and others who barely know who the president is, atheist hunters and atheist animal-rights advocates.
Free thought isn’t a set of beliefs or attitudes, it’s the means by which a thinking human comes to conclusions without being distracted or blinded by preconceived notions. So even free thought doesn’t really offer itself as a rallying point for a group. “We’re free thinkers!” “What do you free think about?” “Uh, everything…”
Free thought groups and atheist groups have been reasonably compared to a herd of cats. I think that’s an accurate assessment.
Why do we only require disproof of an unproven hypothesis when it comes to religion?
If I claimed I had built a machine that generated energy out of thin air and ran forever, is anyone obliged to spend time disproving that claim? Wouldn’t any rational, sane person simply say, “Let me know when you have proof of that” and dismiss such nonsense out-of-hand? Is there even a need to be agnostic about such a claim? Of course not. Not even the PC crowd would insist we respect this claim as possible. It’s nonsensical, and anyone who paid attention in school after the third grade would know that.
That’s why we argue against religion. It’s been given a free pass for too long. It’s time those of us who remain unconvinced by theistic claims that defy reason and nature explain and defend our reasons for not buying this silliness.
Isn’t free thinking really anti-god?
Personally, I’d like to see the world move into the 21st century without the burden of trying to accommodate 1st century thinking. Society has evolved far beyond the conditions of the 1st century, yet the majority of Americans are still trying to decide our future based on concepts appropriate for a 2000 year old nomadic band of Middle Easterners.
I’d like to see modern humans divorce themselves from all ancient myths and superstitions, not just religion. Why do people still insist on “trusting luck”, crossing their fingers, knocking on wood, wearing lucky charms? True, we’re only just starting to understand how nature works, but we already know enough to start leaving our nonsensical beliefs behind.
I have no intention of “destroying” your faith. I’m not even sure how skepticism and doubt could do that if your faith were strong. What I would like to do is present counter-proposals to all the things theists insist can only be explained by the gods so that they have another point of view to consider. Perhaps they’ll finally see that believing in gods is no longer necessary and is even unhealthy in many situations and begin to look around them with a new perspective.
Can’t you question the existence of gods without referring to believers?
Usually not, since the gods are only kept around by the belief of their followers. It’s the believers who create the gods. We can only address their belief.
(Posted in response to questions I’ve recently been asked)
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