The Diary of A Simple Man

A response to a question on Askville which complains that children are forbidden to read the Bible in school, but can read it in prison:

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This is sheer fantasy. You're indulging in a persecution complex.

Your children are perfectly free to read the Bible. They are even free to study the Bible in a comparative religions course, for example. What they are NOT free to do - and what teachers are not free to do - is to use the Bible to indoctrinate students using tax dollars which are collected from all of us, including Christians of other sects than your own, and non-Christians. Why is that so hard to understand?

Children can and do learn about religion in public schools. They are perfectly free to follow their own religion in school, too; for example, I read the Bible several times during recess and lunch while in public school. What is forbidden is indoctrination, proselytizing, and evangelizing, because they interfere with the religious freedoms of others. They also interfere with learning time which is paid for by ALL of us, including non-Christians.

Children are young and easily impressionable. They are required to attend school. It is unconscionable for teachers or even other students to use that school time to try to push their faith on others.

You want to be able to convert others in school because you believe that yours is the majority religion; that your own children will not be forced to endure proselytizing from others. But this violates the Golden Rule. You are NOT giving others the respect and consideration that you would wish for yourself.

Please try and put yourself into the shoes of someone who belongs to a faith other than your own. Some have relatives and ancestors who died for their faiths, even if you consider it to be a "wrong" faith. How do you think they would feel having their children be told in school, perhaps by teachers whose salaries their tax dollars pay for, that their faith is wrong? Do you have the empathy to understand the outrage and hurt that such arrogance inflicts? Can you see the injustice?

It should also be noted that some have used their children to try and force their faith on their fellow students. Since children are compelled by the State to attend school, this is just as wrong as having the teachers force a specific religion on students. School is a place for learning. Part of the price we pay for living in a pluralistic society is that on the subject of religion, the State must show the maximum consideration for the rights of the minority.

Because otherwise we will end up with a tyranny of the majority in every aspect of society. That may seem appealing to you, since you believe that your faith is the majority one. But the time may come when the majority opinion changes - our nation is constantly changing - or that you, yourself, may change your beliefs in some way. When that time comes, you will realize that the tyranny of an unchecked majority is one of the greatest injustices ever devised by Man.

Please consider tolerance.

I'm home sick today. I'll spare you the details. If only I could spare myself the details as well!

Here's an epigram I just derived from an answer I wrote over an Askville about the "risk of faith" in being an atheist:

"We are feeling beings that think, not thinking beings that feel."

My answer to the Askville question "If atheist believe in free speech, why do they slander Christians?" I've been discussing this a lot, of course, so my apologies that most of this isn't new.

Maybe I should write a book about the whole topic of atheism. What do you think?

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I'm afraid that the question, as asked, doesn't quite make sense. Let me deconstruct it, and then I will try to give an answer.

1. Not all atheists necessarily believe in free speech. Atheists are not a uniform body. They share one point in common: they do not believe in the existence of any god or supernatural entity (and there are probably some self-described atheists who DO believe in some sort of supernatural being, although I can't see the sense in that myself). Apart from that, there are Republican atheists, Democratic atheists, Communist atheists, Libertarian atheists, neo-con atheists, socialist atheists...atheists who like chocolate ice cream...atheists who like vanilla ice cream...atheists with diabetes...pretty much the entire human spectrum of experience and thought is represented in the atheist community (with the obvious exception of theism, of course).

So while I hope that most atheists believe in free speech, I'm sure that some don't.

2. Belief in free speech does not preclude slander. In fact, it would be closer to say that the reverse is true; that free speech must, by definition, allow for the possibility of slander. In any case, this is very much an "apples vs. oranges" point. Free speech and slander are neither opposed nor interchangeable.

3. Suggesting that Christian belief is delusional or not based on demonstrable evidence is not "slander". Slander has a specific meaning: "In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation." (Wikipedia)

For such statements to be slander, they would have to be shown to be false. Since no one has irrefutably proven the existence of ANY supernatural being or force (much less the Christian God) no case for slander can be made.

It could also be argued that atheist arguments that Christianity is not based in fact do not harm anyone's reputation, since the vast majority of the American public is putatively Christian. Are they going to believe a fellow Christian, or the statements of a godless, immoral atheist - statements which impugn their own Christian belief just as much?

I'm afraid that simply disagreeing with Christian belief, annoying and frustrating as it undoubtedly is, is not in itself, slander. It's simply disagreeing. Yes, some atheists insult Christians, sometimes gratuitously; as an atheist myself, I regret that they do. But that's hardly a vice restricted to atheists. I've seen far more hatred and insults directed by so-called Christians towards atheists! Probably because there are so many more Christians than atheists.

You'll also see just as many - no, far more - insults being hurled around online and in the real world over politics, sports, and virtually any other topic on which two or more opinions exist.

I have seen a growing tendency in some Christians to claim that any disagreement with their belief, any expression of disbelief in theism, is somehow a brutal attack on Christianity. It is a common truism among some extremist American Christians that Christians are a persecuted people. This completely overlooks the fact that Christians rule America, rule atheists, and have since the founding of the Republic.

Every President has been a Christian, or at least a nominal Christian Deist. Every Senator has been Christian or Jewish. Virtually every Representative and state governor has been too. And it's not as if their faith isn't relevant; every single one of them has loudly proclaimed their religious devotion. This despite the fact that the Constitution mandates that "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"! (Article VI, Section 3)

Meanwhile, atheists have lost jobs for not being Christian. They have had their cars keyed, tires slashed, and their children have faced ostracism and death threats in school - all for the "crime" of not being Christian. And (perhaps worse) for the crime of not shutting up, keeping their heads down, and quietly accepting extremist-Christian-inspired efforts by the government (the Christian government) to infringe on the basic protections afforded to all Americans by the First Amendment. Atheists in our schools and our military face real persecution and discrimination daily for their unbelief...and Christians claim to be persecuted in this country?

That's an insult to Christians and other theists around the world who really DO face persecution - and rape, torture, and murder - for their faith. At the hands of governments in the Middle East and China, for example.

I really am sorry that you feel attacked by the statements of atheists. And I regret any instances where you've been insulted or flamed by atheists; I think that such attacks are not only unproductive, but are actually harmful to the whole idea of inter-faith dialog. I've counseled atheists (and Christians) to try to avoid that approach, because all it does is hurt your own argument.

Having been on the receiving end of such flames (on all sorts of topics) I know how much they hurt. I'm an old Usenet veteran, so I've been called every name in the book. Heck, I was once called "an annoying little a--hole" in a nationally-distributed magazine. Now that was slander! I'm nearly six feet tall, and used to be a defensive tackle - no one has ever called me "little" to my face.

I still get a little angry when I think about that, to tell you the truth. But what I've learned is that is someone starts flaming you, it's a sign that they've run out of other things to say. The secret is to respond reasonably, and let the flames roll off your back - a lesson that I'm still learning.

A post from the discussion thread for the question "Do you believe in any supernatural beings? (GOD COUNTS!)"

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Antony Flew? I hadn't heard of him until several Christians started mentioning him. Then I did a little research.

He's quite an old man - 84 - and didn't publicly express deist views until he was 81. Apparently there is some question as to his mental competence, although of course that could certainly be just an attempt to discredit his conversion. Still, it wouldn't be at all surprising for an old man with fading mental powers to be vulnerable to pressure and/or the fear of death.

I also note that a number of well-known atheists and freethinkers have been falsely claimed to have converted on their deathbeds - Darwin being the most famous example. Not that I doubt Flew's conversion, since it's a matter of public record. However, my understanding is that he has taken a deist view, not a specifically Christian one. You may know more about that than I do, Christian.

It really doesn't matter though. Unlike theists, most American atheists don't subscribe to a leader principle. Christians can swear up and down till they're blue in the face that Darwin, or Sagan, or Einstein, or Flew was (or is) really a Christian. But since atheists neither worship nor follow the religious dictates of ANY human being, the point is really irrelevant.

I don't believe because I don't believe. What others believe, or don't believe, has no effect on my own lack of faith.

As for many atheists becoming believers, I must point out that likewise, many believers have become atheists. Me, for example! Given the social pressure and childhood indoctrination that most Americans experience, it's amazing that there are as many atheists in this country as there are.

Regarding all the books you've been recommending: while I do enjoy this topic, I simply don't have the time to read all that. I've read the Bible many times; if that didn't speak to me (and it didn't) do you really expect some other book will? Particularly since you consider the Bible to be the Word of God - do you think a book written by mere men would be more effective than that?

My reading list is simply too full at the moment. We're finishing Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (359 pages!) and will soon be starting Jenny's Moonlit Adventure and then Doctor Dolittle's Circus. After that, the next Dolittle book will be waiting at the library. I'm booked ahead for months.

In any case, I made my spiritual quest. I read, and thought, and prayed extensively over the years as I made the transition from Christianity to agnosticism to atheism (well, I wasn’t praying in the agnosticism-to-atheism leg of the journey). I reached the answer that satisfied me; the answer that I feel and believe is the truth. I am willing to discuss and consider the issue - in fact, I enjoy it - but I am not going to spend time reading books in order to justify my disbelief in the supernatural.

Keeping up with Christian apologetics would be the full-time hobby of a lifetime. Since I believe that this is the only life I get, I'm not going to waste any more of it than I must.

I’ll still read what you have to say here, of course.

A post from the discussion thread for my question "Christians - tell me your story of being discriminated against or oppressed by atheists?"

By the way, I imagine this topic is now as boring to everyone here as the Hillary/Obama topic. I'll try to stop posting these here.

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[A user talked about dishonest, so I asked him if he felt that I was being dishonest. He replied that HE wasn't judging me, and included a parable about honesty and guilt.]

I wasn't concerned about judging; I was asking about your feelings! Or your opinion, if you prefer.

*sigh*

This is, I suspect, an example of the gap of understanding between us. I laughed at the idea that I would fear a divine judge, just now. And I was a little offended at the implication that I was not honest, but was rather haunted by guilt.

Because in order to fear God's judgement, or to be haunted by guilt for speaking about atheism, I would have to be a believer! And since I am not a believer, I don't have that fear and I am not haunted.

You are effectively insisting on thinking of me (and treating me) as a believer despite my own repeated affirmation to the contrary. In essence, you're saying that I am lying about my atheism. I believe that you are doing this because the atheist position is one that you either cannot or will not understand.

I could try to make the point through analogy. If I were to warn you that for various sins you faced the wrath of Thor, and would need to consider whether you might be on the recieving end of mighty Mjolnir (Thor's hammer), would you tremble with fear and doubt, deep inside? Or would you find the implied threat silly, and laugh?

I'm afraid that no matter how I put it, I cannot get across the point that atheists don't believe. We do not fear God, or judgement, or any supernatural entity. We fear other things; things like injury or the illness of a loved one or ourelves, for example. But our fears are based on the world around us - a world in which we do not perceive a god.

I fear that the power steering on my car is going to need repair soon. And I don't even want to think about the repairs we need to make on our porch roof; that's probably going to eat our tax refund right up.

But I don't fear judgement.

I will admit it disheartens me that I don't seem to be able to get my point across - that atheists really don't believe. I will continue to try to make that point, though. It seems worthwhile.

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Just to clarify, I am not trying to insult your intelligence by saying "...the atheist position is one that you either cannot or will not understand." Since you firmly believe in God, it's only natural that it should be extremely difficult (perhaps impossible) to put yourself in the mindset of someone who truly doesn't share that belief.

I've seen it over and over; Christians making arguments that rest upon the assumption that the listener shares Christian beliefs, deep down. I imagine that it's frustrating when the arguments don't work. It must make atheists seem all the more stubborn, antagonistic, dishonest and (perhaps) insane. God is obvious to you, but we still insist on saying that we do not perceive Him!

I can see how that would be annoying.

A post from the discussion thread for my question "Christians - tell me your story of being discriminated against or oppressed by atheists?" "

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[A pagan user was angry over mistreatment from Christians.]

I fear that I am going to sound pedantic or - still worse! - patronizing. If so, please forgive me.

I understand your frustration, [user]; believe me, I do! But I think it's also important not to turn the issue into a war. Because for one thing, Christians outnumber all non-Christians in the USA combined. If we have a war, we will lose.

Calling them names like "Bible-thumpers" just offends them to no point. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't disagree with them. Nor am I saying that we should stay quiet and try to hide. Not at all! But I think that if we start using angry words and pejorative labels, even in response to theirs, we only give them confirmation of their prejudices (recognizing that not all of them HAVE those prejudices).

And by returning anger for their anger, we give ammunition to those political-religious leaders who are constantly screaming about the terrible danger of non-Christians. That issue is an extremely useful one for them, one they use to incite their followers into a state of useful pliability. Recall the "Two Minute's Hate" from 1984. I think it's a bad idea to help them spread that view of us.

Think of it as a form of verbal non-violence. Gandhi showed how effective that can be. :D

Speak out. Let them know that you don't agree. But remember that your tone and the specific words you choose are also part of your overall message. Make them work for you, not against you!

Here endeth the sermon. I hope it wasn't too annoying. :D

Still more from the discussion thread for the question "God is more interested in you listening to God, than talking to God. Can you explain this?"

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[A user - a Christian, I suspect - who is new to the conversation discussed the question of the desire to have faith, which he considers a gift from God - which seems to imply that God intentionally made atheists.]

I don't think that the issue for atheists is a lack of the desire to have faith. Many atheists who were once Christian desired faith rather desperately, before we deconverted.

Rather, I think it's an actual lack of belief - coupled with an unwillingness or inability to continue trying to fool ourselves or pretend to others.

But I imagine that you could consider belief itself to be a gift from God as well - if he made you, he made your capacity for belief, I would think - so your point still seems valid to me.

It's certainly an issue I've pondered. If God exists, and he loves all human beings, why did he make so many of them that are apparently on that Hell-bound train? "Free will" is the answer, of course, but I don't think it makes sense. Why couldn't God have made a human race that had free will, but was also essentially good enough that most or all of them would go to Heaven? Why did he make a race of "children" of whom the vast majority (according to most mainstream Christian thought) will be consigned to damnation for all eternity – something that he had to know WHEN HE MADE THEM?

Perhaps "free will" is unmodifiable? That is, God's only option for making a free-willed species was one that was mostly defective, from his point of view? But if he is all-powerful, he can change the rules.

If he is omniscent, omnipotent, and all-loving, then the universe must be EXACTLY as he wanted it to be. Every rape. Every murder. Every child molestation. Every war. Every lie, injustice, crime, and sin, no matter how great or small - all of it exactly as he planned.

Free will and omniscience cannot co-exist.

But maybe he's deliberately keeping himself in ignorance, sort of the supernatural equivalent of keeping His eyes shut so as not to spoil the surprise? Even so, since he supposedly DESIGNED human beings, he surely must have known what he was doing - right? So couldn't he have designed a nicer race of human beings, one more pleasing to him and deserving of Heaven?

Sorry; I know that when I start talking like this I probably sound like a Christian, or as if I'm ripe for re-conversion. That's not the case, I can assure you. I just find this sort of intellectual exercise to be fun, to tell you the truth. :D

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[More on the topic of free will - someone claimed there was no such thing.]

If free will is an illusion, then this conversation has no meaning. There would be no "I" and no "you" - we would lack self-consciousness, and be nothing more than a pair of mindless meat-robots blindly following the entropic patterns which were established at the beginning of time.

That's why the free will vs. determinism argument always seemed senseless to me. Because if there is no free will, there is no argument. So put me down on the free will side every time!

My understanding is that there is a level of fundamental uncertainty on the quantum level which makes absolute determinism impossible. But I'm not a scientist, so you may have more information on that point than I do.

More from the discussion thread for the question "God is more interested in you listening to God, than talking to God. Can you explain this?"

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[A user said that Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ had changed many people's lives, and she believe that God had blessed Mel Gibson for that by making the movie an unprecedented success]

Well, [user], I have to admit that you made me snicker with that one.

Mel apparently hates God's chosen people, and after the "Passion" his drunken antisemitic slurs pretty much torpedoed his Hollywood career. He gets a few roles these days, I think, but he's nowhere near the box office god that he was. Mostly he does voice-acting now.

And frankly, the whole idea of the creator of the universe "blessing" somebody because of a movie, well...it's as silly as football teams praying for victory. It's very hard to take that sort of thing seriously.

If God spends all his time dealing with that sort of issue instead of healing children with cancer, for example (which he does not seem to do), then I, for one, would have to question His priorities.

"Forget those 10,000 kids with leukemia, but make sure that Mel's box office is boffo!" - God

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Anyway, given all that, option #4 seems by far the most reasonable explanation to me. But that's just my opinion, and I've already acknowledged that if someone wants to believe that God healed them, I am not going to convince them otherwise. Actually, I don't think I'd want to! Why should I take someone's comfort away from them?

From the discussion thread for the question "Is Atheism a religion?"

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I've been in other discussions with you, [user], so I know that you've been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty remarks due to your New Age inclinations. I didn't know that you'd been down-rated as well, though.

Here's the thing: maybe it's just me, but I make a particular point of not down-rating people for giving opinions that I disagree with. Nor do I give people better ratings because they agree with me. But time and time again I've seen that certain types of answers inevitably get awful ratings - and I'm quite sure that those ratings came from conservative Christians.

There's a degree of pettiness there that appalls me. These people claim to be true followers of what they believe is the ultimate power in the universe, the Creator of all things, the God of Love...and they spend their time screaming online against those who "dare" to disagree with them. They sit there securely anonymous behind their screens and deal out their version of divine vengeance against those whose crime is merely not sharing their belief.

It's kind of pathetic, and at the same time there's a sort of black humor to it, too. Do they think their God is so weak that it's necessary for them to take up a verbal cudgel to defend Him? Perhaps they think that sneering at atheists, quoting a million Bible verses, and down-rating them will somehow open their hearts?

My suspicion is that many of them are so passionate in their hatred of atheists not because they really hate atheists, but because in their minds atheists represent their own doubts and weaknesses. I've noticed that the arguments they make are invariably predicated on the assumption that all atheists share basic Christian belief; why else would they threaten an atheist with Hell when atheists by definition don't BELIEVE in Hell?

I think that all the polemics and rage are really directed at the most important audience of all: themselves. By attacking a "Godless" enemy, they bolster their own feelings of worthiness; a worthiness that they perhaps feel deep down they lack.

From the discussion thread for the question "How can Christians become less judgmental?"

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I have no idea. I suspect that quality isn't amenable to logic or reason, so the only thing I can think of is for Christians to interact more with non-Christians and Christians of differing sects. If they get the chance to see that those "others" are human beings instead of monsters, maybe that would make it less easy to snap to judgment. At least for some of them.

I hope.

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Ah, Christian touches on a point which I've pondered for a long time.

Some Christians "know" that all nonbelievers are surely destined for Hell - and by "nonbelievers", they often mean anyone who doesn't follow the precise same sect of Christianity as their own.

By that logic, it is not only reasonable for Christians to use virtually any means necessary to convert nonbelievers; it is practically a moral duty. The problem is that although these Christians "know" that they're right, nonbelievers disagree.
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