I Am An Atheist: Correspondence

I am no longer updating these pages. If you want to read current correspondence (and my responses), take a look at the IAmAnAtheist Blog. Thanks!

After perusing your site, I came across an article from a visitor who was ashamed that he immediately thought less of religious people. This caused me to challenge my own previously steadfast beliefs. Am I wrong to think all religious people are stupid? After some soul-searching I discovered my view: that anyone who believes in an interventionist god, and therefore a specific religion, is indeed less than generously endowed in the brains department. However, before you deduce that I am one of the atheists whose blind faith in non-religion ironically mirrors that of religious people, consider this.

Most intelligent religious people accept that their belief is based on either:

1. Evidence which is specific to their religion - for example, the Bible for Christians and the Koran (Karan? Sorry to the Islamic readers for my ignorance) for Muslims - and thus refutable on the basis that contradictory reports exist with the same basic origin: since both the Bible and Koran were written in roughly the same era and are mutually exclusive, we can never prove either is 'gospel' in any sene of the word.

2. Evidence which is common to all religion: the 'God' answers to the unanswerable questions that are cited by all religious movements (eg. "we have a complex universe, so we must have had an intelligent creator" etc. arguments).

Therefore, if we follow through on the Christianity vs. Islam analogy, a Christian/Muslim follows his beliefs purely on blind faith, because we can see that both Islam and Christianity have the same provability. Blind faith is, however religious people will argue, clearly an anathema to intelligence (you cannot have a rational conversation with someone that believes in your stupidity for no logical reason), and I think I am subsequently justified in assuming that anyone who is not a gerneral theist, atheist or agnostic, is an idiot to some degree.

Do you think I am justified in this opinion? Am I being close-minded?

I don't think you are being close-minded. However, I do think you are incorrect.

I would argue with your premise that religious people accept that their belief is based on either a holy book or quasi-scientific evidence. It is true that religious people tend to give these reasons when pressed for the reason that they are religious, but for most, they were religious even before they knew that these arguments existed, therefore the cause must be elsewhere. Most people, in my experience, are religious because they were raised religious and it has become a part of their being, or they have undeniable emotional or personal reasons for being religious.

But even if your premise were true, I would disagree with your specific arguments.

1. Whether the Bible and Koran are mutually exclusive is out of my range of knowledge (it is possible that they are not, at least from an Islamic perspective, but I don't know). However, that is not relevant because believers do not consider the books equal. This might be (in a sense) like saying that a science textbook and a creationist textbook are equal because they were written at about the same time and they are mutually exclusive so neither is true. You're right that we can't prove that either of these religious texts is divinely inspired, and that's where you should probably focus your argument. (Also, I'd argue against saying that the Bible and Koran were written in roughly the same era -- there's quite a bit of time involved here, and the books were written in very different ways and circumstances.)

2. You are definitely correct that any evidence for a prime mover (a deist deity, if you will) is not in-and-of-itself evidence for a specific religion. However, there are a number of arguments religious people use, with a prime mover as a base, to show that their religion is preferable. Granted, IMO most of them are pretty bad.

Your conclusion uses the term "blind faith." This is problematic, in that religious people very often don't think they have blind faith. They think they have informed faith, or their faith is based on personal feelings or an "experience of the divine."

I would also argue with the statement that blind faith is "clearly an anathema to intelligence." Everyone has a certain amount of faith -- or, at least, we all assume that certain things are true with no evidence for their truth. For example, I assume that other people exist and that there really is a world outside my mind. It is impossible to prove that this is true.

If you mean, however, that religious faith is anti-intelligent, then I would disagree with that statement as well. If someone "feels strongly in his heart" that Jesus died for his sins, all the proof in the world isn't going to change that feeling. You can't say that someone isn't intelligent because they can't change their emotions -- this would be like me telling an orphan that he is dumb for feeling love for his mother because he doesn't know who she is and she might not even be alive. It's how a person who has these religious feelings acts that shows whether they are intelligent or not.

You should also keep in mind that there are many books out there that make scientific and/or rationalistic arguments for the truth of one religion or another. I have read a good number of these, and although I found them all lacking, they were often lacking not because of the author's lack of intelligence, but because of the author's lack of knowledge, experience, or familiarity with certain logical fallacies. I allow that a person can be very intelligent and still make mistakes -- even very significant ones -- in reasoning.

It all comes down to this. If everyone started life with a clean slate, free from any sort of religious education and bias, and was given the evidence for religion based on today's scientific knowledge, then I would tend to agree that most intelligent people would choose, at most, deism (although I admit a bias in saying this). However, we don't start out that way, and people have all sorts of different needs and ways of thinking. In my opinion, some people just don't have the potential to be atheists, and I can't condemn them for that.

In closing, let me address the statement, "you cannot have a rational conversation with someone that believes in your stupidity for no logical reason." That's true. It's also why I avoid assuming that anyone I speak with is stupid.

(By the way, I think you should be careful when you talk about "most intelligent religious people" and then only mention Christians and Muslims, since that might unintentionally imply a bias against other religions.)

Well said. But point is, I AM a student who is an atheist and I AM boycotted by most students in my school. There's graffiti on my lockers, any books lying about, snide remarks in the corridors (most just slinker away, leaving the corridor empty), I'm totally ignored by the students, sometimes teachers and all. The fact is, I took up atheism when I was 7 years old (although my parents are not) and I never spoke about it. I don't HAVE any problems talking who follow any religion. I mentioned the fact that I'm an atheist in school when I was 11 years old, and since then students have been gradually abandoning me. I said nothing then. For three years about it. But when I was 14, almost everyone had deserted me, and a sea change came across the behavior of others when a new kid came in (extremely religious fanatic). And then started this campaign of vendetta and misinformation against me, and atheism. I still didn't do anything initially, because I held the view that religion should NOT be brought into the academic sphere. But when posters and pamphlets spreading rumors about me, and (ridiculous) ones about secret societies of atheists, they kill people, secret rituals, devil worship etc. started appearing on the school campus. I guess they were jealous too, because I've been to spelling bees, numerous quiz contests, math olympiads, computer symposiums, LUGs, the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, (I'm crazy about science!) and I have been winning many of them.

I held your viewpoint in those days, and initially tried to present the rational side of atheism, keeping my cool. But then, things only got worse. Like my website (the link given below) was hacked etc. Incidents like this made me depressed, ever known how it feels to have NO friends at school, huh? I had seek medical attention from psychologists (talk about atheists requiring shrinks in school) and for a brief period was prescribed Prozac.

I had had enough, and then I too, went on the offensive. With stronger arguments, I got converts (as I mentioned earlier). And with more rational arguments, people did start to see some sense in me, that I was not Satan's remote-controlled being. And also tearing apart (eh, hacking, that is) of the sites / MySpace / Zorpia / hi5 / email addresses of all those making any vicious attacks against me. It worked for me at least.

It's affected me so much that I couldn't bear it any longer and I had to change my school. At least I have an atheism club here (5 members, that's it though). I'm happy here, there are still whispers behind my back, but outright rejection, no.

You talk about children not being allowed to play. Ever asked how those children feel? Did they ignore YOU at school? Ever felt how lonely you can be with practically no friends at all when in school? And what irks me more is when they try to bring in science to prove their point. They're trying to pollute a pure medium free from bias, and frankly, they don't know the scientific principles properly most of the time (poorly informed), which irritates me even more.

Most people are not ready to take up atheism, acceptance is found only when numbers grow. I found that pointing out discrepancies in their reasoning puts more faith in my comments by other students. And it is they who are being irrational and discriminatory, not me. I never ignore a person simply because they're religious.

I very much sympathize with your plight, and although I don't care to go into details about my personal life at this point, I think I know exactly how you feel. You'll note that I don't use my real name on this site, and the site is registered through a company (Pants Aflame) that keeps my name off of everything.

You are, in a certain sense, an atheist in a war zone. I completely agree with you that you should defend yourself and point out discrepancies in others' reasoning and behavior. Where it's possible that we disagree (and at this point I'm not sure we do) is when you talk about using "strong arguments." If by this you mean defending your position to the best of your ability, then we are in agreement. But if you mean "strong" in the rhetorical sense of being forcefully presented, then we disagree. However, after hearing more from you, I don't think this is necessarily what you mean.

I would also like to make sure you understand that I never would say that an atheist should keep that fact a secret, or be a doormat for religious people. But I think that atheists must be careful lest their defenses perpetuate the immoral behavior of others. To take an extreme example, when a minority riots to protest being treated as second-class citizens, it will reinforce the belief of some in the majority that "those people" are like animals and not in control of themselves.

Obviously, you have to do what you feel you have to do to make an awful situation worse. The religious people you describe here are behaving in an incredibly immoral manner, so I can understand your strong reaction to them.

Where I think you are incorrect is in how you wrote about the correspondent who had written to me. Your note about her came across as very mean, even though she had done nothing to deserve this treatment. She is not one of the people abusing you at school. You say that you don't ignore someone just because they are religious, and this speaks well for you. However, I'd suggest that you go a step farther and not speak ill of someone just because they are religious (or scientifically ignorant, for that matter). It's that kind of behavior that makes you look biased and irrational, even if you are neither of these things.

I promised you some links on Kierkegaard and K.E. Løgstrup in order to shower some light on how modern Danish theologians actually take the critique of religion very seriously in their arguments.

Following is a brief description of the main points these two fellows are making in adherence to the debate on this site. But the gist of it all is to give all of you an idea that just because we are a bunch of atheist in here doesn't mean that our arguments are unholy or heathen in any way. It is important to note that both these guys, Løgstrup and Kierkegaard, along with others of note (from Europeans Bultmann and Barth to Americans Paul Tillich and Don Cupitt) are believers, but they accept that the bible or their religious beliefs CANNOT say anything definite about the world we live in. Everything will in the end be human interpretation. Following, we are unable to say anything about god or Creation or miracles etc, based on holy scripture of any kind! As believers you havde to rely on faith alone, WITHOUT PROOF! That doesn't mean that you can't derive morals or ethics or whatever from the bible - but it will always be a subjetive understanding!!!

The only conclusion is that the dominant form of Christianity in Scandinavia and Northern Germany is truly agnostic. This touches on the ongoing debate on this site about the definition of agnostics and atheists. A lot of people insist that atheism is a faith in nothing - an active choice. But if religious faith takes a modern standpoint, like with Kierkegaard and Løgstrup, atheism is nothing but the lack of faith. Faith, says the two theologians, is paradoxical (I'm sure we all agree) in that it is belief without proof or promise of proof. That is the definition of faith. Atheism, says Kierkegaard, is simple the inability in a person to have faith in something that is eternally distinct from the palpable human world. Kierkegaard says further (in Fear and Trembling - Great read: http://home.ddc.net/ygg/etext/fear.htm) that if you are a true believer, you are able to undertake the leap of faith (Yes that is Kierkegaard's invention) without questioning its purpose, and you will receive all the world in return from god. (he uses the example of Abraham and Isaac) An atheist on the other hand will not be able to kill his only son without hesitating a bit and then thinking that it seems a bit crazy, and is as such left alone in the world, with noone to comfort him. Being a believer is hard as hell according to Kierkegaard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kierkegaard - Attack_upon_Christendom_.281854.E2.80.931855.29

http://www.sorenkierkegaard.org/comment.htm

Whereas Kierkegaard describes Abraham as a true heroic believer, Løgstrup is, 100 years later, looking for a way for ordinary people to keep their faith in the face of secularisation. The answer, he believes, is to be found in an ethical interpretation of Christianity that is based not so much on the bible as on the way we express the message of the bible in our daily lives. This may sound utterly boring, and at first glipse it sounds like a fancy way of saying "behave yourselves and then god will like you! But what Løgstrup says, is that since we cannot say anything about god or the afterlife or anything remotely metaphysical, we have to look at ourselves. He concludes that we do NOT behave ethically because some god or other tells us to, but because we agree that that is the best way to do things. This means, he says, that whatever the bible says about good ethical behavior is NOT the voice of god or Jesus, but the words of ordinary people puppeteering god or Jesus to say these things in order to lend them some credibility.

What is left for the theologians to do is then to consider how this ethical behavior is represented in the Christian dogmas, its history and culture, but the important lesson from Løgstrup is that all the believers out there, be they Christian, muslim og Rastafarian cannot lay claim to good behavior. A point I have heard echo on this site often, and which I have now tried to give you a theologian's word for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Ejler_Loegstrup

http://www.rokade.dk/loegstrup/index.php?sprog=en

Unfortunately there isn't much on Løgstrup out there in English, but if you want more his major work Metaphysics has been translated and should be availabe!

More Correspondence

- Home - IAmAnAtheist Blog
- Rights and Responsibilities - Arguments Against -
- The Bitter Atheist's Wish List -
- Products for Atheists - Banner Ads -
Atheize the Dead -
- Ask Yourself to be Moral - Atheism Bingo -
- Comments - FAQs - Links -

Now, take the Atheist Survey