I think one of the hallmarks of atheism is the quest for knowledge.
That’s a very broad, generalized statement, so let me explain. Atheists, at least the ones I know from the atheosphere and the internet, spend a considerable amount of time studying, parsing, analyzing and generally commenting on religion, and all of its aspects in our culture. We try to understand the subject, and I think we have a very good grasp of religious dogma, or at least enough to discuss it; we know our Bible, and there are many among us that can cite chapter and verse. We are able to discuss intelligently most facets of religious life, from the notion that the United States is a Christian nation, to the effects of religious mindsets on our culture, politics and sexuality.
In short, we make an effort to know the enemy.
Why can’t the same thing be said for theists? Why is it so hard for the theist to understand atheism? PZ Myers today wrote about a Catholic who claims she was an atheist, then converted to Catholicism, and now wants to explain atheism to Catholics. And she clearly doesn’t have the foggiest idea about what she writes. She claims she was an atheist, but from what she wrote, she doesn’t know the first thing about it.
On another blog that I subscribe to, politics from the eyes of an ebony mom, the owner recently posted about an episode she watched on The View where one of the hosts seemed to mock Christianity by pretending to “speak in tongues“. Since I’m a big fan of the use of mockery and ridicule to point out the silliness and sheer delusion of religion, I left a comment asking what was wrong with mocking that person. Other commentators disagreed with me, feeling that the host blasphemed or was at least disrespectful to her own religion.
Now, I don’t think I was being very sly about it, but I mocked her feigned outrage, the concept of speaking in tongues, Christianity in general, and even Santa Claus, to try to make my point. I did everything but stand on my head and shake my procreator to get some response, someone willing to look at the whole thing and say “yea, that does seem kind of silly”. Instead, I was ignored, except by the blog owner, who stoically informed me that since she knew I wasn’t a believer, what I said made no difference to her.
JesusFuckinChristOnAStick I just wanted a reaction.
OK, so I was being provocative in the interest of creating a dialogue about how atheists look at Christian beliefs, but I couldn’t get anyone to bite. These Christians don’t care. They have no interest in knowing what an atheist thinks. They have no interest in understanding atheism. They have no interest in exploring the possibility that their own beliefs may not have any foundations under them. They have no interest in expanding their consciousness. They have no interest in anything purporting to be knowledge outside of one, single book.
In short, they have no interest in using their brains.
They were only interested in chastising one of their own for improperly performing a religious ritual, without the proper intent, by misusing the “gifts of the holy spirit”, in effect ridiculing the religious ritual.
I noted that if their beliefs were so true, and so irreproachable, a little ridicule would be like “water off a duck”. What was the response?
Crickets chirping.
The atheism/theism dichotomy is not one that seems to be close to resolution. Either you’re a theist, or you’re an atheist. Most atheists were once theists (at least in the US and other western countries) however (contrary to the Catholic in PZ’s post) it’s a rare case for an atheist to take up theism. In fact, at the risk of committing the No True Scotsman fallacy, I find it hard to believe that any “true” atheist has ever converted. The sheer underpinnings of atheism – skepticism, rationalism, naturalism, etc. – would prevent such a conversion, because if a truly skeptical, rational, naturalistic atheist did so, he wasn’t a skeptic or a rationalist or a naturalist in the first place. But I digress.
The dialogue to determine who is right (for surely only one side is) requires a two way exchange of ideas. If atheists listen to every rationalism for theism, and meet them head on with counter rationalizations , evidence and logical proof to the contrary, shouldn’t theists extend to us the same courtesy? Is simply ignoring what we say a proper exercise of their dialogical duties? (I just made that word up – shoot me).
Ebony Mom and her commentators had every right to ignore me, because she really wanted to know what Christians thought of their fellow Christian’s mockery, but you would think that when someone comes from outside the argument, on a public blog where outside 
opinions are solicited, someone objective to the argument, and offers a fresh opinion, someone might actually entertain the opinion, test it, hash it around, chew it up and spit it out if necessary, but not ignore it with a “I believe in God you don’t that is how it is and we will leave it there.”
It’s so intellectually stultifying, I can feel the brain cells dying in protest.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 
But it’s not a two way street, really. I’ve already had some exchanges there. The other side is based on faith and emotional appeal. You can’t have a two way conversation with someone who says they “feel” their god, therefore they “know” he’s real or the willfully ignorant who not only refuse to accept logic, but think an argument is demonstrable evidence. Education versus ignorance, rational versus irrational, demonstrable evidence versus anecdotal evidence or arguments designed to deceive, acceptance of reality versus the comfort of escapism and delusion, there’s no two-way streets possible there.
As far as “real atheists”, the issue is, as it’s always been, education and training in critical thinking. Just because someone isn’t raised religiously doesn’t mean they’re an atheist per se. First of all, I don’t accept the default position argument because to have a position, there has to be the idea. If you’re position on anything is by acceptance of what you were told or how you were raised, then it’s hardly your position, is it? So when I hear these stories of people claiming to have been raised as atheists, I have to question whether they ever thought the position through for themselves or not. Faith is faith, it doesn’t matter where you aim it. Now of course there could be former atheists who simply give in to the desire to escape. It reminds me of the guy in the Matrix movie who sells everyone out in order to go back into the Matrix. He’s eating a steak, acknowledges that it’s not real, but admits he doesn’t care.
I recently came to that exact conclusion when a comment of mine was deleted from an evangelical Christian blog on which an evangelical asshat uncritically parroted the phrase “militant atheism.” None of the commenters rose to my challenge to cite just one case of “atheist militancy” that was destructive or violent. A comment in which I cited several contemporary examples of actual Christian militancy was deleted less than five minutes after I posted it. The blog owner clearly had no interest in either understanding what atheists actually think or examining his own biases. There’s no point even considering holding a dialog with such people. They don’t want dialog, they want unhampered licenses to proselytize. They can stay the hell away from my patch of the world and I’ll stay away from theirs.
JesusFuckinChristOnAStick I just wanted a reaction.
Are you sure you’re not Gideon? 🙂
I find it hard to believe that any “true” atheist has ever converted. The sheer underpinnings of atheism – skepticism, rationalism, naturalism, etc. – would prevent such a conversion, because if a truly skeptical, rational, naturalistic atheist did so, he wasn’t a skeptic or a rationalist or a naturalist in the first place.
I think it depends on the experience of the person involved. Since we’re humans and not machines, we can experience tremendous physical and/or mental trauma that can deeply scar us. We live in societies where religion is always there in the background, waiting with open arms for those of us who feel we have no place else left to go. Throw in a combination of factors, and I could see in some instances that a person who previously considered him or herself to be an atheist to become receptive to religious appeals.
Your post reminded me of an episode I had with a FB friend the other day. She posted something along the lines of “Life would simpler if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the apple.”
I asked her “Since when is life supposed to be simple.”
She answered “It was supposed to be simple until Adam and Eve disobeyed God.”
I then replied “Yeah, if Adam and Eve were real people. The story is an allegory and not meant to be taken literally.”
Then she pops a gasket and I could almost hear her voice shouting at me from the screen “Tom – Adam and Eve were real people. So you don’t believe in the Bible, God and Jesus!”
I was like sheesh. I didn’t even say those things. All I had said was that the Adam and Eve story was an allegory. In a private message, I told her that I was an atheist and that I no longer believed in Christianity. However, I added, one can still be a Christian and interpret stories like Adam and Eve or the Tower of Babel as allegories about the consequences of disobeying God’s commandments and that I was not attacking her religious beliefs.
She didn’t acknowledge or reply to me, though she had no trouble when I e-mailed her a link to a job opening at the firm where I work.
Damn, the last sentence was incomplete. I meant “She didn’t acknowledge or reply to me, though she had no trouble replying to me a couple of days later when I e-mailed her a link to a job opening at the firm where I work.”
On whether a “true” atheist has ever converted to religion: Obviously there are exceptions to any generalization like this, but I’m inclined to agree that the trend is as you say. I’m stunned by the number of times I have heard/read theists, especially Christians, say that they used to be atheists. I notice that they’re always “angry” atheists who think religious people are “imbeciles” and “can’t stand religion,” etc. It very much sounds like they were rebellious kids who wanted to piss their parents off, or something. Then their conversion happens when, say, a Christian friend — who they are surprised to find is such a nice, kind person! — “challenges” them to “pray and see what happens” or “do the research” themselves to find that Christianity is true. Like, seriously? If you’re willing to accept the burden of proof in that discussion, or to try to induce a hallucination and would view that as proof, you were what we might call an “accidental” atheist. Not someone who valued rationality and the scientific method, but someone who didn’t happen to possess religious beliefs at that time.
I would imagine so much of this comes from people who ‘know’ something is true, therefore there is no need to question it. Of course this brings up the obvious (obvious to us at least) problem of if they know it is true, what harm would it be to question, as you mentioned with your ‘water off a duck’ remark.
This is further accentuated by fear, fear of hell which has been driven in them since youth in many cases, fear of losing their social network (which is a very real possibility if they openly question any of it), and general fear of the unknown. If they hold tight to what they believe than they will never have to step outside their comfort zone, something that they feel they require.
Here’s my theory:
I think skepticism is hardwired into the brain. Evolutionarily speaking, humans survive better if they are skeptical about the influx of information our senses have to process. I’m not a biologist, so I could be wrong on that part, but it makes sense to me.
Religion is antithetical to skepticism. It demands blind acceptance of dogma. It short, religion requires suppression of our natural inclination to be skeptical.
Since human nature is to be naturally skeptical, deep down in the recesses of the religious conscience there’s something about religion that is counter-intuitive, that doesn’t make sense. But in order to continue as a member of a religious community, we have ignore that nagging feeling that something’s not right in Denmark.
So, when theists are confronted by atheists, they have to hold their hands over their ears and go “la-la-la I can’t hear you” because they fear that we might just be on to something, and they don’t want their beliefs questioned. They are happy with their beliefs, and having someone convince them that they are wrong can be very traumatic.
Read those deconversion stories. To a man and woman, almost all of them include a stage of trauma, of sadness, of uncertainty and pain when they are forced to confront the fact that their long cherished beliefs may not be correct. That’s what theists fear. And I’m sure it can be scary if they are really invested in those beliefs, if their whole lives and social structures are built around them.
That’s why the meme of religion is so powerful, because it’s not just an idea, a mental construct, something that resides in our minds and can be disposed of at whim. It becomes intertwined into our very existence, and like a cancer, it’s impossible to get rid of without killing our very selves.
“Acceptance” is the key, in my experience. Most Judeo-Christians I know seem to believe in their deity and its attendent flummery the way they believe the sky is blue. They have the earth science high school course explanation, it’ll do.
There is a small group among them who argue whether it is truly blue or not, what shade of blue, why it is blue and not ‘vlarm’ (I can make up words, too 😉 )…you see where I’m going. It simply is what they have been taught, end of the story.
I was an atheist (although I didn’t know what such a thing was) at age five, I first said I had no belief in any deity at age eight. That latter cost me a lot, but I think in the end I gained a lot.
Atheists who “come to jesus” at some point … I suppose some do for deep, personal reasons, terror of death and what comes after, but I highly suspect that most like the king of France who became Catholic because he found Paris “worth a mass” have something else going on.
Like when my sons hit puberty … if the nasty little pagans started showing signs of religious excitation and interest in church and Sunday school we always asked, “What’s her name”?
That brings back many memories of the church dating scene of my youth. 😉
When I was a teen, I didn’t mind going to church too much because I had a good number of friends – male and female – there. Yeah, we had to sit through the services in our silly salvo suits, but after church we’d shed the suits and go to McDonald’s (or less savory venues) and hang out; church was our rendezvous point. My church friends, especially the guys, introduced me to many of life’s pleasures…
It never ceases to amaze me at the number of christians (especially catholics) who, when told that I don’t believe in their god, are convinced that I am a satan or devil worshipper. I try to explain that the devil is an invention of their religion, so if I don’t believe in their god, I certainly don’t believe in their devil either. It’s about that point where I get the hands over the ears thing along with “la la la la la la.”
But who do you think is responsible for you doubting god claims and rejecting faith? Could it be… SATAN?
si,
In fact, at the risk of committing the No True Scotsman fallacy, I find it hard to believe that any “true” atheist has ever converted. The sheer underpinnings of atheism – skepticism, rationalism, naturalism, etc. – would prevent such a conversion, because if a truly skeptical, rational, naturalistic atheist did so, he wasn’t a skeptic or a rationalist or a naturalist in the first place.”
i do believe you not only risked committing the fallacy, you actually DID commit it. funny, though, how no one here seemed to mind.
Yes and no. As we’ve stated numerous times, and as you just did yourself with the tacked on modifiers, the term “atheist” is insufficient as it doesn’t address the most important point, HOW they’re atheists. Raellians and Buddhists are atheists, as are the followers of new-agey religions which believe in some unifying energy like the Force from Star Wars. None of those followers are, as you yourself put it, “skeptical, rational, naturalistic atheists” (although I’d say the “naturalistic” is unnecessary to add when you already have the other two).
So are these faith based, ignorance based, or apathy based atheists atheists? Sure. Are they really an example of the type of atheists everyone is most familiar with, like the so-called “new atheists” authoring books, doing tv, radio and internet programming, challenging religious attacks on the constitution, on education, equal rights, and what have you? No. Are they indicative of old school atheists, the Nietzsches, Russells, and the like? No. If anything, they are the type the religious like to paint all atheists as because they’re easy targets. Skeptical, rational atheists aren’t. Using them allows for a plethora of religious bullshit arguments including but not limited to “atheism is a religion”, “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”, “atheists are just angry at god”, the Courtier’s reply, et. al.
“Rational atheist” should suffice as a label, and although those muddle-headed atheists are atheists, they aren’t rational atheists.
Contrast what Philly says to the “No True Christian™”. There are something like 10,000 different sects of Christianity, and more sub-sects (I think I made that word up too).
It’s far too easy for a Christian to say “He’s not a True Christian™” when confronted with one of the multitudes of contradictory facts and ideas that many Christians say they believe in.
It’s a lot easier to point out an “Un-True Atheist”. Just ask him if he converted to Christianity. If he says yes, he’s not a true atheist. 8)
It can, unless of course you wish to cherrypick some more.
LOL! LOL!! I guess it’s not a two-way street eh?
You can say that again.
Man, it’s slow around here. What gives? Gideon got bored, and went to troll Tommykey’s blog? Anyhow…
Do you have a definition of “knowledge” that somehow provides for fallacious reasoning? I’m sure you’ll be tempted to label me with the unsavory expletive du jour, but I’m being deadly serious here. I’m doing exactly what a critical thinker ought to do, which is examine your claims for fallacies.
Oops, my bad… I meant to post by my *real* name, which is jason!
LOL! LOL!!
Man, it’s slow around here. What gives? Gideon got bored, and went to troll Tommykey’s blog?
Yeah, you gotta have a pretty poor excuse for a life to troll my D-list blog.
I’d say SI’s is D-list, with yours somewhere around B+ / A-. Sure, you don’t post that often, and sure, you don’t have PhillyChief and the like continually propping you up, but so what? Your thoughts are well-reasoned, drawn-out, and of a much higher caliber in my honest opinion. And you shoot photos.
Coming from Cl, I take that as a high compliment. Too bad he then had to go and diss Tommy.
Where did I “dis” Tommy?
I think one of the hallmarks of atheism is the quest for knowledge.
Yes, that is a very broad, generalized statement. The “quest for knowledge” certainly is not exclusive to atheists. It is probably more accurate to say that in trying to provide explanations for phenomena, an atheist rules out the supernatural as a possibility at the beginning of the investigation. For example, in cases of alleged demonic possession, the atheist’s starting point is that the person is not possessed by a demon, and therefore we seek to find an explanation that does not involve possession.
I think that it’s a part of human nature in general that a large segment of the population takes certain beliefs in general for granted and are not interested in going outside their comfort zone. Most conservatives aren’t going to seek out writings and studies by liberals that might challenge their views, and likewise most liberals won’t do the same with regard to conservatives. Instead, we rely on the opinions of trusted authorities within our belief systems to distill these things for us.
Most people who think that global warming is a hoax, for example, are not going to spend their time combing over reams of temperature data that they can access on their own so that they can form independent judgments. Instead, they take publications from conservative or libertarian think tanks as authoritative interpretations. For one thing, it can be quite time consuming to find out things for yourself. For example, I looked at temperature data for one NOAA climate monitoring station for Mineola, Long Island for just the months of July and November for the years 1969 through 2010 and then I compiled bar graphs which clearly showed that there has been a gradual rise in temperature for the last two decades. It took me hours to do it, but I felt it was worth it because it was an exercise in objectively looking at a set of data and then accepting the conclusions regardless of whether it supported any preconceived notions I might have had. I don’t know if being an atheist necessarily had anything to do with driving my curiosity.
I totally agree that quite a few people who identify as Christians are not interested in having their beliefs challenged and can become upset if you attempt to do so. The incident with my Facebook friend that I described above is an example of someone who can’t even abide the idea of describing the story of Adam and Eve as allegorical.
However, I have to admit that in the years that I have been involved in atheism and religious discussions on the Internet, I find that quite a few Christians have put a lot of thought into why they believe what they believe. They have considered the arguments presented to them and find them unconvincing. We can disagree with their reasons and conclusions, but we can’t accuse them of ducking from an exchange of ideas.
“…I find that quite a few Christians have put a lot of thought into why they believe what they believe. They have considered the arguments presented to them and find them unconvincing. We can disagree with their reasons and conclusions, but we can’t accuse them of ducking from an exchange of ideas.”
an atheist that doesn’t automatically dismiss all who disagree with the conclusion of atheism as ignorant, delusional fools? hmmm…there’s hope yet it seems. well said tommy – if only more (atheist and theist alike) held the same perspective.
There are Christians who put a lot of thought into defending their faith indulgence, but I don’t see that as putting thought into why they believe.
Yeah, because such arguments contradict what they “know in their hearts” or some similar nonsense. They don’t truly consider the arguments, like the eerily similar knuckleheads blowing smoke up your ass at the moment, but if you think you have evidence that they do, let’s see a link.
Yes. I’ve never seen any so-called X-tian, including CL/Jason/Godless Randall, and especially he-who-won’t-be-named-lest-he-comes-back, who has ever shown any indication that they have “considered arguments presented to them and [found] them unconvincing” unless they do so by assuming the truth of their previously held beliefs, which is not the way to evaluate any argument. When it comes to theism, the only valid way to do so is to completely shed all predispositions and use an open mind, and start from a position of neutrality.
That’s where I think the theist/atheist dialog falls apart. At least most atheists that I know, who come from a deconverted background, started from a position on the other side, moved to a doubting position (i.e. one of neutrality) and eventually came to the atheist position.
Now this is where Cl shows up and tries to convince us that he has an open mind.
Maybe indirectly, but he or someone similar would probably go the route of claiming that you aren’t open-minded for not accepting the possibility of the supernatural and that in fact you’re working from a position of presupposition, that of materialism. That’s the typical response, ignoring (or exhibiting ignorance of) what actually makes for an open mind.
Open-mindedness
That video is a very good explanation for what I was trying to say, in my limited way. I’ll bet CL will refuse to even look at it, and if he does, I’d be interested to hear his attempts to refute it. You could substitute his flying video games for the swinging lampshade, and make CL the guy with the hair.
“When it comes to theism, the only valid way to do so is to completely shed all predispositions and use an open mind, and start from a position of neutrality.”
funny you should say that because that’s exactly what i have done. theism is my conclusion. i can’t speak for everyone that holds this belief but i would think it would be safe to say that almost certainly others have used the same process. i will add, though, that although i find atheism to be an incorrect conclusion, i don’t find it an unreasonable one.
I’ve never seen any so-called X-tian, including CL/Jason/Godless Randall, and especially he-who-won’t-be-named-lest-he-comes-back, who has ever shown any indication that they have “considered arguments presented to them and [found] them unconvincing” unless they do so by assuming the truth of their previously held beliefs
GIDEON! GIDEON! GIDEON!
Sorry, I just had to do that.
I said we didn’t have to agree with their reasons and conclusions. My point was that they don’t shun engagement with atheists, unlike the persons SI described in Ebony Mom’s forum. Some of them actively seek us out, sometimes to the point of annoyance. 🙂
You’re a real shit stirrer today, aren’t you Tommy? 8)
This is total nonsense SI. I’ve got almost 500 blog posts where I discuss various arguments. Do you ever come by, save for the occasional insult? No. You sit here and run your mouth like a paper bag in the wind. It’s actually YOU who doesn’t address MY arguments. Take the classic example of the video game thing: denial, insult, denial, insult… wash, rinse, repeat for three months, then, at the end, “Oh wait a minute cl… do you mean to say they actually flew, like at a 45 degree angle?”
Get real.
When thinking it through involves faulty presuppositions, an argument from ignorance, argument from personal incredulity, or something similar, I hesitate to call that thinking it through. I certainly won’t if such things have been pointed out to you yet you continue on.
“When thinking it through involves faulty presuppositions, an argument from ignorance, argument from personal incredulity, or something similar, I hesitate to call that thinking it through.”
agreed.
Yet that’s what you do. Shall I cite the comment thread from a few months ago where after I pointed that out, you disappeared?
Oh what’s the point? You and your doppleganger play the same game.