If you love books and reading, surely you know by now that THE place to go online for that is Amazon dot com. I was just browsing through Amazon for no particular reason and I came upon Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One Of America's Leading Atheists, by Dan Barker. Having already read Losing Faith in Faith, I wondered if this was a completely new book or what. Turned out someone else wondered the same and posted the question under the listing. There were answers/comments. (It is essentially the same book with new information about his subsequent debates, etc., and a new forward by Richard Dawkins.) Among the comments was this gem from "Janet":
Please do not give this book the time of day. Our liberties and freedoms are being trampled on each day chipped away at then they come into my town with signs like "In Reason We Trust" billboards.This is a sign of the times non-believers who want to convert and recruit YOU.JESUS
LIVES and we are in the "END TIMES" If you want to read something pick up the Holy Bible
This is hardly new, but the thing that struck me was the line, "...who want to convert and recruit YOU." I try to imagine, what is in Janet's mind when she says that? "recruit you" to what? Does she have any idea? Does she equate atheists with Satan worshipers and baby eaters? Perhaps a reader may agree with Janet? It is obviously a fearful prospect to her. I think back to when I was a devout Christian. Of course, that was before the Internet, but I almost never heard or thought of "atheist". If I happened across a use of some variant of the word, it was likely from someone like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, or possibly my own preacher who used it, of course, in a very pejorative tone. Often connected it with humanism, as in "those wretched atheistic humanists who place man above God". Had I had Internet access way back then, I'm fairly certain I would have become atheist much sooner, because I would likely have read a lot FROM atheists and seen that they were not at all as depicted by the Christians I heard. Not that becoming an atheist would have been my choice...it would, I think, just have been inevitable for me...it would have triggered some change in my brain.
I cannot be certain of that though. Because obviously, a great many people now have read huge amounts of atheistic material and remain Christian. How is this possible? It certainly suggests that intellectual ability, education, etc., have little to do with whether one is atheist or Christian, as my favorite poster boy for this subject amply demonstrates: Francis Collins, the world class scientist who ran the Human Genome Project and is now head of the National Institutes of Health...and a devout Christian. If you eliminate those things, what is left? This further suggests to me that the notion of "choosing your beliefs" is simply not a facility the human brain possesses. I don't recall reading in Dan Barker's book where he says, "I chose to be an atheist." Of course, virtually all Christians,as well as most atheists will say they chose their present position and many will typically denigrate those on the "other side" as dumb, ignorant, wicked, evil, stupid, uneducated, ad nauseum. I think it abundantly obvious that they are both dead wrong to do this. Atheists, who generally like to brag about their education and intellectual ability, should give serious consideration to the problem of how and why so many very brilliant and educated people are nonetheless theists. Christians and other theists should consider that atheists, by definition, have no belief in any God, and thus have no desire to oppose it, fear it, get loose from it, etc.
When I realized that I was BECOMING an atheist, it scared the piss outta me. Obviously, I was not yet an atheist at that point...otherwise, of what could I have been afraid? I was still trying very hard to believe, and of course, prayed fervently, "help my unbelief", because I was scared that somehow, some way my "salvation" was slipping away from me and that I would be doomed to eternal torture. (My spell checker said the word I initially wrote in that sentence was wrong; "slavation"...Freudian much?) At this point I still believed that humans had immortal souls that would live forever and the only question was whether it would be in heaven or hell. After some hours...a day or two...it finally settled in my head. "You don't believe God is there. That makes you an atheist". My fervent prayer went unanswered, as I realized all the others had, and it was then that an acceptance of my fate settled in and I sat about trying to find out as much as I could about this new state of affairs I seemed to find myself in. Then began my journey into freethought, finding out all about what that was and meant, and then moving on to what I call "educated atheist". By that I mean an atheist who has read and studied and understands the evidence, the history and the philosophical and theological underpinnings, as opposed to one who simply never had any belief in any gods and just never gave it a thought.
Most have probably heard of something called "confirmation bias". This is a tendency among most humans to interpret pieces of information as supportive of beliefs currently held. I would sometimes pray for a good parking spot and when I found one, it was "Aha! Thank you Lord!", and I remembered that. When I did not find one, the incident was simply ignored. Another bias maybe less heard of is "hindsight bias". This is the tendency to assume that things are more predictable than they really are... when you thought X would happen and it did, you say, "I KNEW it!" But of course you didn't know it at all. A slight twist on this, as it applies to beliefs is that, upon genuinely realizing that you believe X, even though X may be very different or even opposite of what was previously believed about X, your brain says, "Well of course I believe X...I changed my mind." But you didn't change your mind at all. Rather, your mind was changed, and you accept the satisfying and convenient notion that you purposely made the change.
Suppose that you are a genuine and devout Christian. You are perfectly happy with your knowledge that God is in control, that when you die you will go to heaven as God's word says, that you are a good person, that you believe in love and charity and trying to live your life as Christlike as you can, albeit knowing you remain a humble sinner and must continue your walk in or with the Lord... I ask you: What possible motivation could you have to suddenly decide, "Nope, I'm gonna be an atheist"? And if you did somehow, some way, decide this, how would you go about implementing this decision? These are not rhetorical questions; you certainly don't have to answer me, but don't you think you owe it to yourself to actually answer such questions in your own mind?
Conversely...you are an atheist, perhaps on the order of a Dawkins or Hitchens, you are very well educated - formally or not - well read, very bright, and there is nothing short of a visit from a God that would make you believe one exists. Suppose that suddenly you are a Christian? Maybe it happened quickly - a "road to Damascus" conversion - maybe it happened very slowly over many years, but you suddenly understand, "I really believe this...and here's why". If such a thing did happen, would you not say to all and sundry, "I changed my mind"? For most of us who are atheist now, the thought is horrifying and we might swear vehemently it is impossible! Yet, we know of people who were once Christian and are now atheist (Dan Barker for example) ...people who were once atheist and are now Christian (Lee Strobel for example).
Naturally, the first response from both sides is, "Well, he never was a REAL Christian/Atheist". Why would we say that? Perhaps a desperate need to hang on to the illusion/delusion that "I am in charge of my mind and I make my own decisions"?
Granted, some people make it difficult to accept that they truly were REAL whatever before the change. Lee Strobel is an example of that too. He says, "I was an atheist for most of my life. I thought that the idea of an all powerful, all loving God was just silly. I learned in school that evolution was where life came from, so what do you need God for? And I had a lot of self-motivation for living an atheistic lifestyle. I was living a very immoral life and a drunken life, life that was really a hundred percent focused on journalism."
Oh, that brings a whole SLEW of questions and comments, right? Was he really an atheist in the same way the you are an atheist (if you are)?
And what about Dan Barker...was he REALLY a Christian before his change? Was he traveling around the country year after year, preaching things he didn't believe were true? For what purpose? He didn't exactly get Pat Robertson rich from his evangelism. Once he became an atheist, did he then say, "Oh goody, now I can lie and cheat and steal and rape and mangle all I want because there is no God"? Reading Strobel's "testimony" one might get the idea that HE thought such things, before he became a good Christian. Maybe becoming a Christian, if you never were before, involves a huge dose of real or imagined guilt?
I am completely convinced that no one can believe what they want. About anything. Ever. I don't know of a way (yet) for anyone to empirically prove that is true or false. I am only certain that I cannot make myself believe any given proposition that I do not currently believe, just as a matter of choice or will. I think it reasonable to assume other minds have a similar basic limitation. You can test yourself if you want to. Simply think for a moment about anything at all that you believe to be true, about anything. Now, just for a period of 60 seconds, force yourself to believe the opposite of that. If you can honestly say you can do that, I think that is awesome. If you cannot, then I would hope you remember that and never deride others for "stupidly" believing - or not believing - X, because they choose to. I am not alone in this heresy. Ingersoll said, "Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must." Why I Am An Agnostic
Would I try to convince you, if I could, that atheism is true? When I started my first web site back in 1998, part of the URL was "atheistevangelist". Does that tell you anything? Why did I want to "evangelize" about atheism then? The same basic reason anyone is eager to tell other people about something they have just discovered. "New convert zeal". Then, I still thought that anyone who seriously educated themselves about these things could not possibly avoid becoming an atheist. "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." - Isaac Asimov. Obviously, I was wrong about that. So I stopped calling myself an atheist evangelist, gradually stopped most of the debating and arguing, and a bit of depression crept in at the realization that you can very seldom ever convince anyone of anything as far as "the big questions" of life. Sure, I might convince you to go to the store with me, but convince you there is no such thing as a God, if you really believe there is? Not likely.
At this point some may throw up their hands and just totally withdraw and cease even talking about it. I know a few of my friends here wish to HELL that I would do just that, lol. Some say, the Christians and the atheists are getting the same way, obnoxious as hell, each claiming they are right and everyone else is wrong; soon even the atheists will be going door to door like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Why can't they all just shut the hell up and mind their own business and leave people to believe whatever they want? Hmm... back there again.
I thought about this from the Christian side too, after all I was one for around thirty years or so. When I was a Christian, why would I want to tell other people, why would I want them to believe what I believed? So that they could come to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior, that they could know they had been forgiven for all their sins, by virtue of Jesus having died on the cross and His resurrection, and all they have to do to KNOW they have eternal life with God is just ACCEPT this wondrous gift by faith. To know where you are going to spend eternity is a profoundly important thing...you WILL spend it somewhere. If you turn away from God you will spend eternity in Hell, and I can cite you many scriptures from God's Word, the Bible, telling you so. But God loves you and wants you to be with Him forever...John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Like riding a bicycle...you never forget this stuff.
I would want you to believe so you could live forever in a good place rather than a bad place because you do live forever and it's your belief or faith and God's grace that determines where. What do you think is the central premise in this thinking? That you are going to live forever? Yep. But what if it ain't so? What if there is no such thing as living forever, no such thing as any immortal soul? You gonna go with some form of Pascal's Wager and "just believe", just in case it's true that you will live forever, just to cover yer ass? We just went through that "I choose to believe" stuff. Sure, you can SAY "I believe" all you want, but saying and doing are different. And now some folk may start getting really pissed, if they haven't already, and say well, hell nobody knows what happens after death, there's no way TO know. Really? Of all the people who have ever died in the world, especially all the wonderful Christians; bishops and popes and saints, if any of them still knew anything and had any ability to tell us about it, don't you think they would? At least a FEW of them? Someone once joked that we know there is no afterlife because if there were, Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov would have written a book about it by now.
So, as an atheist, why would I want you to believe that? This is it, when you're dead, you're dead, there is no God, no hope, no afterlife, no soul, what the hell is so attractive about that? Do you notice any error here? "Attractive"? What does it matter whether it's "attractive" or not? Do you really think you have to like or feel good about a thing in order for it to be true? Where is it carved in stone that "The Truth will make you feel good"? Saying "I like this" or "I don't like this" before you have really investigated is putting the cart before the horse. If you really are a person who wants to know truth about things, then you determine whether X is true or false BEFORE you layer your emotional reactions to it on there. So, am I saying that being an atheist is miserable? Not hardly. You should read what Robert G. Ingersoll said about that. I'll include it below.
Do you think if you became an atheist you might start doing stuff like lying and cheating and raping and pillaging? First, you probably already do some of the lying and cheating anyway. Do you see gangs of atheists running amuck in the streets of anywhere doing this stuff? Does it occur to you that a vastly larger percentage of Christians and other theists are in prison for violent crimes than the percentage of atheists? What might explain that fact? Is it starting to sound like the old atheist evangelist is re-emerging, he asked with a devilish grin? Oops.
But really, why would I personally care whether Bill or Fred or Sally Ann is a Christian or a Muslim or an atheist? Who cares? I don't really see any reason to care very much whether any given individual thinks this or that. But collectively...people do things and don't do things, based partly on what they believe about such matters. Collectively, that's a very big part of what makes a given society have the nature that it does. How many atheists do you suppose went to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally? Very few? Because atheists have no honor? Nah. Would Obama be in deeper shit if more people started thinking he was an atheist than think he is a Muslim? A rather homely-looking Asian woman shows up on your TV screen and says she is an atheist lesbian and a socialist and she is running for governor. Does she have a chance of winning? Does she have a chance of getting off the podium alive?
Beliefs matter. Truth matters. I know I can't convince any true believer. But just on the remote possibly that some hapless victim of uncertainty may stagger by... or someone who honestly has a desire to know stuff and learn...
That piece I mentioned earlier written by Ingersoll? It's part XI of his Why I Am An Agnostic:
When I became convinced that the universe is natural--that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world--not even in infinite space.
I was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free to live to my own ideal--free to live for myself and those I loved--free to use all my faculties, all my senses--free to spread imagination's wings--free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope--free to judge and determine for myself--free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past--free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies--free from the fear of eternal pain--free from the winged creatures of the night--free from devils, ghosts, and gods.
There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought--no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings--no chains for my limbs--no lashes for my back--no fires for my flesh--no master's frown or threat--no following in another's steps--no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously faced all words.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain--for the freedom of labor and thought--to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound in chains--to those by fire consumed--to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high,
Robert Green Ingersoll
(1833-1899)
Bless me father, for I have sinned...I had the misfortune to be born a bibliophile with a brain far too slow and limited to truly indulge.
Here's something. You know there are several "e-readers" available, right, including Amazon's Kindle? I discovered it is possible to download and use the Kindle app for a PC without having to buy the Kindle. I would think this is especially good for those who have a laptop...you already essentially have your Kindle in your hand. I have been reading on my desktop screen. The software is free and so are many books. But it is wise to check all prices before buying because sometimes the Kindle version of a book is cheaper, sometimes the paperback, sometimes even the hardback. Kindle for PC
TRB
