The Problem of Right and Wrong

When first investigating the arguments for atheism versus Christianity, one point that was particularly sticky for me and for both sides of the argument was the problem of morality; if we are just chemical reactions, why do we so strongly believe in the idea of right and wrong? I had always thought that God answered this question. He gave us our morals by creating the universe we live in and by giving us eternal souls. I thought that we experienced compasssion and anguish, loved and fought for justice because God's character was reflecting in us. But once I stepped away from this faith and held it in my hands instead of drowning within it, I realized that having God does not truly satisfy our desire for truth or justice (right or wrong). For example, if the only reason I am doing a kind act for a stranger is because I think God wants me to, am I really good? Or, what if God commands me to kill my children? Since God dictates what's right and wrong, is infanticide now good? I think we already have a preconcieved idea of what is good, beautiful or loving and we want God to be the ultimate incarnation of that idea. We want to love God because he is good, not because he created good. If we are only minions doing the bidding of a master, how can we claim to be moral at all? Additionally, if God created my sense of morality, shouldn't I whole heartedly agree with all of his actions and commands? I may not want to live up to his standards, but if he created my sense of justice, his actions should never violate that. Yet, all over the Bible, God does things that I strongly disagree with including commanding Abraham to kill his child. I have often been told that I God's ways are not my ways and that I just don't see the big picture yet, but there are plently of stories in the Bible that chronicle a person's entire life. Even though Job recieved all of his herds, house and had more children, I don't think what God did to him was just.

However, I don't think this lets atheists or naturalists off the hook either. From what I've read, it's my impression that the scientific position on why we have morals is that they evolved because humans had a higher survival rate in groups. Those who were born with genetic mutations for co-operation and mutual understanding were able to form communities and survive at a higher rate until the entire race was bred with morals. Which is fine, until I begin to question why I should follow them in the first place. Using the same example as above, if I were to propose killing children, what argument is there for not doing this terrible act? If the only reason not to commit a crime like this is because I would decrease the chance of propogating the species or because years of genetic selection has given me chemical reactions to feel negatively about it, then who cares? Its a terribly depressing realization that all my passions, loves and sense of justice have no bearing on truth, but instead of merely chemical reactions that I may choose to ignore. If this is true, then there is no such thing as right, true, good, or evil, but only what we as a species have collectively defined. I have a deep desire to do what is right and good because it truly is good. Is there nothing beyond our biology?

Something Personal

As a new de-convert from Christianity, I haven't really come out of the closet to many people yet. My parents are very devout and I know that the notion of their daughter burning in hell for all eternity would cause them more pain than I want to think about, so I haven't told them. I also haven't said much to people at church because for the past year or so I've been teaching sunday school for the 5th and 6th grade girls. I would hate for those parents to think that I was misleading their children or filling their heads with lies, so I've just quietly resigned my post when I could no longer believe what I was teaching. Needless to say, my conversations about why I no longer believe have been few and far between. However, there have been a few people who noticed when I was upset, and as I am a terrible liar, the truth came out and I had a few discussions.

The first people I told anything to was a couple in the church whom I had gotten to know and trust. The wife wanted to tell me about her experiences, that she was so convinced that God and Jesus were true and the Bible really was the word of God because she had an overwhelming feeling that they were true and she was so filled with peace and joy she knew it had to be God. She told me about a few people she had known who had been healed of different things and after that there was really no discussion. I didn't want to stomp all over her story and clearly she gained peace and joy from her relationship with God, so I let that one go. My discussion with the husband was a little more interesting. He debated me on several points and we were able to discuss some philosophical issues. I finally came out and said that I just didn't believe the Bible was anything more than the work of man; that it defied logic to assume this was the perfect word of God and what was funny was that he couldn't really disagree. I would make a comment, he would throw a possible explanation (one that months ago may have satisfied me) and I would poke a giant hole in the possibility. What amazed me most was that at the end of the discussion, he conceded most of my points. The final statement was something along the lines of "Well I can't really argue with you, but I still have my faith..." Twice more since that discussion I have had the same response from my friends. Why is this?

I've come to realize that there probably is literally nothing you could say to a strong believer that would cause them to look objectively at their faith and acknowledge the possibility that they could be wrong. Even the weakest apologetic arguments are passed along because as long as there is some answer, it will do. I can't pass judgment on anyone who feels this way because I have been there. Becoming a Christian completely defines who you are. It affects every aspect of your life in ways you didn't even realize until you start to shake it off. The process of questioning everything I knew about the world was crushing and terribly lonely. I know exactly why no one wants to question their beliefs; the cost of letting them go is too high. So why did I finally begin this stumbling journey towards what I hope is the truth?

Something personal. I could put all those questions and injustices of my faith aside as long as they didn't stare me in the face, but when it finally came time for me to watch someone I loved pass away and grapple with the idea that God would allow them to suffer for all eternity, the doors of objectivity swung wide open. I imagine it will be the same when I finally have to confront the people in my life I am hiding this from; we will have a discussion and most likely we won't understand each other. Even if I can dismantle every crumbling foundation and knock out the old boarded windows of Christianity, they will just be put back on their shaky hinges. I don't suppose anyone will be willing to let go of what they believe until they encounter something personal.

Forgiveness and Salvation

Last week, I heard a sermon about the unforgivable sin and thought you all might like to hear about it. I am still semi-regularly attending church with my husband who has patiently listened to all my questioning these past few months yet still remains firm in his faith. We go to church together about every other week, and I have to admit that the sermons are becoming more difficult to listen to.

The passage my pastor was speaking on was Matthew 12:31-32, "31And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
Since context is always the scapegoat when trying to find meaning in text like this, lets look at context. Earlier in the passage, Jesus had just cast out a demon from a man who could not speak or see. When the crowds were amazed that the blind and mute man was talking and had his vision restored, they began to wonder if this man was the Messiah they had been looking for. The Pharisees became jealous and whispered amongst themselves that he really must be a demon.

Even in context, this passage is incredibly unclear. What exactly is the definition of blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Why can we blaspheme Jesus and the Father but not the Spirit? Shouldn't they be one and the same? What is even more pressing in my mind is not whether there is an unforgivable sin, but whether or not we need to have all our sins forgiven before we are allowed to enter heaven. This is one issue that every Protestant/Evangelical church I have attended seemed to be very clear on; the only way to heaven is for Jesus to forgive your sins. He'll forgive all of them, but you can't go in without forgiveness. Upon further examination, I'm not sure that's what the Bible teaches.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" Acts 16:31
"For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10:10
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—" Eph 2:8

These passages are often used by Christians to demonstrate that we are saved by grace and not works, but what is interesting is they say nothing about forgiveness. If all we need to do to be saved is believe in Jesus, is it really a requirement that we be forgiven too? There certainly are passages that could be used for either side of the argument, but what is interesting is that the other side is never discussed; the point of view that God's forgiveness is very conditional, but even if we don't get it, we could get into heaven anyway.
Luke 6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
John 20:22-23 "22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Matt 6:15 "But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."
1 Cor 3:12-15 "12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

Evidence for God

When I was a Christian, one of the things that bothered me about faith was that God could be reduced to a matter of perspective. For most Christians, it seemed that life just happened as it would and God was given credit for all the good things and the bad things were just happening "in his time." For example, if I have a sick friend and I pray to God to heal him, one of two things will happen; my friend will recover or he won't. If he recovers, either immediately or within nearly any time frame, it must have been God healing him, but if he does not recover, then it was just God's will. I was always frustrated that knowing the God of the universe seemed to changed so little. Shouldn't everything be different because we know God?

I'm sure this outlook on life is comforting to the believer, but does nothing to demonstrate the existence of God. This is an exerpt from deconversion.com called Salvaging Santa. It's a clever piece of satire demonstrating that most of the apologetic proofs are God would be just as effective to prove the existence of Santa Claus. It is interesting to see all my old Christian arguments in a new context:

Place Santa out of the reach of science.
Some point to what they consider the absurdity of a voluminous man descending a narrow chimney and other mysterious aspects of Santa. Here are a few ways to deal with this form of persecution.

-Announce that Santa’s magic is far above human understanding. Santa, in his infinite magic, can fatten flukes at will, create chimneys where there are none, and leave everything intact as if he had never descended from the roof at all. Ask the secularists how they even dare with their puny minds to question the magic of our Santa.

-Call problematic parts of the Santa story figurative. Suggest that the notion of “descending the chimney” is a metaphor of Santa’s intent. He actually may come through a window. What matters is that the presents are there in the morning. In doing this, never submit a standard for discerning between literal and figurative elements of the Santa story. That will make it convenient for you to choose which is which as aplogetics needs arise.

-Remind non-believers that, if the Santa story could be tested and confirmed, we couldn’t employ the faith that feeds the magic. Accuse them of not listening to the clear voice of Santa that each of us carries deep in our hearts if we only listen with open minds.

-Affirm the magic. Point out all the cases in which reindeer dung was found on roof tops. Suggest that any father who would simply throw dung on his roof in an attempt to create the illusion of a rangiferine landing would have to be either a lunatic or liar. The only sensible inference is that Santa’s sleigh had indeed visited your house.

-Belittle science and its tools. Point out that science is often wrong and is therefore not an appropriate method to assess the magic of Santa. Claim that statistics are a silly invention, and strongly affirm the idea that anything can be “proven” through statistics. The stronger you affirm this, the more true it will become. In this way, reports that suggest poorer (not misbehaving) children receive fewer presents can be dismissed. If secularists suggest this is not logical, claim that Santa logic is not the same as secular logic, but don’t bother explaining how.

-Suggest that science and magic fall into two non-overlapping domains. Declare that scientific methodology cannot assess the wonderment of magic. When asked about specific claims of Santaism that seem to fall within the reach of science, offer evasive permutations of the particular doctrine to make it impotent and thus unassailable. Fudging a bit on exegesis is forgivable if the net result is an increase in believers.

-Disparage the notion of belief based on “evidence”. This is becoming one of the most troubling issues that has already led to the apostasy of thousands. You’ll hear secularists claim that the degree of confidence in an idea should match the degree of the evidence. Where is the magic in that? Evidence only goes so far and is largely linear. How can belief be linear? Choose a side! Unless we go beyond the evidence with faith, we would be left saying “I don’t yet know” on many questions, a wholly unacceptable option.

2. Exercise the right to arbitrarily define true Santaism.
You’ll often hear accusations that Santanists do not behave any better than non-believers. Here you’ll want to point out the fallacy in this accusation by simply explaining that those who don’t act like Santanists are not real Santaists. This will prevent your opponent from citing anecdotes, and require him to lean on statistics that require a substantial sample that you can then simply dismiss as not representative of Santaism. If your opponent then demands positive evidence for superior behavior among Santaist, simply offer a few anecdotes as proof.

3. Appeal to what people already know in their hearts.
There are times when you may simply ignore the anti-santa arguments. Every person knows deep in his heart that Santa is real. Presuppositional affirmations are the way to go. This is economical in that it minimizes potential cognitive dissonance that may creep in through cracks in your counter-arguments, and eliminates the expenditure of contemplation that distracts from faith in Santa, and may even lead to doubting.

4. Emphasize emotions.
Fortunately, Christmas is replete with salient sensations that easily form a sense of identity, of belonging, and also address dozens of other emotional needs. We know through a feeling of certainty that emotions are a legitimate validator of what is true, so regardless of the apparent power of the secularist’s arguments, this emotional validation is what will vanquish the doubts that have destroyed the magic in so many young lives. And perhaps the greatest argument you can make is to ask weak believers if they would want to live in a world that had no magic. Ask them if they want to grow up to become merely scientists restricted by the parameters of materialism. Emphasize the rigor and critical thought required by those who have abandoned magic and have endeared themselves to rational thought. Above all, emphasize the personal relationship believers have with Santa. Have them make psychological investments by writing Santa letters for years, then remind them of this and of all other psychological investments at any point in which their faith is weak. Remind them that Santa’s apparent silence is simply a test of their faith or an indication that their requests are selfish. And always return to the assurance that emotions are a legitimate way to confirm the truth of their faith.

A First Look at Love

Because this blog is not solely about losing faith, but also the experience of love, this will be my first of many posts about love and its relationship to religion.

Through all my years of being heavily involved in church, one of the most prominent cliches is that 'God is love.' I had always been taught that not only does God love, but its what he is. His entire being is e essence of love and when we know God, we know love. Under that heading it was easy for me to get past the difficult parts of the Bible, because if God really was love, all those killings must have been for some reason I wouldn't understand until I got to heaven. Now that I am looking at Christianity from the outside, I wonder what the Biblical evidence for the statement 'God is love' really is. I went to an online Bible and search for the keywords 'God is love' thinking I would come up with dozens of responses, but interestingly, I only had two hits, both in the book of 1 John. (4:8 and 4:16) I thought it was strange that this teaching does not appear until the very end of the Bible and in a book that very few Christians study, so I tried again, this time on another search engine. Still the same. Certainly there are passages that discuss how much God loves his people or examples of his love, but why do so many Christians believe that God is love if it is only briefly mentioned in 1 John?

My hypothesis is that the human experience of love is so transcendental that we feel the need to worship it. Love is the one experience that makes me take a second look at whether we are only just chemical reactions or if there is some other force within or around us that causes us to feel this way. Love is something that represents what is truly good and for most people, what makes life worth living. I understand the need the make love something true, something more real than just chemical reactions. We feel the same way about morality; I don't follow my internal morals because they are inherited or learned social behaviors, but because I feel my actions are truly right or wrong. Emotionally, I don't think we will ever accept that these behaviors are mere chemicals, and so to explain it, we put a head and legs on it, and call it God. Now, this "God" is the source of all love and all morality, a being to explain our deep longing for truth.

Does this prove the existence of God? What if these other worldly experiences could be explained scientifically? I have been reading quite a few papers lately about oxytocin, the chemical released in our brains during sex, childbirth and stimulates a woman to release milk for breastfeeding. More research has been done to examine oxytocin's role in social behaviors, specifically long term partnerships and trust. Experiments were initially done on rodents that exhibit long term mating behaviors and the researchers found that oxytocin was directly involved in the strength of partnership behaviors. When rodents species not known for long term mating were given oxytocin, they remained with their partners much longer than placebo, and when those rodents who usually did mate for life had the genes for oxytocin knocked out, they suddenly were only interested in 'one-night stands.' This also applies to humans; oxytocin has been shown to increase trust and social behaviors in addition to its established sexual role. A nice summary of the research can be found http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/love-science.html .

So now what? Is love only a series of oxytocin and dopamine release or do our desires for truth and love beyond ourselves prove the existence of some external source?

Why Evangelize?

In reading another blog about converstion between athiesm and catholicism (http://www.conversiondiary.com/) and learned this little tidbit from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Basically, it is the opinion of the catholic church that if you have never heard about Jesus or even God, it's not your fault and you can still go to heaven. If you are a sincere and good person, that's good enough for God. Initially, I was relieved to read something like that. The idea that God could send someone to eternal punishment for something they were completely ignorant of had always struck me as globally unfair, but this bit of theology raises an interesting question: why evangelize? If everyone who is ignorant of God and a relatively good person will go to heaven, why risk telling them the truth? Then they might decide they don't agree with what you've said, but since they now have information, they will be held responsible for it. Why not just let everyone die in their ignorance and end up in heaven? The only argument I can think of is that those in ignorance will miss out on knowing God in this lifetime and doing his work, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem in light of eternity. If a person can just make it into heaven, they have millions of years to foster a relationship with God, do his work and most likely have relationships with others around them. If its true that "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14b), then just a few years of knowing God on earth hardly seem worth the risk.

Angry Atheists

When I first began this journey of dwindling faith towards the realm of atheism, I starting with a lot of reading. The first book I picked up was Dan Barker's Godless. I was moved by his story of completely leaving the world of religion and felt for the first time that maybe I didn't have to believe in this anymore. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home from the bookstore (seeing as I was too cheap to actually buy the book) was google him. I found dozens of book titles and interviews, and when reading through the text of his discussion with Christians, he came across as sort of an ass. I had the same experience when listening to Christopher Hitchens debate a Christian and Jew; he was definitely an ass. The more atheist blogs I visit and comment conversations I eavesdrop on, it seems that there are plenty of angry athiests out there; people who are enraged or at least highly irritated by religious people and have no qualms about calling them idiots or speaking about them with condescention. I vowed to myself that I would never become one of these angry athiests; that I would always respect Christians because not so long ago I was one.

This week I had my eyes opened as to why a great number of athiests may be angry with Christians. I posted a comment on a christian blog that was discussing what to tell your friends when they say they have been searching for God and cannot find him. Most of the readers responding with either 'try harder' or 'just wait', and I felt the need to enter the discussion. I empathized with those who have searched and never found and I wondered why God would be this way if he loves us so much. In return, I was told that I must be ignoring God, that I am being selfish and self centered for desiring so much and that the work Jesus did on the cross should be enough for me if I would just quit putting demands on God. There are Christians out there who would not respond this way, and I hope I run into more of them in this journey. However, if this is the response that atheists are getting from trying to dialouge with Christians, I am beginning to understand why they are angry.