From the Contact Form mailbag:
Hey Bruce, ran across your site blah, blah. UP FRONT , I am a “Christian” and am interested in questioning SOME of your conclusions, simply because I believe they are erroneous. 1.To me, atheists operate under the assumption that their own experience encompasses all there is to know. 2. Our human suffering is evidence or even proof that God is nonexistent (can we conclude the opposite when we see pleasure and beauty?). 3. If we are a product of chance, luck or an accident, then why do we still care about anything (ref. your comments: teaching “good” things to my kids, being remembered, being good at doing something, etc)…who cares? You’ve chosen your “way forward” and I wish you only the best, but these are some things I don’t get.
This person is a Christian and like most Christians knows very little about atheism.
First, I don’t know of any atheist who thinks “their own experience encompasses all there is to know.”
Second, the arguments against the existence of God are many. Yes, human suffering, along with animal suffering, is one bit of evidence in the argument against the existence of deities.
Third, just because a person doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean they find no meaning or purpose in this life. I care because THIS life matters to me. In fact, it matters more to me now than it did when I was a Christian. No heaven, no life after death. All I have is this life. All I have is this brief moment in time.
My wife, children, grandchildren, friends, and neighbors matter to me. I want a better world for them. I want them to be prosperous and live in peace. It matters because I love them and they love me. This is basic, what it means to be a good person, kind of thinking.
Yes, some day I am going to die…end of story. So it is for everyone. If I can help lessen the suffering of others then I want to do so. Again, it matters because I am a good man, a man who cares about other people.
Christians like the person above simply cannot comprehend meaningful life outside the Christian paradigm. For them it is God, Jesus, the Bible, and the Church that gives their life meaning and purpose. They wrongly assume that anyone NOT like them lacks purpose and meaning in their life.
The atheist simply cuts out the middleman. The atheist sees no need for a God to get in the way of living life to its fullest.
Last week two people here in Madison were killed biking in collisions with automobiles. In both cases the drivers were in error, and no doubt remain with grieving hearts for having taken the life of another. In one, a 21-year-old young man was pinned for a couple of hours under the car till they could cut him out with a torch. He died a couple of days later. In the other, a woman of 37 died instantly when she was hit by a truck that veered onto the shoulder as it approached her. These two lives are gone forever, leaving in their wakes grieving families and friends. Prior to the advent of the automobile, of course, God never used this means of killing people. But it was all in His plan of giving the world the internal combustion engine. Multitasking.
We don’t need another church. What we need are better roads, more alert drivers, and bicycle paths. It is so absurd to impose the will of a deity onto the devastating and meaningless losses of life that happen every, every day. All of the glib backtalk to these facts of life by Christians amounts to nothing but callousness. If you want to save the world, start with something tangible.
My take on your second point. The eons of animal and human suffering is not necessarily evidence against a deity. But if that deity is assumed to be as the Christian God is described, it would be aware of the suffering, loving enough to care, and powerful enough to prevent it. But it is not prevented. So any God that might exist cannot be all powerful, all knowing, and all loving.
How instead is the Christian God described? This all loving God has prepared a Hell for those who don’t believe in It, despite the fact that it chooses to remain hidden, and insists that we believe in it because of the existence of fantastic and contradictory stories related by unknown authors writing in more primitive and superstitious times. Wow!
Maybe the reader will keep reading and one day “get it.”
Exactly right. The Christian questioner could have been me 15 years ago. Now that I’ve been on both sides of that particular fence I wonder how it took me so long to “get it”.
Oddly, I feel I have even more meaning and purpose in life now. I want to make this world better for those who come after me, and I realize my time is short. Every day is to be lived to the fullest.
I stumbled onto the much-repeated stat that 80% of pastors’ kids at one time seek professional help for depression. I didn’t see it here, but this has plenty else to say along these lines:
http://www.intothyword.org/articles_view.asp?articleid=36562
I know you’ll appreciate learning why you weren’t able to achieve true success and happiness in spite of the many years spent running yourself down trying.
Your focus was all wrong, they explain…
@ Obiron – Me too.
Hey Bruce, ran across your site blah, blah.
Is that actually the first sentence of the email, or did you edit it for space? Because if it is, holy crap, rude.
I didn’t edit the email. His exact words. And yes, I thought it was rude too. Sadly, a lot of Christians who email me lack social skills. I suppose, since I am an atheist, they think it is ok to treat me like they do. Just like Jesus would do.
Hey Bruce, just ran across your blog, blah blah blah! (Translation on the “blahs”, “God is REAL! He’s ALIVE! How do I know? The Bible tells me so!”
(Furthur translation, “Jesus loves you & so do I!”)
Thanks for stating your response so eloquently. Being an atheist makes me appreciate this life so much more than when I spent my life believing that something better is coming after I die.
Being a product of luck/chance makes me appreciate being alive. This is my ONLY chance to make my mark and leave the world a better place for my children.
Christians operate under the assumption that the earth is a disposable testing ground for god to make sure they are good enough to spend eternity with him. After you’re “saved” why do anything except sit around and wait to die? That’s the logic the writer is using on us.
In case the commenter should happen to read this…I’ll avoid ridiculing his ignorance and attempt to address his points of misunderstanding.
1. Actually the exact opposite is true. Most atheists assume that our experiences do not encompass all there is to know. However, what might be confusing you is the fact that many atheists, myself among them, do believe that everything there is to know falls within the physical domain. In other words, we believe that there is no spiritual world. That is not the same as saying that we can’t understand the spiritual world because we haven’t experienced it while you have, because our point of view is that your experience is not actually spiritual but rather psychological and emotional. In other words…Jesus is all in your head.
2. Human suffering is not disproof of God’s existence. In fact, there is no disproof of God’s existence because the idea that God exists is not actually testable to the degree that it can be proven or disproved. The onus is on the person who wants to claim that God exists to prove it, rather than on the atheist to disprove it, just as someone who wants to claim that unicorns exist will need to prove it to me before I need to disprove it. However, I take your point and to some degree there is some merit to the argument that human suffering on such a vast scale is a point against the type of loving fatherly God who wants what is best for his children, who gave us all life as a gift, and who could foresee the fall of Adam (which caused all human suffering) before he ever created the world.
3. Neuroscience and psychology explains meaning in life. We get meaning in life not because we are religious or not, but rather because our brains are wired for pleasure. Whether it is the short term pleasure of food, sex, and drugs, or the long-term fulfilment of having children, a successful career, of volunteering, it all comes down to the human brain’s needs. For some people religion really does genuinely give them that fulfillment and therefore religion provides meaning to their lives. But that is most definitely not to say that anyone who doesn’t have religion in their life can’t find meaning in other ways.
I hope that helps you get it. I was once very much like you too. Now I get it. Whether you ever leave your religion or not, I hope you will strive to truly understand those who are of a different belief.