On the Twitter, I find myself having an interesting conversation with a Christian who began the talk by asking me if I felt that Dawkins was helping anyone when his message seems to be that he hates God. How can hate be helpful, he asked, and why don't more atheists dedicate themselves to building relationships with the religious community rather than isolating themselves from the religious by way of harsh criticisms of God.
I feel like these are all really good questions, not because of the questions themselves, but they're good questions because they expose a fundamental difference in thought that makes it difficult for theists and atheists to get along.
First off - atheists don't hate God. Some of us hate the concept of God, but to say that an atheist hates God is like saying a Jewish person hates Satan. They don't hate Satan, they don't even believe in Satan. The same is true for atheists and God. Hating a concept is not the same thing as agreeing that a concept physically exists.
I told my twitter pal that if he had questions about Dawkins' personal motivations that he would have to ask him, however I did say that for a lot of people in a lot of areas of the world - the US included - being an atheist openly was a great way to lose your job, lose the support of your family, or otherwise be treated badly. People like Dawkins are appreciated in the atheist community not because they're perceived as being hateful but because they give a lot of people hope and encouragements about themselves as human beings.
How many times have you heard from one source or another that atheists lack morality? That atheists are sub human, incapable of being parents, are inherently selfish, shouldn't be allowed in positions of influence, are untrustworthy, and on and on and on? Is it any surprise that there is an outpouring of support for authors like Dawkins and the like who are publishing books that say - "you're not a bad person for thinking this way. I think this way too, and here's why." Of course people who are atheists are going to look at the bible and say 'why does it contradict itself? If God is loving, why did he kill so many people? Why did he kill babies and tell men to stone their wives and sell their daughters?' When you reject the divinity of something, it's far easier to see all of the parts that comprise the whole.
Logically, this criticism is going to be offensive to the religious. Of course it will be. But I think it's unfair to say that people like Dawkins are wrong or destructive in their actions because they offer the kind of support that a lot of non-religious people need right now. Would it be fair to say that slaves in 1870 who distrusted the forces that oppressed them and worked to create support structures for their people were being unhelpful or hateful because they weren't trying to build bridges with the people who were in positions of influence and power over them? Of course not. Slavery and atheism are vastly different circumstances, but the social repercussions of being an outsider in a society is the same regardless of who is being excluded. I don't think atheists are to a point yet where we have the political or social clout to build bridges - we're still convincing ourselves that we're not broken human beings for rejecting God despite a large, vocal, and powerful group of people who still have no qualms telling us we are!
So no, I don't think Dawkins is a bad guy for what he says or even how he says it. I think he's a reflection of how a lot of atheists feel around the world - we are good people with strong moral values and our lack of belief in God is not an excuse to marginalize us.
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Trevauhn · 791 weeks ago
Well don't take it personal, I am willing to accept you, just not your faith. Yes, your faith. Your faith/belief is far to great for me to handle. As I said before, it is the Christian duty to love the world as God did. So if you meet someone who says they are a Christian but don't, atleast, respect you because you're a fellow human being, that Christian has no place with God. Though I can't guarantee this, but if all Christians were kind and loving to Dawkins, he might actually have become a Christian.
I willingly consent to your point about atheists hating God. That is a very good point and my mistake for calling one such as yourself hateful. On the other hand, in this great United States you will find atheist teachers who refuses to teach creation as a viable alternative to evolution. In my mind, I count that as a form of hate. NOt just for the religious institution itself. But for the values that Christianity holds sacred.
in reponse to the slave comment: I agree with you, it is quite difficult to build a bridge of communication and respect between two people who hate each other. And many people have lost their lives in that struggle. But I guarantee you that it is a worth while struggle. Martin Luther King jr, was not great simply because he was black. But he was great because he was treated as a slave, yet he rose above it with a dream of peace between the two races. I don't get from Dawkins's books that he's much of a peacemaker. That doesn't seem to be his agenda.
I apologize ahead of time for the harsh words I'm about to write. But Dawkins seem more like a revolutionary. And not one who is looking for good communication. All his efforts seem like he wants to out do Christianity; the billboards, the books, and the institutions he has started. He has expressed his feelings clearly, but his expressions based on ill facts can be detrimentally fatal. Especially if he develops a following. Like a blind leading a blind, they are bound to fall into a pit. If Dawkins is incorrect about his feelings, you and all the other atheists who follow his writing are in serious trouble. And blaming a few bad Christians will not cause you to escape this one.
Guest · 791 weeks ago
if you want a 'biblical' argument for this? Surrender unto Ceasar ... Would come to mind. Keep religion in your temple and off the street where it scares the horses
Trevauhn · 791 weeks ago
My problem with evolution theory is this: evolution wants to start with cosmic soup, or cells from another planet or some other crazy notion. The odds those theories are so astronomical, I wouldn't even call it science. But all you have to do is examine the natural process of what we have and realize that there is a Father from whom all parents come from. There is a Father from whom all creation comes. The bible says humanity is created in his image. So we are also made to bring forth children as he has brought forth all things in creation. Think about it, there has to be a being more complex than ourselves in order to create complex beings such as we. It only makes sense right. If parents have parents and so on, then there has to be (based on common sense) a grand daddy parent of them all.
I'm not too sure how surrender unto Ceasar comes into play here but...Jesus was talking about paying taxes. The Jews were oppressed by the Romans, so his disciples didn't like paying taxes to Ceasar. But Jesus said, "Surrender unto Ceasar" meaning, honor Ceasar simply because he is the ruler. Disciples of Jesus must honor their leaders and rulers, even if they oppress you with taxes. If you're attempting to draw a line between that and the separation of church and state, it won't work out very well.
Politics is not my strength, but our Christian forefathers of America never meant to exclude God from the classrooms. Separation of church and state was so that the government couldn't control the church. I have plenty of proof if you'd like. There is an indispensable quality which can only be found in the Holy Scriptures, not in Native American or Greek mythology. It is that quality that gave the Mayflower the strength to stick out the cold winters and it's the strength of Jesus Christ and his words that formed our killer government. The more we remove God from our lives, I guarantee, the more America will suffer in its education and politics.
pinko_commie 65p · 791 weeks ago
Evolution says absolutely nothing about how life was created. It has to do with how and why new animals exist and why some animals die out.
It is a verifiable fact that gradual changes over time produce different kinds of living organisms. We know for a fact this happens. It's the mechanisms by which evolution works - speciation and the like - that are still considered theories.
The issues you mention seem to be with abiogenesis - a subject which isn't taught in public schools.
How can you rationally oppose a scientific theory about which you seem to know very little?
It's as if a mechanic is trying to tell you how your car works and while you have absolutely no idea how a car works, you keep deciding he's wrong because you heard a guy who fixed a boat once say so. It's very frustrating.
trevauhn · 791 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
pinko_commie 65p · 791 weeks ago
1. This is an extension of the No True Scotsman argument. You keep mentioning the concept of a 'True Christian' but the problem with that argument is that your concept is subjective, not objective. You say that people have the power to transform the bible into something monstrous and others say that the bible is a monstrously violent and evil piece of literature than some people can transform into being a good and moral story. Who is right? I don't know of any atheists, Dawkins and other prominent atheists included, who would say that there's nothing good in the bible. You claim that people who don't read the bible and extract meaning from it and apply it to their lives are somehow using the book incorrectly, but who are you to claim that a book your own god created is so imperfect that one can't simply read it and follow it and understand it correctly? Why would your god make it such a puzzle? That just doesn't make sense to me. Mass infanticide isn't supposed to be seen as horrific? Selling your daughters into slavery is meant to be some kind of lesson? Who are you to say you know what that lesson is? If we look at the bible literally it is a pretty horrible, violent, hateful and at times wise piece of literature - to insist that the bible requires more than a literal consideration is either an implication of imperfection or an argument that your personal opinions about god are the only ones that matter, thus your illogical creation of the illusive true christian.
2. I know that Dawkins has said that he was never mistreated personally by anyone who was religious - he's not an atheist because he's rebelling or because he was hurt. Hardly any of us are. We're atheists because we look at the tangible, logical evidence available to us and make the intuitive leap to atheism. Faith is a belief you have regardless of evidence. Atheism is often a conclusion one comes to when considering all evidence available to us at this time. You can claim atheism takes faith, but I maintain that those who make this claim misunderstand faith altogether, which seems very unfortunate considering faith seems to be a pretty important virtue to religious folks.
3. Creationism isn't science and therefore it has no place in science class. They actually took the theory of Intelligent Design to court and proved that in order to accept ID as science, science would have to be expanded to the point where astrology would also be science. Do you honestly believe that horoscopes are also science? Of course not. Science is a means by which to test the verifiable. Creationism centers around a creator who is unverifiable by definition. No one is 'hating' religion by not allowing creationism to be taught as a science, they're simply saying that religion isn't science. Why is that so insulting to theists? (cont...)
trevauhn · 791 weeks ago
Testament. Buy a children's bible story book and have them read it every night for a week. I guarantee you will not only see a change in your child's behavior, but your child will explain more about God than even what I can do. It's AMAZING to hear a child explain complex things out of the bible. There is no other religion in the world like Christianity, it will not work with any other Holy Book. Mr Flew is one atheist among others who have found that the Christian God revealed through Jesus Christ is the only one who truly lives up to what he claims. I'm loving this conversation, I'm so excited right now, you would actually think i'm crazy....
2. Well that's not what you said. You said that there was hate going around. That Christians have made you out to be something you're not. So I take it hate is another factor why you chose atheism. Alright...but let's be honest, have you really considered all the facts or did you just read a few books? Have you really considered everything, not just what someone else wrote. The bible says, "creation proclaims the glory of God." Have you really had the time to stop and smell the coffee. To look at creation in it's simplicity which is yet so complexity. I was driving the other day and saw a flock of birds flying. They were just flying around in patterns. And it would seemed so beautiful to me. Then I thought to myself, what the heck are they following. Is there some invisible path in the sky why they fly around like that. Then I asked myself, why do I say something like that is beautiful. Why am I so captivated by it. Just look at some of those youtube videos where people film life in their backyard. Have you really considered everything?
3. Well I'm sure psychology, the study of human behavior and mind, wasn't considered a science at one point. Until someone started running some experiments. And as I said, it is terribly hateful to actually take ID to court and rule out the experiments before they could actually happen. Why not allow our bright college students to explore instead of limiting it to one person's subjective perception of what science is. This is not a rejection of religion, but this is a rejection of God. Those who have done this, don't want God so they figured the only way to keep God out is to declassify Him. In an educational institution of higher learning, should not every facet of life receive just treatment. Majority of American's believe that there is a God, shouldn't that be enough to give way to research; Instead of picking and choosing what to study. I would have no problem studying horoscopes and the effect of the moon on the behaviors of man. Who knows there might be an important discovery in the stars. That would be exciting to me.
pinko_commie 65p · 791 weeks ago
Arguably the most prominent and influential ID scientists and institutions argued in a court of law under oath that ID wasn't religious at all and had no ties whatsoever to creationism, yet it was discovered that the very textbook that the ID side wanted to put into the curriculum was the exact same theistic text which was formally rejected. The ID proponents took a creationist text and replaced the words 'creationism' with 'intelligent design' and 'creator' with 'designer'. That was literally the only difference between the text found from the 70's and the text the IDers were trying to push in 2005.
Given this knowledge, your position seems to be that it's hateful not to a teach a theistic, unconstitutional idea (ID doesn't fit the scientific criteria to actually be considered a theory) which has been created by people who are willing to lie under an oath to a god they supposedly believe in to try to make it into something even they know it's not - a scientific theory. What about the entire theistic community responsible for lying in order to perpetuate ID? Doesn't it bother you that ID was unable to stand on it's own merit, that it's most core proponents were caught out rightly lying about it? Or are they also not real or true Christians? Of course if that were true, you - being a real Christian - would have no reason to believe the pseudo-scientific propaganda they're pushing. And yet here we are having this argument.
I respect religions and the religious as faith based theistic views. I respect anyone's right to a belief whether I agree with them or not. A lot of nice people that I know are religious and some of those people attribute their happiness and kindness to their religion and I respect that. I actually think it's kind of lovely. But when religious people start pushing their way into science and try to re-write reality in order to fit their personal flavor of delusion, it goes from lovely to ugly and dangerous real quick.
I feel like if you had truly strong faith, you wouldn't feel so insecure about science that you would feel compelled to try to compete with it. Science deals with the verifiable. The Christian God is unverifiable by his own word, thus you must have faith in order to follow him. Faith is seen as a virtue, right? So logically, science and religion only clash to people who are so insecure in their belief that they become irrationally defensive toward information that actually has nothing to do with their beliefs at all.
Trying to force a system that only exists to study and gain conclusions from verifiable data to accept concepts that are unverifiable is a manifestation of weak faith and defensiveness on the part of those theists who, for whatever reason, are desperate to have their god stamped with a scientific seal of approval.
What can possibly be gained from trying to smash a square peg into a round hole?
Brandonio · 787 weeks ago
Try to fight the inevitable all you like,but facts are facts,and it's time to face them.
pinko_commie 65p · 791 weeks ago
5. Again, I'm not a die hard fan of Dawkins, but I think you misunderstand his actual influence in the atheist community. He is an example of one of us, but not a leader of all of us. He expresses sentiments that a lot of us agree with, but he's not the 'forefather of atheism' that theistic people seem desperate to make him out to be. It's insulting to assume that we atheists are all lost lemming souls following a bitter old man into a pit of evil. I suppose it's backwardly kind of you to try to push the accountability for my atheism onto a man you seem comfortable demonizing but that's entirely incorrect. I'm an atheist because I don't think god exists. I don't think god exists based on all of the evidence I've come across so far. I am not opposed to a god existing, I'm just unconvinced that one actually does. I am, however, entirely convinced that if god did exist, it wouldn't like Christianity one bit.
It's also at this point that I would like to ask you why you never asked me what books of Dawkins I had read or what exposure I had to him? It seems like you assume that all atheists you run across have "The God Delusion" tucked under their arm with their favorite passages highlighted in yellow, but that couldn't be farther from the truth in my case. I'm also curious, what books of his have you read? How did you form your opinion of him?
trevauhn · 790 weeks ago
Write another article if you please and I"ll drop by and comment.
Trevauhn · 791 weeks ago
5. Well i think you underestimate the word leader. One doesn't have to claim to be a leader to be a leader. All you have to do is start leading. That is what he's doing. Dawkins is putting his thoughts out there for people to follow. My friend, that's a leader. Never said that he was the forefather, I know a little history. His way of thinking is not new. But that's what we have to contend with in this modern age. I'm sorry for demonizing him, but you are what you eat. Not following him into a pit of evil, but there will come a time that you will get exactly what you ask for. You want a world without religion and God, eventually you will get it. And it won't be pretty.
I have a question for you: Can you name off the top of your head 10 good things Christians have done in this world?
pinko_commie 65p · 791 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
I've just read the whole thread and I'm even more convinced that your attempts at an adult, rational conversation are almost useless. Trevaughn insists on attacking from an irrational and hateful position of blind faith. He has not read any of the books in question but purports to know what's in them in the same way he accuses those of us who are atheist of not reading his holy book.
Trevaughn invokes Xian martyrdom: what of all those Xian lives lost because of Xian wars? What of all those non-Xians killed by Xians in 'just' wars? What of all those gays abused and sometimes killed because Xians considered them sinners and perverts?
His last 'bring them on' comment made me think of a perverse Don Quijote, who just did battle with a gang of phantoms attacking his delusions and is now ready to battle other phantoms. He was not doing battle with you nor with your ideas...he never came close to really answering your questions and his long statements rambled and lacked any cogency to parallel your excellent article.
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
Atheists/Agnostics/Exchristians are still pretty much dispersed and easily discriminated against in ways that laws don't seem to protect.
Aurelio Montemayor · 790 weeks ago
"we are good people with strong moral values and our lack of belief in God is not an excuse to marginalize us. "
I thank you very much for that final statement.