Jeff Epler jepler@inetnebr.com
I inherited a religious disposition from my parents, attending a Christian church from birth till age 18 at least once a week. I read the bible, attended some youth events, some ``Christian Rock'' concerts, and participated in ``Bible Bowls'' (bible trivia contests), tried to convert my friends, was baptized, and was in general an active Christian. However, I now consider myself an atheist, which means that I do not believe in any god.
There are a number of reasons I am now an atheist, some of them better than others. The event that started me on the road to atheism happened to me while I was still in junior high school. One of my best friends came out to me as gay. Since my brand of Christianity was very anti-homosexual, I was worried that I should try to save my friend from his sins. At the very least, I feared that I would just be so uncomfortable around him that I wouldn't want to be his friend anymore. The truth, however, is that he and I still shared all the same interests as before and continued to get along well as friends. The immediate concern was gone, but a larger question was raised. My religion taught me that homosexual love is wrong and that homosexuals were horrible people, but I had the experience of my own life to tell me that homosexuals can be good people. Was my religion wrong?
Over the next few years, I found other places where I could not reconcile my own opinions with biblical teaching. The inferiority of women, abortion, homosexuality, and divorce were at the top of the list. Except in the case of abortion, the bible is relatively clear on these issues.
There were only two alternatives here. Either the bible was wrong, or I was wrong. However, I could plainly see that homosexuals were not evil, depraved individuals. I knew women who would be every bit as capable as men at performing church functions. Reason and medical information gave me every reason to believe that an abortion, at least at the very early stages of pregnancy, could not be a murder. I could see in my own family that the rules forbidding divorce were making the life of my mother into hell. In short, I could see that the bible was wrong.
But just because the bible was wrong on one thing didn't mean it was all wrong. Did it? Unfortunately, the bible itself claims that it is inerrant, or without error.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18, NIV)Of course, this verse could be wrong. So could any verse with which I happened to disagree. In a court trial, a witness who was wrong on some facts wouldn't be trusted on the others. Surely I could expect better of God and his bible than of a mere fallible human. But God didn't do a very good job making sure that I could trust the bible on all counts.
. So, I could obviously trust it on none.
Here I was, still with faith in God, but I didn't know who God was, what he wanted me to do or not do, and I had no way to find out. But that was okay, because personal revelation, ``finding God inside oneself'' was very fashionable. Unfortunately, God never spoke to me, told me what was right or wrong, nothing.
Then I was introduced to the Argument From Evil. This is an atheistic argument that God must not exist, because there is evil in the world. According to Christians, God is all-powerful and all-loving. However, there is evil in the world. If God were really all-powerful or all-loving, he would both wish to prevent evil and be able to do so. So, God must either be not all-powerful, not all-loving, or maybe he's neither.
The usual theist reply to this argument is that evil is a necessary consequence of God's gift of free will. It is more important to God that we have free will than that we live in a world free of evil, and he cannot stop evil without taking away our free will. Despite the fact that this counter-argument admits that there is something that God cannot do (i.e. that he is not all-powerful), it only answers half of the problem of evil. There is not only the evil that people do to one another, but also the evil that is done to people by the world at large.
The Argument From Incidental Evil embodies this thought, with ``Incidental Evil'' being such things as AIDS, the destruction of Pompeii by volcano, or even mosquito bites. Here, the Free Will objection doesn't apply, since volcanos, HIV viruses, and mosquitoes aren't the sorts of things we claim God has given Free Will to. However, God had to have created them or planned for them when he created the universe. He had to know (he's all-powerful) that volcanos would kill people, AIDS would kill people, and mosquito bites would annoy them. However, these things exist anyway. So either God is not all-powerful (he couldn't create things correctly) or he's not all-loving (he deliberately made these things, knowing that they would have bad consequences for human beings).
But, suppose that there's no truth in the bible, there is no God, no Jesus; why would anyone choose to act in a moral way? How do we even know what is moral and what isn't? I finally came to a conclusion much like this quote expresses:
Anyone who has debated the existence of God with a Christian is sure to have been presented with some variant of the following proposition: ``If God does not exist, then there is no reason to do x,'' where x is any kind of behavior that most of us think morality requires. For instance, a missionary that intercepted me en route to the UIC Bookstore last month informed me that if God did not exist, then there would be no reason for one to remain faithful to one's spouse or to care for one's children. Such assertions are meant to imply that atheism is a path to evil, and Christianity a path to good. However, they actually prove quite the opposite.Imagine that somehow, someone comes up with a conclusive disproof of the existence of God. What would happen to my missionary friend? He believes that if God does not exist, there is no reason to be faithful to his wife or to care for his children. So in the face of proof that God does not exist, this missionary would apparently give in to whatever lust and laziness he might feel, and thus wreck what should have been a close, loving family.
How about an atheist like me? What would a conclusive disproof of the existence of God do to my moral stature? Considering that I don't believe in God to begin with, the answer is that a disproof of the existence of God would not cause me to change my moral views at all. But I think I can speak for most atheists when I say that cheating on one's spouse or abandoning one's children is not morally acceptable. As far as the atheist is concerned, the Christian assertion that ``if God does not exist, then there is no reason to care for one's children'' is false. The Christian may believe that proposition if he wants, but we atheists will have no part of such immorality. Although, judging from their assertions, Christians seem to believe that it is wrong to abandon one's children only if God exists, atheists believe it is wrong to abandon one's children regardless of whether or not God exists, and this gives the atheist a much stronger moral foundation than the Christian.
As an atheist, I would do right things because I know they're right. As a theist, I could only do right things because someone else - A preacher, the bible, or God speaking from a burning bush - told me it was so. The viewpoint that I, as an atheist, could make morally right decisions is even backed up by the bible in the following convoluted verses.
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) (Romans 2:13-15, NIV)
The last few nails in the coffin of my christianity were put in place by reading about the religion's worst examples. For instance, there are certain christians known as ``creationists'', who believe the bible literally in every respect. The earth was created in 7 days of 24 hours each, oil and coal deposits were created when the biblical flood caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, the theory of evolution is false, etc. One example of the intellectual dishonesty of these folks appeared in a 1983 PBS program on creationism. Biochemist Russell Doolittle, apparently speaking against creationism and for evolution, mentioned the similarity of chimpanzee and human proteins. Duane Gish, a prominent creationist, replied:
If we look at certain proteins, yes, man then - it can be assumed that man is more closely related to a chimpanzee than other things. But on the other hand, if you look at certain other proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a bullfrog than he is to a chimpanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a chimpanzee.
Schadwald tried to contact Gish twice asking for supporting documentation for his claim, such as experimental results or a citation of a scientific paper. The first letter got no reply, and the second pointed Schadwald to a geochronologist, Garniss Curtis. Curtis told Schadwald that he had attended a conference in Austria where he heard that someone had once found bullfrog blood proteins very similar to human blood proteins. Curtis has since re-told the story as a joke, suggesting that the ``frog'' which yielded the proteins was really an enchanted prince. No actual evidence has yet appeared to support Gish's claim.
This is just one example of a person who has faith in the bible and, because of that, either ignore evidence that is very obvious or deliberately lie about things in support of their belief.
Also, I read transcripts of debates on various theistic or religious topics. In general, these seem to feature theists repeating the same old theistic arguments, the atheist making the standard rebuttal and some arguments of his own, the theist ignoring the rebuttals and arguments of his opponent and making more traditional arguments. The conclusion I drew was that the atheist was there really trying to have a meaningful discussion, and the theist was not. While it's not right to make a decision about a belief based only on the character of those who believe it, this was still part of my decision.
All these things put together have made me into the atheist I
am today. I think I am a better person for the change. No matter what
you believe, you should question or research those beliefs to make sure
they're not based on incorrect assumptions or outright untruths. I
know that no matter where my beliefs wander in the future, they will
always be backed up by the best information and reason possible.