The Friendly Atheist forums have had a recent discussion about the spectrum of Christianity or what it means to be a Christian. There are atheists with a wide variety of opinions including ex-Christians but there are also some Christians who comment. There is a great deal of disagreement on what a Christian is. They range from my own view that the only thing that is needed to be a Christian is that a person calls themselves a Christian to much stricter views that include belief in the following;
- The Trinity.
- That Jesus came to be sacrificed for our sins, and accepting Him into your heart saved you.
- The Bible as the inerrant, “God-breathed” word.
- The existence of God and divinity of Jesus.
- The existence of Heaven/afterlife with God.
- Prayer as a means to communicate with God (at least one-way communication).
- The resurrection and virgin birth and other miracles from the Bible as well.
- The duty to evangelize, as instructed by Jesus before he went back to heaven.
- Particular Christian beliefs as the only way to be saved from damnation.
- Belief that God has a plan for everything and everyone.
- Belief that being a Christian is generally a prerequisite for being a good person, or for being trustworthy.
- Belief that pastors hold a certain amount of authority as counselors and generally wise people.
Not being a Christian and not having been raised in the Christian tradition I have no way to tell what a Christian is beyond their own claims to that identity. A Christian can even reject everything that is supernatural from the bible as Thomas Jefferson did and still identify as a Christian. Is Christianity then a philosophy of living? Could an atheist who follows this philosophy be a Christian if they chose to adopt this label?
Posted in Atheist/Christian Dialog, Jason | 16 Comments »Over the last several months I’ve tried to list common reasons why many people fail to believe in gods or God. I’ve talked about different kinds of atheism, about how evidence and how it does not lead to God, about how God isn’t necessary to living, about how some of the common argument for God are not convincing for me, the Problem of Evil, science as a better way of explaining things, the lack of meaning in the term “God”, god belief as a function of the mind. and as a function of society.
These are common reasons really and not exhaustive. If you ever choose to spend time looking at deconversion forums you’ll also note others. What all of these boil down to and indeed what every reason for disbelief boils down to is that God is not apparent. It is not obvious that God is real or, for those who choose to put their faith in the spiritual, which god is real.
There are some fine things in religion. There is a message of charity and kindness, of love and acceptance. A supernatural agency lends credence to these ideas and further motivates people who choose to follow a faith. Religion is cause for great beauty in this world, of fine art and sublime music. Belief in God has inspired people to do great things. Belief in God has also inspired people to do terrible things but I’m not going to dwell on that today.
Despite the huge influence that god belief and religion have had and continue to have on people none of it proves that God is real or false. None of it. Logic and reason can take us down both routes if we follow them in certain ways. Evidence can show nothing of God or everything pointing to God if we let it. We can explore our own psyches as individuals and as society and either see God in our hearts and minds or find them lacking any trace of the divine.
There are lots of people who aren’t aware of the existence of a loving God. There are lots of people who see only their (perhaps false) gods and dismiss others as unreal. It’s difficult to credit any one religion as being true or any one god as being true when there have been so many throughout human history. None appears to have any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. Shouldn’t God, a true God, be more obvious? Shouldn’t the words of the bible reveal themselves perfectly to the reader? Shouldn’t God be apparent?
I want to thank you for sticking with this latest series. That’s all I have to say about reasons for disbelief except that I don’t see any of them as a choice or as a reaction. I don’t think that people choose to believe or disbelieve but find what works well for them. God belief doesn’t present itself to me even though I have explored the idea and I’m sure the same is true of those Christians who have explored life without God. I think we all look at things in a way that reinforces our own notions and even when we are aware of this we cannot avoid it. It’s just the way we’re made.
Finally I want to point out a few things that I have not given for lack of belief. I think that the reasons I have given are reasonable, even if you do not agree with them or that some might seem weak. I have not written anything about the actions of the Old Testament God and of religions in waging wars or annihilating whole nations, or nearly everyone if the Flood story is true. I have not mentioned anything about the way religions treat those who do not conform to their ideas. I have not written anything about atheists hating God. I’m sure I don’t need to separate the action of religious men and women that may give some atheists a reason to hate the faith and the God that we do not believe in and so have no reason to despise. In short I’ve tried to avoid the emotional response to the idea of God as a reason not to believe in God. I don’t think that it is helpful.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Jason | 13 Comments »Over the last few month I’ve provided some of the common reasons why many people fail to believe in gods or God. I’ve talked about different kinds of atheism, about how evidence and how it does not lead to God, about how God isn’t necessary to living, about how some of the common argument for God are not convincing for me, the Problem of Evil, science as a better way of explaining things and about the lack of meaning in the term “God”. Last week I looked briefly at God belief as a function of the mind. This week I look at God belief as a function of society.
Human beings are social animals. We have evolved to function well in groups and have created ideas to reinforce social cohesion. Religion and belief in a god who watches us and judges our actions is a way to fulfil these functions in society. The actual non-existence or existence of a god are secondary to the social function that religion has.
In the 19th century Ludwig Feuerbach, a German philosopher, suggested that God was ”In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object” or that God was merely a way for human beings to express the concept of infinity onto a supernatural being. We conjure the anthropological form of God to explain that which eludes our explanation.
Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, also expressed the idea that religion was a product of human society. Religion has many useful social functions. Group cohesion is maintained through shared worship and shared moral ideas. Religious ritual draws a group together in performing a social function and allows for individual members of the group to experience a mental state similar to other members. This, in turn, creates a feedback loop where the good feelings in shared religious worship are self promoting and helpful to maintaining the group structure and integrity.
What Durkheim claimed though is that there is nothing more to religious expression than the reinforcement of group beliefs and the collective conscience. His claim was that the supernatural simply did not exist and any religious experience arising from the ritualisation of the belief was simply the result of a heightened state of mental arousal.
Durkheim condensed religion into four major functions:
Supernatural agents were not required. “God is society, writ large”
Karl Marx considered the supernatural including God as illusory and religion to be a force that held human society back. As a social institution the prevailing faith reflected the society that the dominant order in the society seeks to maintain. The ruling classes make use of the faith of the masses to maintain their elevated position and curtail social movement and rebellion. The majority working classes are therefore oppressed by the enforcement of a shared delusionary belief system. The illusion that religion offers: joys to come after death; stoicism in the face of adversity; righteousness in oppression. These are distractions that keep the workers from forcing social upheaval to make their lives better.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
- Karl Marx
He didn’t stop there though. Marx considered the positive aspects of religion to be a theft from the common man. Charity, honesty, beauty, self sacrifice, bravery, these positive traits and more were granted to a supernatural agency as the noblest of ideals. In doing so humanity was robbed of all that made it good and forced to rely upon an outside force rather than upon ourselves. We cannot achieve greatness or reach our potential while we defer our best qualities to thing apart from our own humanity.
Furthermore, by providing an illusion of happiness through religion the will to combat the social and economic oppression of the workers was denied. He argued that only by rejecting religion could the genuine happiness of the masses be achieved. Social wrongs were allowed to continue unopposed because the religion allowed them to occur and made these slights bearable.
I’m not sure I’d go quite as far as Marx in his assessment. Nor do I believe that religion is a conscious tool of the ruling classes. I can certainly see it as something that can and does prevent some people from living as fulfilling a life as they can. Religion is also a powerful force in any society and it doesn’t take an atheist to express the view that this isn’t always a positive force.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Jason | 23 Comments »