Helen wrote a post over at our sister site about Ricky Gervais and his path to atheism. Go and check it out. I’ll wait…
..OK..
Good. I wanted to focus on one particular phrase that he came up with:
Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.
You know how some Christians, particularly fundamental Christians, say that atheists do secretly believe in God, deep down? That we’re just denying it for some reason. Well sometimes I think the same thing in reverse. I believe that everyone “knows” that there is no God but refuses to accept it as it would go against so much that they have built up and losing God would be like pulling the carpet out from under them.
Sometimes I think that but then I remember that I’m only transferring my own opinions onto others and that isn’t fair. The “truth” of atheism is blindingly obvious to me but, you know what, that’s just me. There are people who see the “truth” of Christ as obvious and incontrovertible or the “truth” of Vishnu. I cannot prove a lack of any god any more than I can prove the existence of one. That means that all of our theistic tendencies are opinions and they matter only to us.
It is our actions that are important. You and I are free to believe in anything we like but it is how we implement that belief that is the measure of ourselves.
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My middle daughter, Caitlin, loves dragons. She devours stories of the fierce beasts of mythology and boos the horse backed knight in his quest to kill her favourite creatures. She won’t have it that stories with evil dragons are just as good and entertaining as those with good and noble dragons.
She is now 11 years old but when she was a few years younger we spent a pleasant day at her cousins home in the country. Aunt K, Uncle Mike and Baby Sean live in an old farm building overlooking a number of fields. One typically has sheep in, some further off have cows, some have crops. We enjoyed looking at the animals and trying unsuccessfully to get the sheep to come over to be fed. Mike explained what was in some of the fields and his claims gradually got more outlandish. One field had elephants in, another was full of old cars, finally he claimed that one had a dragon in.
Cait was intrigued as only a gullible child can be. She stretched as far as she could over the gate and fence and craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the fabled beast of her dreams. We buoyed her on with our own jokes and claimed that we could make out a wing tip or the edge of a scaled tail. Was that noise the flap of mighty wings or a roar of flame? She loved it and had a fantastic time, even now she talks of the time that she saw a dragon, her imagination filling in the gaps of what she didn’t see.
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Today is the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth. Apparently he’s an important figure in American history, what with him being the third President of the United States and all. Given the significance of the day I thought that it was worth spending a few minutes talking about him. Please take into account that I’m not an American and American history and politics were never part of my childhood education. Any errors and omissions are a result of the dodgy websites where I’m getting my information. ;)
I’m going to concentrate on Jefferson’s famous religious opinions given that this site is dedicated to the dialog between atheists and theists. Raised in the Church of England (the name itself is conclusive proof that God is English, as if the sense of humour weren’t a big enough clue) he converted to the deist philosophy. He believed in one God, divine moral law and divine providence but not in supernatural revelation. He viewed Jesus as a great teacher but not as the incarnation of God or as a messiah. Perfectly reasonable beliefs if you ask me.
Jefferson’s conclusions about the Bible are noteworthy. He considered much of the new testament of the Bible to be lies. He described these as “so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture”. He described the “roguery of others of His disciples”, and called them a “band of dupes and impostors” describing Paul as the “first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus”, and wrote of “palpable interpolations and falsifications”. He also described the Book of Revelation to be “merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams”. While living in the White House, Jefferson began to make his own condensed version of the Gospels, omitting Jesus’ virgin birth, miracles, divinity, and resurrection, primarily leaving only Jesus’ moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible.
When I read that I just had to laugh. It’s a fine example of cherry picking and is about as close to atheism as you can get and still believe in God.
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