Atheists, theists and science: Oh my!
Atheists, I am not here to tell you you’re wrong; I’ve never been inside your head so I wouldn’t dare assume to fully understand your thoughts and experiences or your views on spirituality. I used to be one of you, and it drove me crazy when religious people would try to shove their views down my throat or assume I was an immoral jerk because I didn’t believe in a supreme deity.
I don’t know for a fact there is a god; I’ve never seen him or had incontrovertible evidence for his existence. However, I choose to believe in god for reasons I won’t get into here. (If people care, comment and I will do another post on that later.)
This post is going to consist of three parts: a question for atheists, some advice for theists and then some similar advice for atheists. I have elected to number these portions for your convenience.
1- My question for atheists:
Many atheists point to natural laws, evolution, the age of the earth, and the big bang and so forth as proof of the non-existence of god. My question is: Why do science and religion have to be mutually exclusive? I know many Christians and the like deny evolution (which in my mind is silly because natural selection waves it’s metaphorical hands in our face every time we go outside). Many insist the earth is only
4,000 years old, which goes against what science has ascertained.
Maybe they are wrong on these points, but why does that disprove god? I don’t get why many people want to throw the baby out with the bath water on this one. To me it makes sense that if there is a god then he is obviously all knowing and all-powerful. So why couldn’t such a being construct a world that uses the natural laws of the universe to do his bidding? It would make more sense to me that god’s power stems from his perfect understanding of science and how to manipulate things than to believe he just wiggles his magic fingers and a world pops out.
It makes sense on one level because a god would have to know the truth and act on the truth in order to make sense, and natural laws are truths themselves. To me the whole idea meshes quite nicely. Secondly, if, as many religions speculate, this earth is some kind of test, or in my opinion a chance to learn and grow outside the rather large shadow of our heavenly father, wouldn’t it make sense for god to hide himself? How would it be for him to say you must have faith, but then put proof of him in nature? I feel like this would be a move on a level of stupid no god could stoop to.
I don’t care if you choose not to believe in god or how you live your life, as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, I just want to know why you think science disproves the existence of god.
2- My advice to theists:
Stop being jerks about the whole religion thing. I know you believe in god, and I know you think it will benefit everyone else to believe in the same god as you. But lashing out against atheists, gays, and anyone else you think has gone astray doesn’t do anyone any good. They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. (If someone can direct me to scientific confirmation of this I will award him or her Internet props and an IRL knuckle bump should we ever meet.) If you want to convince people your religion is right, then you should show them by example how happy it makes you and more importantly how your belief fills you with love for your fellow man.
Most religions have the same basic precepts, and the biggest one is to love other human beings. So if god wants you to love people, and you want people to accept that message, why do you use hate as your weapon of choice? Instead kill them with kindness and preach by example.
For the Christians involved in politics I have some other advice. Stop using politics to try and force your morality on everyone else in the country. I agree with most of your morals, but I would like to remind you that Satan’s plan was to force everyone to be righteous and Christ’s plan was to allow everyone to have the agency to choose good or evil. Do you serve god or Satan when you try to take away someone’s agency? In the Bible Christ didn’t ever try to use the government to compel people to righteousness. He didn’t force or threaten people. He simply said, this is my message; it will make you happy, you should come follow me.
Even when a sinner/law-breaker was brought before Christ he protected her agency and illustrated the importance of not using the law to enforce morality. The crowd wanted to stone the adulteress, but Christ said let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone. And when the only sinless person in the world and the adulteress where the only two remaining he simply said “go thy way and sin no more.” Not a command or a law or a punishment, just his advice on how she could find happiness in life.
My advice for atheists:
This is basically the same thing as for the theists. Have your beliefs, defend your beliefs but don’t be a jerk to those who don’t share them. I think y’all are less guilty for lashing out with anger and sometimes being condescending toward religious people because frankly they started it. Religious people come at you with fire and brimstone, and it’s natural to want to respond in kind.
But you have the opportunity to be the better person here. You have the chance to prove that despite not having a god to set out a moral code for you, you can still be a better, kinder human being than some of the theists out there. Take the high ground and fight anger with peace and insults with level-headedness.
The wrap up:
To both groups: your anger and condescension and spite and contention are getting us nowhere. Neither of you are going to convince anyone to change their mind with these tactics. Theists, these actions are contrary to what god teaches us about love. Atheists, I know you feel oppressed and attacked sometimes, but prove your virtue by being kind and understanding. I recognize that not all theists and not all atheists do the things I speak of above, and I publicly confess I have been this kind of person before. I was a fiercely argumentative atheist who was always ready to do verbal battle with theists, but now I regret my immaturity from those days, and I hope the people who read this won’t make the same mistakes I did. (hint: being angry and argumentative can destroy friendships)
October 13th, 2011 - 10:58
Most atheists I know don’t make blanket claims about the existence of god, but are able to refute the existence of specific gods based on the assertion of theists that claim to know his (or her) nature. You make claims as to god’s nature in this article. This makes it easy to refute. You claim “he is obviously all knowing and all-powerful.” You make mention of a place called “heaven” in which he lives. You say he is currently in hiding. To make such claims without evidence (which you call faith) is to empower others to also make claims as to the nature of god without evidence. Such claims may include “god want me to punish you.” You can see where this might be a problem.
November 2nd, 2011 - 00:51
That’s the best awnesr of all time! JMHO
March 16th, 2012 - 13:30
Yes, Come on Barbara Hurtful words?? Sadly, far too many people of faith don’t even know what their faith eceahts. How hurtful is it for their god to throw his own children into eternal flames for disobedience? How hurtful was it for Yahweh to kill every living thing on earth in a fit of anger? Preposterous claims don’t deserve automatic respect. Should we revere a person who clings to that ancient chestnut of wisdom that the earth is flat? Get real!I’ll take these words over scripture any day:“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” Thomas Jefferson
October 13th, 2011 - 13:18
Hello Mr Green,
The majority of atheists are what’re called “agnostic atheists” which means that we don’t believe in God but cannot state categorically that there is no God. Our position is simply that there is no repeatable, independently verifiable evidence that supports the existence of a divine being. For the most part you’ll find us pleasant, tolerant, good, charitable and helpful people.
There are a much-smaller number of “gnostic atheists” who state that “There is no God” which is an unprovable assertion. “Militant” atheists can be of either group and the term simply refers to those atheists who actively seek to persuade people to leave behind the practices of religion and start to think for themselves. The level of respect shown varies as does the perceived offence by the religious person.
—
1. The fundamental philosophy of science is to look at the world around us and build a conceptual model of how things work, based on our observations. The fundamental philosophy of religion is to attribute everything to a divine being.
If you attribute everything to God, then you don’t seek to change your lot in life. “God must have a plan for my family to be toiling the fields, so I’ll keep doing that.” It is only by the efforts of people who’re unsatisfied with the religious answers and seek their own explanations that we have progressed beyond the point of banging the rocks together.
The evidence that contributes to our model of evolution *does not disprove God*. What it does is provide an explanation of how things came about without requiring an interventionist deity. It certainly is feasible that God may have created the Big Bang and left things to run from there. We cannot disprove that idea.
It is important to note that evolution competes with the bible story from the creation of animals onward. Evolution makes no claim about the creation of the universe. This a common muddling of concepts made by theists.
Also of note is that acceptance of the evolution model denies a substantial and founding portion of the bible. If you’re prepared to say “That whole section of the bible is probably garbage because I’ve seen pretty compelling evidence of evolution”, why believe anything else that’s written in there?
I think for pretty much every story in the bible, there can be found a simple explanation that does not require the presence of a divine being.
For example, I think it’s far more probably that, in a time when a girl was stoned to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night, a young girl of about 14 who was raped or overcome by adolescent hormones, might lie about being a virgin once her baby began to show.
Another story I heard was that someone (Moses?) led some people thru the desert with God appearing as a firey mountain. That sounds to me like superstitious people being impressed by a volcano.
If you can find adequate an explanation for something, that doesn’t require the existence of a divine being for which you can find NO evidence, why would you insert a divine being into the equation?
There are many other reasons both philosophical, physical and ethical to not follow the Christian bible or any of the other religions but I think I’m running out of space here
—
2. I agree with you there. Christian’s ask WWJD and I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t start yelling and screaming hysterically if someone admitted they didn’t believe in God. I’m also sure that he wouldn’t refuse service if he was the shopkeeper. So why don’t more Christians live as Jesus is claimed to have done? Of course the bible contains instances where he commands the slaying of an entire town because they don’t submit to his sovereignty so… perhaps the haters have it right after all.
3. Atheists would be quite delighted to live in a world where religious people were tolerant (truely tolerant, not just paying lip service). Unforunately we don’t. The Christians (in the US and other countries in the Anglosphere) are actively campaigning for politics and seeking to bring the rest of the world in line with their particular world view.
—
So what so bad about religion in politics?
Every single religious sect has a slightly different version of the rules whether they are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Norse, Wiccans or whatever. How is a government supposed to decide what’s best for the people.
Even within a particular mainstream faith there are countless variations.
- The senator from Arkansas says that his divine being commands rest on a Sunday and this is the uncontestable word of God.
- The senator from Michigan says that his divine being commands rest on a Saturday and this is the uncontestable word of God.
- The senator from Florida says that his divine being commands rest on a Saturday but only after sundown and this is the uncontestable word of God.
- The senator from Pennsilvania says that his divine being doesn’t mind what day you rest, so long as when you’re working you don’t use electricity and this is the uncontestable word of God.
Since NONE of the religions can provide ANY evidence that supports their beliefs, we can’t establish which “one, true God” is the “real, one, true God” so we can’t pick just one and use that as a guideline.
Thus the only way that we, as a society, are going to be able to quit fighting each other and start making better progress is if we modify the rules of the social contract such that no-one’s rights are oppressed except where it would case real harm to a person. The only way that I can see that happening is a truly secular society where everyone is free to practice their beliefs in their own way without harming others.
For this reason, atheists are mobilising. We’re being more vocal to help create a world where *everyone* can get along; not just those approved and sanctified according to the rule book written for your particular set of beliefs.
November 1st, 2011 - 18:46
Hey, kliler job on that one you guys!
October 13th, 2011 - 14:51
Atheists don’t claim, typically, that science disproves God. Actually, the claim is closer to the assertion that religion cannot reliably prove the existence of God. Without such proof, atheists aren’t willing to make an assertion on his/her/it’s existence.
Atheists aren’t trying to disprove anything. They just hold the question to a higher standard, that requiring empirical evidence. Could God exist? Technically. Is it likely? Not really.
October 13th, 2011 - 16:34
Thank you for clarifying your view.
January 25th, 2012 - 10:41
Great post. I’m a regular visitor of your website and appreciate you taking the time to maintain the nice site. I’ll be a regular visitor for a long time.