Kamikaze

Speech On Atheism.

I did my intro to philosophy class presentation, where I made my views on atheism known. Mine was a bit different, as everyone else was trying to be all respectful of religion and saying it’s just peachy to throw up your arms and believe anything you feel in your bowels.

Well, not me. I never said an insult, but I’ll be the first to admit it. I was probably considered “rude.” I did not ever say, ”It’s okay to believe anything.” And, I must say, I am probably one of the quietest and more respectful people on this planet, and I managed to cut out all the nice/respectful mental gymnastics required to level atheism with religion.

I just said, plain and simply, what the evidence insists is true.

If you’re curious, here’s the gist of what I did say (if not, skip down):

- Atheism - Lack belief in God/gods. Non-belief based on a lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God/gods.

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- As long as the definition of God is logically consistent, nobody can say it doesn’t exist. This is the same with Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster, etc. It is not support for the God side of the argument any more than it is support for someone who believes the Tooth Fairy exists. But because the Tooth Fairy could exist, it doesn’t imply it does exist.

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- The Bible is not a reliable source of information and should not be used as proof. There is nothing testable in the Bible which can prove god exists. What it basically amounts to is words on a page and elsewhere in the book, it says it is correct. That’s circular reasoning, and you may as well ask a liar if they are telling the truth. But it is easy to see that the Bible was written by man once you look at the things written in it. One example is that God, a supposedly omnibenevolent being, is comfortable with slavery:

Exodus chapter 12, verse 43:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover: No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.

Exodus chapter 21, verse 32:
If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull must be stoned.

Of course, if God is omnibenevolent, his morals must make our own look awful by comparison. Not the other way around.

It is also probable that the Bible, like most historical fiction, gets some information correct. But in order to prove God’s existence, it would have to be testabe information of a supernatural nature. The Bible cannot gain any credibility about the supernatural from accurately locating cities or any other such knowledge. Geography and the supernatural are different topics, and having credibility in one does not overlap into the other.

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- Faith is not reliable either. Used in the context of religion, faith is defined as “belief not based on proof” or “illogical belief.” This definition compares well with one of another word. Delusion. In both cases, you jump to a conclusion and believe something without support in favor of that belief. It is apparent that these two words have different connotations. Faith is considered a virtue, while delusion is considered bad, even though they are the same. Really, we should be consistent. Either illogical beliefs are something bad, or they are good. And considering the overwhelming majority of the time they can be shown to be bad, such as a person stepping in front of a train because they faithfully/delusionally believe they can stop it, we should treat them as such.

“Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.” - Dan Barker, “Losing Faith in Faith”, 1992

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- People often mislabel coincidences as miracles. Many unlikely events happen, yet it does not mean that God exists and decided to intervene. It is more likely that the event happened according to the normal probability level that the event normally happens.

In addition, the labeling of these events is totally subjective. There is no “fingerprint” of God; no way to tell what it is about an event that means God did it. It is just as plausible that God is the cause for airplanes colliding in mid-air as it is to say he saves people in hard to survive circumstances.

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- Prayer has no effect.

A decade long study with about 2,000 people at least gives some inclination to think so.

“Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.”

( Quoted from a study referred to on nytimes.com.)

Most “evidence” for prayer is a story of when someone prayed, and then something unlikely happened. Again, this is a coincidence. You could pray to any object, even an inanimate one, and achieve similar results. It says nothing about the existence of God.

Also, notice amputees’ relation to prayer. It doesn’t matter how hard a person prays or how much faith they have. An amputee’s limb regrowing doesn’t happen coincidentally, and, predictably, it never happens.

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- People may, on an individual scale, need belief in god so they can function. I can understand that, and concede that in some cases.

And while it may be true, it is important to keep in mind that reality will not bend to your will. We all need air to breathe, and to function, but if we begin to suffocate, no oxygen will magically create itself in our lungs so we don’t die.

In the same way, needing to believe in God will not create God.

I would go further to say that, as a whole, humanity will need to get further from religion and the in-groups and out-groups that it creates. These dividing lines, coupled with our own ability to destroy ourselves at an incredible rate, are unneeded and dangerous.

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- Morality has nothing to do with God.

One thing that’s been mentioned is our innate sense of morality. However, this innate morality isn’t innate in everyone. Some people have no sense of morality or empathy at all.

A natural world view can account for amorality, but what reason would a God have to skip his implantation of morals into certain people?

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It has also been said that God improves morality, and he is compared to drugs and alcohol as though they are opposites. God is not the opposite of drugs or alcohol, however. They are two sides of the same escapism coin. They are there to blur reality out, and modify it in a way a person may find more pleasing, even if what they offer is untrue.

A person is motivated to get drunk and forget about the bad things in their life, just the same way a person is motivated to believe in God to forget that they are going to die. The two are not so different.

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- The position of our planet, and the likelihood that the life currently on it could survive if it were moved, is irrelevant.

This argument assumes God basically fine-tuned everything around us so we can live, but again, evolution could account for this also.

” [I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, it must have been made to have me in it!’ ” - Douglas Adams

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“A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity has come of age, however, it should be left behind.” - Freud, A History of God

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Discussion Questions:

Does religion/belief in god affect mankind for the better, for the worse, or little in either direction?

Is there anything about religious belief that should separate it from the way we think of and respond to other beliefs?

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While the other atheists in the class nodded and smiled, the majority of the theists avoided all eye contact and seemed to not be enjoying my speech one bit. However, like I said, I was saying what the other non-believers only wished they could say.

My speech was the first of the three from my group.

The second speech was by an agnostic who “believed in belief.” His argument that belief in god is dandy for some people, was enough for him, and basically his only argument. I covered this in my speech a little bit, and I doubt anyone was particularly moved by his.

Maybe I’m naive to think anyone could be moved at a 9 AM Intro Philosophy class. But… can’t I count as an ”anyone?”

Next we have the biblical literalist speaker.
To use a philosophy term, he was good with sophistry but bad with his argument. It was all an appeal to emotion, a really long and incoherent Napoleon quote, and he ended with a waste of time real kicker.
He had everyone put their heads down on their desk, close their eyes, and ask Jesus to come into their hearts.

I noted to someone afterwards that this was a form of prayer. And, if they might recall, there is a scientific study showing how it doesn’t work.

Anyway, I would’ve made all you lurking atheists proud. Now, somebody say: “Welcome to pariah-dom!”

Filed by kamikaze189 at October 15th, 2007 under Religion, Seriousness