parks@kpnoa.UUCP (06/27/84)
This is a statement of position, attempting to explain why I am an
atheist. I do this for two reasons: First, to clarify my own position
and feelings to myself, and Second, to promote useful discussion and
criticism of my reasoning.
My background is this: My family was never formerly religious. We
occasionally went to different Christian church services, usually with
friends. My parents both has Beliefs, but not formalized. I grew up
believing that there was Something Out There, something both above and
beyond our existence, but I was not sure what. In my teen years, I began
to explore. I investigated many religions (Christianity, Buddism, and
several occult-based beliefs).
I came to categorize Christians in three (admittedly arbitrary) camps:
The Hard Cores - those who loudly proclaim and evangelize, usually quoting
scripture, usually trying to convert. They are sincere but obnoxious (at
times), and seems unable to understand why people don't see their arguments
for Truth. The Soft Cores - these people may pass you by without your
realizing that they are Christians. They attempts to lead a Christian
life, without trying to ensure that everyone else leads that same type of
life. They seem (to me) to be by far the least hypocritical, and the
closest to God of any group. Lastly, The Blind Followers - this group
was brought up in a particular faith and follow it until they die, never
questioning it, and never thinking about it much.
The end of my teens saw me much as I had started: I still believed
in Something Out There. In specific, I believed in an afterlife, mediums
who could occasionally contact the afterlife, I believed in some type of
mental power that was possessed by rare individuals.
I still do *want* to believe in these things, but I find that I cannot.
I have always attempted to be a rationalist, looking for the most likely
explanation for events and for the universe, even (especially) when those
explanations were uncomfortable.
The first structure to crumble was my belief in parapsychology. I
realize this does not directly bear on religion, but if you have read
this far, bear with me.
It has been 50 year since J. B. Rhine began investigating psi
(and groups in England have been doing research for much longer). In
that time, parapsychology has gained a legitimate name, recognition by
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and millions of
dollars in research funding. Despite that, in all this time not one
single solid piece of repeatable evidence has appeared demonstrating a
true psychic power. What has instead been seen is:
---Members of the lay public who wish to believe in psychic powers, and
interpret unlikely or odd events as being manifestations of psi
---Sincere believers in their own powers, who repond to body language
and other cues without realizing it
---Investigators who are so strong in their belief that they let control
and objectivity lapse
---And worst, those frauds and charlatans who *knowingly* deceive either
the investigators, the scientific community, or the public (and make
a tidy profit at it as well)
I already did not believe in UFO's, astrology, Scientology, and most of
the more outlandish psychic phenomena. After serious investigation, my
belief in *all* psychic abilities vanished (much to my regret). I believe
now that there is no mystery behind: astrology, telepathy, precognition,
telekinesis, mediums, seances, UFO's, bigfoot, psychic surgery, dowsing,
reincarnation, or a host of other beliefs that fall into the category
"psychic phenomena".
Now comes the tie-in with religion. With the collapse of my belief
in reincarnation and mediums, the only support for my belief in an
afterlife was conventional religion. I began to reason thus
1. Assume for a moment that there was no God. If that were true, then
the concept of Divinity and God (or Gods) would still be invented
by man, who needed this comfort. In fact, (almost) every separate
branch of humanity has discovered its own different Gods, each as
different from each other as the separate groups of man were from
each other. IF THERE WAS NO GOD, THEN MAN WOULD INVENT HIM.
2. There is no current-day objective proof for religion. There are
communications, prayers, miracles, and healings, but these are all
subjective and do not constitute proof to disbelievers.
3. The ancient proof of religion is of two types: wisdom and miracles.
The wisdom could have been of Divine inspiration, but it could also
have been created by mortal men. The miracles are quite similar to
modern-day miracles, except that they are more much more astonishing
(earthquakes, plagues, invincibility, resurrection).
4. Fanatics may find this offensive -- There are people today who
believe the most outlandish things (whites are the superior race,
the earth is the center of the universe and does not move, the earth
is flat, God hates a homosexual, evolution is a satanic plot, demons
and spirits exist and possess people). I do not believe that God
(if He exists) made the world this way, or intended people to
believe this, or wrote these things in the Bible then made the world
otherwise. I think these people are flat-out *wrong* and are
deluding themselves through the fanatical strength of their beliefs.
(Strong note: sorry, I don't mean to say that all creationists are
fanatics. I don't agree with them, but they aren't all fanatics.
Flat Earthers on the other hand...)
5. New religions are being started today, even as we watch. Remember
Scientology, TM, Jim Jones' bunch of fun-loving Kool-Aiders, Moonies,
Rosicrucians and so on. You may call them cults, but they call
themselves religions. They can be investigates *today*, and I do not
believe in the metaphysical claims of *any* of them. Their proponents
do believe, and very strongly.
6. There are technical inaccuracies in all holy books, including the
Bible. (I Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5
where is is undeniably stated that the earth is immovable; Isaiah
40:21-22, Job 22:141, Daniel 4:10-11, Matthew 4:8, Revelation 7:1,
where it is implied that the earth is flat, and it is plain that the
authors believe that the earth is flat). These indicate to me that
the Bible (or any holy work) is not the sole single work of God, but
was written by human beings and may be inaccurate. This idea is
supported by the many translations of the Bible in existence. I do
not say that the Bible couldn't have been divinely *inspired*,
merely that it was written by human beings.
7. Almost all holy books indicate that the writers plainly believed in
such things as mediums, soothsayers, ghosts, and witches. As I have
indicated earlier, I believe in none of these. If these do not
exist now, and also did not exist in the past, then those holy
authors must have been mistaken about at least some types of super-
natural occurances.
8. Most religions (B'hai excluded) claim that theirs is the one true
religion, all others are either false or mistaken.
Or, more briefly
---The ancient holy books were written by earthly men (believers) with
miraculous claims.
---Those who claim miracles today are accepted by many, even though
these miracles have no objective proof, or are unconvincing to skeptics.
---Religions have human problems and inconsistencies: their belief in
haunts, technical inaccuracies, and their denial of all other faiths.
So, which of the many religions in the world is true? It began to
seem to me, that from the above points, that the worldly proof of the True
Religion rests on its ancient miracles, and nothing else. Any other
religion in the world has its modern-day subjective beliefs, comforts,
order, and minor miracles. They are all on a roughly equal footing here.
Perhaps, I thought, the one with the largest following it true. But
millions of people read the National Enquirer and believe in Uri Geller
and astrology. I have no faith that a large number of believers
vindicates that belief.
Again and again I was forced back to the fact that "we can't *prove*
to you today, but in the past there was this miracle...." And that is
when I became an atheist.
If today, in our supposedly enlightened, literate, and technically
clever society we are still taken in by mistakes of belief, how much
easier must it have been to believe in the past? The Ph.D's who believed
Uri Geller at the Stanford Research Institute were no dummies, they just
let their belief get in the way of their senses. I am not claiming that
the resurrection was a fraud, but that I can't say for sure *what* it
was. Uri Geller was a fraud. Christ was not. But, I am not able to
accept other peoples view of a miracle as the truth. I have been fooled
too often in the present, and present day people have shown themselves to
be *extremely* unreliable witnesses. Question: was there ever a skeptical
viewer of a miracle who was not convinced and converted by seeing this
miracle? Could he have perhaps, really wanted to believe all along?
That is why I am an atheist. It seems far more likely to me, that
*all* the world's religions are the yearnings of man for something that
can never be his: answers, eternal life, true security. I must instead
accept an unknown, uncaring universe and my own mortality.
Jay Parks
(decvax!hao!ihnp4!seismo)!noao!parksjso@edison.UUCP (07/01/84)
kpnoa!parks' excellent article on why he is an atheist seems to me to have a few fatal flaws. Remember that I am not presenting my own belief as "absolute truth", but simply as a contrast. The central problem is that he tries to approach religion and non-material phenomena from a materialist point of view. This is not to say that scientific experimentation and reasoning are incompatible with religion; the essence of occultism, as opposed to organized religion, is enquiry and experimentation, and forming your own conclusions as to the nature of the universe. (To those who object to my calling occultism religious: as you expand the scope of an honest definition of religion, you will include occultism before you include Buddhism or related religions.) > ... parapsychology has gained a legitimate name, recognition by > the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and millions of > dollars in research funding. Despite that, in all this time not one > single solid piece of repeatable evidence has appeared demonstrating a > true psyhic power. psi powers, by their nature, cannot be consciously replicated, especially in the context of a sceptical experiment. This sounds like a cop-out, I admit, but I have found it to be true. Parapsychology can't supply hard, repeatable, evidence; it is a subjective phenomenon. (In that, it's very repeatable! :-) ) > I believe > now that there is no mystery behind: astrology, telepathy, precognition, > telekinesis, mediums, seances, UFO's, bigfoot, psychic surgery, dowsing, > reincarnation, or a host of other beliefs that fall into the category > "psychic phenomena". I can't understand how you link reincarnation with psychic phenomena, or what UFO's and bigfoot have to do with this at all. Reincarnation is as much a part of "conventional religion" as single-life views of the afterlife; just different religions. More on this below. > In fact, (almost) every separate > branch of humanity has discovered its own different Gods, each as > different from each other as the separate groups of man were from > each other. IF THERE WAS NO GOD, THEN MAN WOULD INVENT HIM. Beneath all the external differences, (almost) all ancient religions were remarkably similar, with very close correspondences in pantheons, myths, and rituals. See the works of Jung for an explanation. Not that this refutes your argument at all, but it should indicate that gods and religion are not simply "inventions", but a reflection of some inner truth. For a scientific theory that complements this nicely, see the book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes. As society evolved, and people became more aware of their spititual nature (from life to life...), "true" religions developed with beliefs about the nature of man and his relationship with god/gods/the universe. As one such mystic said, "We see as through a glass, darkly." My extension to this image is that we see a multi-dimensional, complex reality. Naturally, mystics seeing this from very different points of view will see different things, and so the religions seem very different. (The story of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind.) There are many points of agreement, though. One of these is a belief in the afterlife and reincarnation. Almost no religions deny reincarnation except modern Christianity. Note the modern: the Gnostics believed in reincarnation, as did (do?) Orthodox Jews. After the council of Nicea, parts of the Bible that disagreed with the dogma of the council were removed, and offending copies and other writings hunted down and burned; one such dogma was reincarnation. They weren't entirely succesful in removing all traces of the belief: people saying the John the Baptist was various of the prophets returned, etc. Back to the point: > There is no current-day objective proof for religion. There are > communications, prayers, miracles, and healings, but these are all > subjective and do not constitute proof to disbelievers. Religion cannot be objectively proven: it is a *subjective* experience and relationship with the universe. (A Christian would say that you could not have True Faith if it were proven to you, or something like that.) > There are people today who believe the most outlandish things. > [outlandish things deleted...] > I do not believe that God > (if He exists) made the world this way, or intended people to > believe this, or wrote these things in the Bible then made the world > otherwise. I think these people are flat-out *wrong* and are > deluding themselves through the fanatical strength of their beliefs. Fine, but should this reflect on the truth of religion? If these things are in the Bible, then this reflects only on its truth. Certainly people can be deceived and deceive themselves, but to say that everything not in the common, materialist experience is such a delusion is foolish. > Most religions claim that theirs is the one true religion, all others > are either false or mistaken. Many religious *people* claim this, Christians especially. Religious leaders are often more political than religious, and claim this because it increases the power of their religion, and therefore themselves. (Early Christain popes are excellent examples, as are modern cult leaders.) > ---Religions have human problems and inconsistencies: their belief in > haunts, technical inaccuracies, and their denial of all other faiths. > ..... > So, which of the many religions in the world is true? It began to > seem to me, that from the above points, that the worldly proof of the True > Religion rests on its ancient miracles, and nothing else. Any other > religion in the world has its modern-day subjective beliefs, comforts, > order, and minor miracles. They are all on a roughly equal footing here. > Again and again I was forced back to the fact that "we can't *prove* > to you today, but in the past there was this miracle...." And that is > when I became an atheist. Why is it necessary that one religion be true, and others not? You said yourself that this was a problem. If you try to "prove" religion, or base it on miracles, you miss the point entirely. True mystics and Seekers after Truth (modern ones especially) recognize that the different religions are just different paths to the same truth - your own inner nature and that of the universe. John Owens ...!{ {duke mcnc}!ncsu!uvacs houxm brl-bmd scgvaxd }!edison!jso
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (07/13/84)
I found this article exceedingly interesting and informative. Don't
agree with all of it, but it prompts me to voice the following
request:
Let's hear more from those who were once Christians and are not
now. What prompted the change?
Also, let's hear from those people who have converted to Judaism,
Islam, etc (i.e., not those born into a Jewish, Islamic, etc.
family). Why did you do it?
--
Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist...
Colossians 1:17dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (07/13/84)
I found the article by Jay Parks describing his reasons for
atheisim exceedingly interesting and informative. Don't agree
with all of it, but it prompts me to voice this request:
Let's hear more from those who were once Christians and are not
now. What prompted the change?
Also, let's hear from those people who have converted to Judaism,
Islam, etc (i.e., not those born into a Jewish, Islamic, etc.
family). Why did you do it?
--
Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist...
Colossians 1:17