A Manual for Creating Atheists (22 page)

This is a common line among blue-collar liberals who’ve not been indoctrinated by leftist academic values.
¹¹
I’ve never really understood how removing a bad way to reason will make it difficult to get through the day. If anything, it would seem that correcting someone’s reasoning would significantly increase their chances of getting through the day. With reliable forms of reasoning comes the capability of crafting conditions that enable people to navigate life’s obstacles. By using a more reliable form of reasoning, people are more capable of bringing about conditions that enable them to flourish.

Another interpretation of this statement is that it’s the contents of one’s beliefs that help people cope. For example, if one believes a recently deceased loved one has gone to the Happy Hunting Ground (a belief found among certain Native American tribes) where the wild game is in abundance, this makes it easier to deal with that person’s passing. However, if one used sound methods of reasoning one would produce better results and feel more in control of one’s life than unreflectively buying into a commonly held belief about what happens after death. One would thus rely less on the content of one’s beliefs and more on the process one uses to arrive at one’s beliefs.

To argue that people need faith is to abandon hope, and to condescend and accuse the faithful of being incapable of understanding the importance of reason and rationality. There are better and worse ways to come to terms with death, to find strength during times of crisis, to make meaning and purpose in our lives, to interpret our sense of awe and wonder, and to contribute to human well-being—and the faithful are completely capable of understanding and achieving this.

ATHEISM IS CORROSIVE

11. “Without faith, society would devolve morally.”

“I think a world without faith would be a world on the path to tragedy and disaster, I really believe that.”

—Tony Blair
(as quoted in Hallowell, May 15, 2012)

“Last century we tried Godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating: Nazism, Stalinism, Pol Pot-ery, mass murder, abortion and broken relationships—all promoted by state-imposed atheism … the illusion that we can build a better life without God.”

—Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen (as quoted in Stefanelli, 2012b)

This tends to be a late-game line, with Stalin and Hitler always included, sometimes followed by Pol Pot, Mussolini, and the Kims thrown in for good measure. The basic idea is that without objective standards of right and wrong, not only do ordinary people descend into savages, but vicious dictatorships are also inevitable.

“Without faith, society would devolve morally,” is an empirical claim. It’s a claim about the world. It’s also false. To respond, one need only survey religiosity and livability indices among various societies. Scandinavia has the lowest rate of religious belief in the world, yet on virtually all measures of well-being Scandinavian countries top every index (for more on this, see American sociologist Phil Zuckerman’s work).

I usually hear this defense from Christians. One response I offer is, “Saudi Arabia.” (For a one-word response, try “Iran.”) Saudi Arabia has one of the most devout, adherent populations on the planet, yet its citizens lack basic freedoms and are subject to the tyranny of religious police.

Finally, people use the Stalin/Hitler card in an attempt to argue that the worst dictatorships in recent times have had atheists at their helm (Hitler was more likely a deist if not a theist).
¹²
However, even granting this argument’s assumption, these men didn’t act like they did because they were atheists. That is, their nonbelief in a deity didn’t dictate particular actions they took. (This would be akin to arguing that Pol Pot—who was a bad man—didn’t believe in leprechauns, you don’t believe in leprechauns, therefore you’re as bad as Pol Pot.) Their systems were horrific precisely because they resembled faith-based systems where suspending warrant for belief is required (as is the wholesale adoption of an ideology, like Communism, Nazism, Fascism, etc.).
¹³

MISCELLANEOUS

The following are less common defenses of faith, along with my preferred responses:

• Defense
  : “Atheism is just another religion. You have faith in atheism.”
  

  Response
  : “Atheism is a conclusion one comes to as a result of being rational and honest. Atheism is a conclusion that’s based on the best available evidence for the existence of God—which is that there is none. Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is not a belief. Atheism is, basically, the lack of belief in God(s). Atheists follow no creeds or doctrines. They engage in no particular set of behaviors.”
  

• Defense
  : “Much of modern science and practical mathematics is based upon mere ‘native preference,’ not on any rational proof. Faith is the same.” (For an interesting glimpse into this read French mathematician Henri Poincaré’s
  Science and Hypothesis
  , written over one hundred years ago but still pertinent.)
  

  Response
  : “Science has a built-in corrective mechanism that faith does not have. There’s been convergence across all fields of science on virtually all scientific theories since the eighteenth century. At any point in the future, do you ever think there will be convergence on specific faith propositions? I don’t, because those propositions are arbitrary.”
  

• Defense
  : “You should never say such things. You’ll offend people and they’ll think you’re a jerk.”
  

  Response
  : “What people believe, and how they act, matter. They particularly matter in a democracy where people have a certain amount of influence over the lives of their fellow citizens. My intent is not to be a jerk. I don’t buy into the notion that criticizing an idea makes me a bad person. A criticism of an idea is not the same as a criticism of a person. We are not our ideas.
  Ideas don’t deserve dignity; people deserve dignity
  . I’m criticizing an idea because that idea is not true, and the fact that people think it is true has dangerous consequences.”
  

• Defense
  : “You’re just talking about blind faith. My faith is not blind.”
  

  Response
  : “There is no need to modify the word ‘faith’ with the word ‘blind.’ All faith is blind. All faith is belief on the basis of insufficient evidence. That’s what makes it faith. If one had evidence, one wouldn’t need faith, one would merely present the evidence.”
  

• Defense
  : “Atheism and secular humanism are as much a religion—and require as much faith—as any religion. Atheists and secular humanists love to equivocate on religious issues—claiming they are not religious and are free of religious bias—but they are no less religious or faithful than anyone else. They are not aware of their own faith and are blind to their biases. There is a saying: ‘There are
  no
  nonreligious people, only false Gods.’”
  

  Response
  : “Confusing atheism with secular humanism demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the terms mean. Secular humanism is a philosophy and a set of ideals; atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God or Gods. There is no dogma attached to nonbelief in a divine Shiva the Destroyer. And, as to the saying—it’s silly. To assert that people are incapable of letting go of belief in mythological fairytales without attaching themselves to some other form of worship is narrow-minded, condescending, pessimistic, and without evidential merit.”
  

INTERVENTIONS

I’ll now show how I’ve used these responses in two brief informal, dialectical interventions. The purpose of the interventions was to change targeted beliefs held by my interlocutors.

The first intervention was with a colleague (JM) I bumped into on the street. The second intervention was with a friend of a friend (KP) at a party; we were discussing philosophy and faith. Both conversations begin in medias res.

Intervention 1

JM
: What you seem to want to do is to take away everyone’s faith.

PB
: Yeah. Why is that a problem?

JM
: Well what the hell do you think? I mean what do you
really
think?

PB
: It’s not about what I think, it’s about what you think. Why is that a problem?

JM
: I’m not one of your students. Don’t answer a question with a question.

PB
: Okay. Here’s what I really think. I think I should be given some type of community service award for devoting my life to helping people learn to reason effectively. Now could you please answer my question? Why is helping people to abandon their faith a bad thing?

JM
: Because for the most part these are good, decent people. You’re taking good, kind, Christian people and you’re taking away something that they rely on.

PB
: Do you think the thing that they rely upon [faith], do you think that will lead them to the truth?

JM
: Of course not. No sane person could. But it [faith] not only makes them feel good, it also keeps them in check. What do you think would happen if you and X [a colleague] had your way?

PB
: What do you think would happen?

JM
: You know what would happen, that’s why you’re asking me what would happen. They’d be murdering and raping and who only knows what else.

PB
: So you mean that by taking away a bad way of reasoning the natural consequence is that people become murderers?

JM
: The reason that a lot of people don’t rape and murder in the first place is because of religion.

PB
: Well what about Scandinavia?

JM
: You people love to talk about Scandinavia.

PB
: Well?

JM
: Well that’s not the same.

PB
: The same as what?

JM
: The conditions there are not the same as the conditions here, and you know it.

PB
: I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean?

JM
: You know exactly what I mean. I mean they’re not analogous, and you’re making them analogous.

PB
: You mean if all other variables were held constant and the Scandinavians became more faithful, the murder and rape rates would drop?

(Sigh and a long pause)

JM
: You’re impossible.

PB
: So are you willing to change your mind and agree that helping to rid large numbers of people from an unreliable process of reasoning will not have a detrimental effect on the society?

(Sigh)

PB
: Well?

(Sigh)

Intervention 2

KP
: Do you trust your wife?

PB
: To do what? To fly a plane, no. To diagnose a basic medical condition, yes. [My wife is a board certified physician and professor of medicine.]

KP
: Well, I mean, you have faith in your wife.

PB
: Well that’s not the same as trusting my wife, right? Trust and faith are not the same.

KP
: Well, yeah, I mean, you do have faith in your wife, right?

PB
: No, actually, no. I don’t have faith in my wife. I trust my wife to do or not do certain things. I trust her to not abuse our children. I trust her to not pull a Lorena Bobbitt on me. But that has nothing to do with faith. Why do you ask?

KP
: I’m asking because you said that faith is always bad, you know. And I think that you have faith.

PB
: What do I have faith in?

KP
: Well, lots of stuff. [Motioning to my wife] Your wife. When you flick a switch the light will go on—

PB
: I have no faith. My life is joyfully devoid of faith.

(Mutual laughter)

PB
: I don’t have faith that the light will go on when I flick a switch. I know it will both because of past experience and because of the scientific process that enabled that to occur in the first place. Why do you think that has anything to do with faith, or with unwarranted belief?

KP
: Because you don’t know the light will go on.

PB
: That’s true. The light could be burned out—

KP
: So you do have faith that the light isn’t burned out.

PB
: No. I
hope
the light isn’t burned out, but it’s always possible it is. That’s hope, that’s not faith. I don’t believe it’s burned out unless I see it’s burned out. And if it is burned out, then I’ll just replace it. And I know that replacing it will likely work because of my history with replacing bulbs. So I don’t need faith. Faith isn’t required at all. Or am I missing something? Is my reasoning in error?

(Pause)

KP
: No, I guess not.