Nov 17 JDN 2460632

After that brief interlude of politics and current events, I now return to my previous topic: Religion.

I am an atheist (among other things). To avoid confusion, allow me to explicate further: I do not believe in any sort of divine being, supernatural entity, or mystical force. I do not believe in super-human beings, immortality, or prayer. I accept neither Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Taoism, Shinto, Sikhism, Jain, Scientology, Wiccan, astrology, Greek religion, Norse religion, nor any other religion or faith-based belief system. I do not believe in Yahweh, Jesus, Allah; Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva; Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Ares; Tyr, Wodan, Thor, Freyja (It’s amusing to note that our days of the week are named primarily after these Norse gods: After Sun-day and Moon-day, we have Tyr’s-day, Wodan’s-day, Thor’s-day, and Freyja’s-day. How Saturn’s-day (a Roman god) got in there, I’m not sure. A historian might be able to explain this.); Amen-Ra, Anubis, Hathor, Bastet; Amaterasu, Sarutahiko, Inari; nor any other god, deity, or divinity. While I have read several of the texts believed holy by various religions, including the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Bhagavad-Gita, and would be open to reading more, I consider them works of literature written by human hands with human flaws.

I believe in science, in rationality, in the observable and the verifiable. I accept the evidence from neuroscience which shows that human consciousness and identity does not survive death; as such I have neither hope nor fear for an afterlife, only hope for life and joy and fear of death and pain. While I recognize that God’s nonexistence cannot be proven with logical certainty, I see so little evidence for divine beings that I believe quite strongly that these things do not exist, about as strongly as I believe that the Earth is round, that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor, and that unicorns and fairies are fictional. In some rarified philosophical sense I am “agnostic” about all these things, but in the same sense I am “agnostic” about nearly everything. In practical terms I believe many things to be true, and am quite confident in many of these beliefs. My answer to the question “Do you believe there could be a God?” is the same as that of Richard Dawkins: “Yes, but there could be a Leprechaun!” (The exact statement, “There may be a Leprechaun”, and its context can be found in around time-stamp 7:15.} The standard “cannot be disproven with logical certainty” is absurdly weak, and applies just as well to Amaterasu and Thor as it does to Jesus.

There is something strange about the word “atheist”, as Sam Harris has remarked; we generally do not define people by what they don’t believe. We feel little need to call people “non-racists” or “non-astrologers”, nor do we typically specify people as “non-Keynesians” or “non-utilitarians”. While I agree with this observation, the general expectation in our society is that people will hold to a particular religion, usually Christianity, Judaism, or Islam; and when asked, “What is your religion?” I need an answer; for these purposes, I use the word “atheist”. Sometimes I will also use “rationalist” or “secular humanist”, but these terms are not as familiar to most people; other times I will say “I have none”, but this too leads to confusion. Like it or not, “atheist” is the word most people are familiar with. (And there definitely are people who identify as “anti-racists”.)

Because I am an atheist, I’m sure my arguments for why religion cannot be the source of morality will be viewed with suspicion. Of course an atheist wouldn’t think that morality can come from religion; he doesn’t believe in religion. And this is part of it, certainly: I do not think we should base our morality upon ideas that are not true, and I do not think that religion is true. But that’s not the only reason; I have plenty more.

Good and bad believers and nonbelievers

Your next thought might be that I will deluge you with examples of religious people doing terrible things, often in the name of their religions. There certainly are plenty of examples, especially in Christianity and Islam, but also for Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about everything else. Even Jain, renowned for its nonviolence, has its examples of people who have refused to treat their sick children on the grounds that it would harm the parasites or bacteria. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists have refused blood transfusions that could have saved their lives or the lives of their children. Such things are hardly as evil as the Crusades or suicide bombing, but they are still deeply immoral, and the fact that they could come from religions of nonviolence should give us pause.

But of course there have been evil things done by atheists; apologists are fond of mentioning Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, who were most definitely atheists, but because his evil is more widely acknowledged—the Hitler Principle—they tend to also throw in Adolf Hitler, whose religious affiliation was much more complex. Hitler officially affiliated himself with the Catholic Church, publicly insisted he was Catholic, and spoke of God and Christianity often; and yet people who knew him privately often acknowledged that he was not really a devout Christian. Even if Hitler was in fact a closet atheist, most of the Nazis considered themselves Christian (mostly either Catholic or Lutheran), and proudly carried crucifixes and wore belts saying Gott mit uns, “God with us”. But of course this is not an argument against Christianity; if anything it is an argument against Nazism, or against abusing Christianity in the support of fascism. Almost everyone agrees with this; but why is it that so few will admit that for the same reasons, Stalin’s evil is no argument against atheism? Millions of atheists around the world agree that Stalin was an evil man. Moreover, Stalin believed the Earth was round; does that make round-Earthers evil? Hitler loved dogs; does that make dog people evil? “Someone bad believed X” is a very poor reason to believe that X is false; in fact, if just as many good people also believed X, the fact that so many people believe X is prima facie reason to think that X is true. Almost everyone, good and bad, believes the Earth is round; that’s reason to think the Earth is round!

There is an important point to be made that religion could justify acts commonly regarded as evil. If a powerful, wise, and benevolent God really did give us commandments, it would be our duty to obey those commandments, even if we didn’t understand their purpose. If people in other cultures really were servants of evil incarnate, it would make perfect sense to kill them. If people with other beliefs really would suffer eternal pain for what they believe, it would make perfect sense to capture and torture them until they convert. If homosexuality really were a crime as bad as murder, it would make perfect sense to outlaw it. Moreover, beliefs like this are remarkably mainstream in religion; even most moderate religious people, if pressed, will agree that they think people who don’t believe the right religion will suffer eternal pain. In fact, the real question is how religious people can justify not torturing infidels. If I honestly believed I could save you from eternal pain by causing some temporary pain, I would feel strongly obligated to do so. Do religious people really believe what they say? If so, why do they act the way they do? If not, why do they keep saying it?

Sometimes religious moderates make excuses about “autonomy”, but this cannot work. Consider the following analogy. Suppose I were about to drink a vial of deadly poison, which would cause me a long, agonizing death. I was doing this not because I was suicidal, but because I honestly believed that the vial contained a medicine that would make me healthier and happier. You, on the other hand, know better; the vial is poison, and if I drink it I will surely suffer and die. Given that you are in a position to stop me, what would you do? Would you stay your hand out of respect for my autonomy? If you have any sense at all, you would not. Whatever my life projects may be, they will fail if I die of this poison; I am not being rational. My autonomy is better served by your coercion, and once I realize that the vial contains poison, we will both understand that.

How much more true this must be, if infidels will suffer eternal suffering. If you honestly believe that Hell awaits all nonbelievers, then you must think that nonbelief is the most terrible of all poisons. You should be convinced that I am completely irrational, acting against all my own interests. You should be willing to do almost anything to change my mind—up to and including torturing and killing me, since you profess to believe that death is not the end. If you truly believed in Hell the same way I believe in cyanide, you would feel obligated to convert all nonbelievers by literally any means necessary. In this sense the Crusades and suicide bombing are not bizarre aberrations; they are the direct rational consequence of truly believing what holy texts actually say.

It is an incredibly disturbing yet undeniably true fact that the books which are most widely considered the source and font of morality (the Bible and Qur’an) are in fact full of rape, slavery, murder, and genocide—and these acts are not merely depicted but condoned. I believe the most chilling example, Deuteronomy 20:16, will suffice: “However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.” That goes beyond genocide—it is something even worse than that, where not only the men, women and children are slaughtered, but so are the cats, dogs, cows, and goats. It is the absolute and total destruction of all sentient life—which is almost the exact opposite of morality.

There are people who still believe exactly what the holy books say, and it makes them do or say terrible things. In the United States in 2014, a Christian pastor sincerely argued that gay men should be put to death. Make no mistake: He didn’t come up with that out of thin air. He read it in the book. He even properly cited his source (Leviticus 20:13). This man is most likely not a psychopath—he just actually believes what most self-identified Christians claim to. Many news reports put “Christian” in scare quotes when describing this man, but they have it exactly backwards; read the Bible, and you will see that he believes in it more truly and thoroughly than 99% of so-called “Christians” ever have. He is the most honest and devout Bible-believing Christian I have ever heard of. If you do not see that, you desperately, desperately need to read the Bible, cover to cover, for it is not the book you think it is. And no, you can’t just say the Old Testament doesn’t count—if so, why include it at all?—according to Jesus himself in the Bible itself, the Old Testament laws are not supposed to be changed in the slightest until the end of the world (Matthew 5:18). It honestly couldn’t get any more unambiguous: The Bible says to kill gay men, and this is meant to be a universal law for all time. If that disturbs you—and of course it does—your problem isn’t with me; it’s with the Bible.

If you are not willing to commit such horrific acts at the behest of ancient books, then you must not really believe that eternal suffering awaits me—at least not with any confidence. Maybe you suppose it to be so, or maybe for some reason you want people to think you believe it, or maybe you are simply so accustomed to repeating it that you never bothered to consider whether you actually believe it. I think most religious people are in precisely this condition—they don’t actually believe that infidels will suffer eternal torment. Why they keep saying it, I’m not entirely sure; but this proposition simply doesn’t fit the behavior of most religious people. Knowing that most people are basically rational, I am forced to conclude that there is a kind of deception (perhaps self-deception) involved in anyone who contends that Hell awaits all nonbelievers but doesn’t try to torture me until I repent.

But this means that if I want to argue against mainstream religion, I can’t simply point out that some religious beliefs can lead to obviously immoral actions, because the beliefs that lead to immoral actions are almost always beliefs that aren’t sincerely held by mainstream religious people. People may say things that would have those logical consequences, but for the betterment of us all they cordon off these statements from their actual behavior. Even people who say “Abortion is murder” don’t usually treat abortion doctors the way they would treat serial killers—and the few who do we rightly call “fanatics”. Even people who say “gay people go to Hell” don’t actually advocate the murder of homosexuals.