Church of the Churchless

It was easy to respond to this atheist challenge

Yesterday Anurag Nathyal left this comment on a recent blog post. I'm pleased to take Nathyal up on his challenge. Replies below in bold. At the end of this post I'll also share an excellent rebuttal to what Nathyal said by Appreciative Reader, a regular commenter on this blog.

I have a challenge for the atheists here. You say that we can't prove god is there. I ask you can you prove anything in this world? This may sound absurd at first but think about it.

It's tough for me to respond about "proof" any better than Appreciative Reader said in a reply to your comment, which I've shared below. He's right. In science and everyday life, we don't go about trying to prove things. Basically, we try to explain things. Often this is called "inference to the best explanation."

As Appreciative Reader noted, mathematics has proofs. Science and everyday life don't, at least not in a formal mathematical sense. So atheists don't ask for proof that God exists. We ask for evidence that God exists that pr0vides a persuasive explanation or reason for why, as you put it, God is there.

Science haven't been able to prove consciousness. The very basis of our existence. I bet can you prove anything. Literally anything? By proving I mean there should be no room for doubt. Can you even prove we are not living in a dream or this world is a computer simulation?

Again, science isn't about proof. It is about explanation. Neuroscience has made a lot of progress is understanding consciousness. How much progress have religions made? Zero, essentially. Also, you're mistaken if you believe that science has no room for doubt in its explanations. Every scientific explanation is open to doubt, to refinement, to being overthrown.

That's how science keeps learning more and more -- by challenging current explanations and looking for better ones. In science and everyday life we aren't after certainty. Instead, we seek the most likely and reasonable explanation. Such as, we aren't living in a dream or a computer simulation, though this is a possibility. 

You may think I have gone absurd but still you won't be able to answer my question. Can you prove that this world is real and not a dream. No you can't. All what you can say is that according to my experiences I believe the world is real. But still you can't say that you are certain of it because certain means having no room for doubt and that's not possible.

For some reason you keep asking us atheists to prove things, whereas if you want people to accept that God is real, you should be focused on presenting evidence that supports God's existence. Like I said, nothing is 100% certain. Since you appear to agree with this, I assume you also agree that it isn't certain that God exists. Correct?

All we do is believe. And if this argument isn't enough I have got another. How can you tell a person who doesn't feel pain how pain feels like. It's a real question not a hypothetical one. There are people who don't feel pain. And they just don't know what pain is. You can only try to describe them what pain feels like but you will never be able to know what it actually is.

This is true of everything. You have no idea what my experience feels like, and I have no idea what your experience feels like. No one can know someone else's experience, because all experience is personal. 

They might think that you are telling lies. You can't tell a blind person what it feels like to see. You can't tell a mute person what it's like to hear what you can do is try. They may tell to your face that you are telling lies.

Correct. And us atheists can't tell religious believers what it feels like to not see God. So you simply have a belief about atheists, because there is no way that you can tell what we actually experience. Nor can an atheist tell what a religious believer experiences. Again, this is true of every experience. 

Same goes with those who have experienced the allmighty. They can just describe to you. But they can't tell you exactly because words can't describe such things just like you can't explain to a blind how it feels like to see , you can't tell a mute person how it feels like to listen.

OK, but here's the thing. We know a lot about sight and hearing. Eyes see. Ears hear. And seeing and hearing are senses that tell us things about the physical world, the reality that we all share. By contrast, those who claim to have experienced God can't tell other people what sense they used to have this experience. Nor can they point to the divinity that the unknown sense produced an awareness of. So your analogy fails.

I'll say this again: if I see a movie, like Summer of Soul (great movie, by the way), I can try to describe why I liked it, but the description doesn't capture my experience of the movie. However, I can tell you how to watch the movie, so we can be sure we're having different experiences of the same reality. Where is this God you speak of? How can we be sure that your God is the same as the Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or the thousands of other Gods? Which experience of God should I trust?

You can't describe pain to someone who doesn't feel it , there are some actual people like that. You just can't describe these things through words !!! You just can't !!! I will copy paste this message to every section of this website where there are atheists. Don't think I am a bot. I just need to say the same thing to everyone.

Your argument is weak, if you're trying to defend a belief in God. Psychotic people have experiences of realities that are only in their own minds. So do people who dream, or take psychedelic drugs. Again, this is true of every experience anyone has ever had or will have. No one can fully describe their experiences through words, because experiences aren't made of words.

But you've used a lot of words to argue why words can't capture all of reality. I agree with you, of course. What we do in science and everyday life is use words for various purposes, one of which is to explain the nature of reality. So I invite you to use words to describe how you had an experience of God, and what that experience consisted of. 

And I swear if you give answers to my these 2 questions. I will become atheist !!! Try to give a logical explanation , be true to yourselves.

In my opinion, you've just become an atheist. Congratulations! Glad to help. 

Here's the excellent comment from Appreciative Reader.

Hello, Anurag Nathyal. It's astonishing, how people are so very ignorant about the basics of the scientific method. And no, it isn't just you, and nor is this a derogatory comment against you: this ignorance is far more widespread, and extends to far more ...stratified realms, than one might imagine.

I don't think you're trolling. I do think you're honestly ignorant about this very basic thing, as so many others are.

The short answer to your question is: "Proof" is what you do in closed systems, essentially tautological systems, like logic and math. When it comes to the real world, and specifically when it comes to the scientific method, the operative word you're looking for is not "proof", but something like "best-fit model", or, more generally, "best and most consistent and most economical explanation", that is based on, another operative word, "evidence".

I'm not looking for a detailed discussion, just thought I'd send out a helping hand to a fellow human being who's seemingly grappling with an honest question. Just think over the short paragraph above, and you'll find your answer. You're welcome.

There is indeed a presumption of atheism

Yesterday someone  left this comment on my post, "Sorry. No winner in 'Tell me why you believe in God contest.'"

There are arguments for theism. There are arguments for atheism. The failure of arguments for one side, does not mean that the other position is true by default. There is no "presumption of atheism" or "presumption of theism."

The commenter is completely wrong. What they said lacks any foundation in logic, reason, or direct experience.

I talk about this a lot on this blog. Almost always there's no way to prove the non-existence of something. What we do in both science and everyday life is demand proof that something exists.

If you say, "There's an invisible pink elephant standing on the sidewalk," it's absurd to consider that this statement is as believable as "There's no invisible pink elephant standing on the sidewalk."

Why? Because once we assume that things unseen and unprovable possess as much reality as things seen and provable, we've lost touch with reality. 

That's another word for psychosis. 

Now, it's unlikely the commenter is psychotic. They just have a deficiency in clear thinking, which is very different from being mentally ill.

That's why I'm writing this post -- to help them, and others, understand where they are going wrong in their approach to reality.

Glad to help! That's what we do here at the Church of the Churchless, help bring people back into touch with reality after wandering in the desert of religious delusion.

Hey, I've been a wanderer myself before I understood in what direction truth lies.

Atheism is the presumptive truth because there is no demonstrable evidence that any of the thousands of gods theorized to exist actually does. Atheism simply means "no theism" or "no god."

Likewise, no invisible pink elephants is the presumptive truth because there is no demonstrable evidence that such creatures exist -- except in the minds of people who claim that they see them.

How to become an atheist in three easy steps

This says it all, in just a few words.

What is versus what might be -- a rationale for atheism

There are several reasons why I'm a proud atheist. For example, atheism is firmly grounded in reality, since there is no demonstrable evidence that a god exists. Hence the "a" before theism. 

Atheism also is humble. I'm not saying that all atheists are humble, just that not believing in a god is inherently humble, since there is no way to feel that you're part of a god's chosen people if you don't believe in a god.

Here's another reason. 

Atheism is focused on what is, not what might be. In contrast, religions have the opposite focus, on what might be rather than what is. Now, obviously this is closely tied to the first reason above, the grounding of atheism in reality.

Mostly I hang out with other atheists. This isn't a conscious choice. It is just a natural outcome of the sort of friends and family I have. They're mostly people who embrace science and facts, in addition to the many other possible things people embrace, like art and politics. 

In our conversations, obviously there is zero talk of what happens after death or an afterlife. Religious believers, though, love to talk about heaven, reincarnation, spending eternity with God, and so on. 

The fact that there's no good reason to believe in this stuff doesn't bother them. Hey, it might be true, and that's good enough for people who value fantasy and wishful thinking over what is -- indisputable reality.

Of course, us atheists, along with everybody else, have to strike a balance between attending to what is versus what might be. Planning for the future is as much a part of being human as living in the now is. They're both essential for a fulfilling life.

To offer up an example from my life, a few days ago I wrote a post on one of my other blogs, "My geeky search for the perfect winter tire." As I said in the post, the first question I faced was whether I should get winter tires for the 2020 Subaru Crosstrek that I bought last February. 

That was easy for me to answer.

My wife and I live in a part of Oregon where it can be snowy or icy in late fall, winter, and maybe even early spring. We don't get a lot of snow and ice, none at all the last two years, but when it happens, it's tough to drive around. We live in the south Salem hills, so some roads, along with our driveway, are steep.

And often the temperature is close to freezing when snow or ice hits. That makes roads more slippery than the dry snow common in the mid-West, which also is quite flat. 

So based on my experience of what has been, a close cousin of what is, I decided to order a set of winter tires yesterday -- a new Michelin model, the X-Ice Snow. I recalled how we haven't been able to get up our driveway in the snow with an all-wheel-drive car that had all-season tires, whereas a front-wheel drive car with winter tires did just fine. So an all-wheel drive car with winter tires will be super-fine.

But it would be crazy for someone to buy winter tires if they lived on a place near the equator where it never has snowed or been icy. In this case the odds of needing winter tires to drive around is close to zero. Possible, but extremely unlikely.

That's comparable to religious people planning for an afterlife when it is extremely unlikely that they'll have one.

There's a cost to religiosity, to acting on the basis of a very low probability of might be. Whereas the cost of winter tires is monetary, the cost of religious belief is using one's limited lifetime for activities that aren't based on clear and present reality.

I'm going to feel good when the winter tires are put on my Crosstrek, because I have a solid factual basis for believing there might be snow or ice in our area in the next four or five months. However, no one has a solid factual basis for believing there might be an afterlife, because those facts don't exist.

They might exist someday, though.

Just as if global warming continues to increase, there could come a time when winter tires are needed in Western Oregon just as much as they're needed now at the equator -- never. Keeping an open mind to new facts enables us to preserve a healthy relationship between what is and what might be.

Here's a passage from a recent issue of New Scientist that bears on this.

One of the special things about science is its inbuilt system of self-correction. There is no such thing as scientific truth, just a set of provisional truths that are subject to revision or rejection when new information comes in. That process isn't always quick or peaceful, but it usually gets an answer in the end. The result is scientific progress.

Ricky Gervais nails the ridiculousness of religion

It's Super Bowl Sunday here in the United States, so I've got to save my time and energy to watch grown men try to give each other brain injuries in front of a national audience. 

(Soccer, which the rest of the world calls "football" for some reason, is less crazy, though its fans are even more fanatical.)

So today I'm sharing a great post from the Friendly Atheist blog, Ricky Gervais to Stephen Colbert: "You Don't Believe in 2,999 Gods. I Don't Believe in Just One More."

Hard to argue with Gervais' argument.

GERVAIS: … Atheism is only rejecting the claim that there is a god. Atheism isn’t a belief system. So this is atheism in a nutshell. You say there’s a God. I say, “Can you prove that?” You say no. I say, “I don’t believe you then.” So you believe in one God, I assume?

COLBERT: Uhh…. in three persons, but go ahead.

GERVAIS: Okay. But there are about 3,000 to choose from… Basically, you deny one less God than I do. You don’t believe in 2,999 gods. And I don’t believe in just one more.

And when Colbert said that Gervais' belief in science was a form of faith, he had a comeback.

...GERVAIS: … Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would [produce] the same result.

COLBERT: That’s good. That’s really good.

GERVAIS: So I don’t need faith in science. I don’t need faith to know that, probably, if I jump out of a window, every other time somebody jumps out of the window, they smash to the ground because of this thing called gravity.

Here's a video of the conversation between Gervais and Colbert.

Changing your mind is a superpower. Use it.

I have a superpower. But unlike those with superpowers who inhabit the pages of comic books and the screens of movie theaters, my astounding ability is available to everyone.

It's called changing your mind. 

I'm sure you've used it  -- many times. After all, we change our minds about countless things during the course of our lives. For example, I've changed my mind about my...

Politics (Used to be conservative, now I'm a liberal).
Cars (I've gone from a 57' VW bug to a 2017 VW GTI, with many other makes in between). 
Marriage (Got divorced, then remarried).
Profession (Earned a master's in social work, then went into health planning/research).
Eating (Loved meat until I became a vegetarian in 1970).
Residence (Grew up in the country, then lived in cities, now back in the country again).
Religion (Was Catholic for a while as a child, then a believer in an Eastern religion, and now an atheist).

So how is changing your mind a superpower? After all, everybody does this, all the time. True, but since we're so used to changing our minds, it's easy to overlook how marvelous this ability is.

First, to change your mind you need to have one.

Rocks don't have minds. Nor do stars. Living beings, though, have various sorts of minds. We humans have a powerful one. Other primates, ditto, though to a lesser degree. Plants have some sort of cognizance, but probably not a mind. Computers are very adept at certain tasks, yet so far lack what we would call a "mind."

Thus people are able to learn, adapt, modify our thinking, feeling, intuition, and such.

Because very little of human behavior is controlled by instinct, we have the capacity to transmit knowledge between people and across generations. We can read Plato and understand a great mind that lived thousands of years ago, thereby altering our own.

One of the best things about being able to change our mind is how good it feels, and how freeing it is. 

Yesterday I wrote on one of my other blogs about how I struggled to figure out why my DR Field Mower wouldn't start. I changed my mind several times over several days, with a foolish "fried battery" mistake thrown in. But in the end I learned what the problem was, with the aid of a friend who is much more knowledgeable about machines than I am.

I watched him methodically evaluate possible reasons for the mower not starting, with his mind changing about the various possibilities as he went along. This is similar to what a doctor does when arriving at a diagnosis, or a scientist when testing a hypothesis.

If a mind stays stuck, it can't move in a more productive or realistic direction. We have to be willing to give up an idea in order to embrace a better one.

Of course, "better" and "worse" can be difficult to discern in some situations.

When a mower won't start, it's easy to tell which is the better idea. It's the one that, when followed, leads to the mower starting. (In my case, we disabled the neutral switch, which was broken, and the mower started just fine -- so that was a good idea.)

In the examples I gave above about some of the areas in which I've changed my mind during my 70 years of living, most people would agree that in these areas, there aren't objective criteria about which of my mind-changes were better or worse.

Subjectively, though, I can confidently say that my current 2017 VW GTI is a much better car than the 1957 VW bug that I drove in college.

For one thing, the heater works in my GTI, so I don't have to scrape ice from the inside of the windshield while driving along, like I had to at times in college. But if someone is a collector of old cars, a '57 VW bug (or beetle) could be much more attractive to them than the modern car I have now.

Ditto for the other areas.

Though I'm a proud progressive, I'd never say that this is the only valid way of thinking about politics, since conservatives can have equally good reasons for thinking the way they do. And when it comes to marriage, my first wife and I were pleased to be done with each other after 18 years of wedded bliss that eventually turned into non-bliss.

Yet she and I both found other partners with whom we were wonderfully compatible. That's the nature of life: it changes. And as life changes, so does our mind (or, as our mind changes, so does life).

I'm not saying that change is always welcome, or even tolerable.

That isn't what I mean by changing your mind being a superpower. Sure, it is possible to reduce anxiety, fear, suffering, and such by altering one's thoughts and feelings, but I'm not aware of anybody who can remain completely unmoved by severe pain, disappointment, or loss. 

What is possible, though, is altering our psyche to embrace a new reality, even though it may be unwelcome. That's a superpower in and of itself -- the ability to say "This is...," no matter what those three dots stand for.

Here's some examples of what I mean.

On this blog I've been writing quite a bit about the legal, financial, and ethical troubles involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon. I was a member of RSSB for 35 years, so I like to use this organization as an example of how religions can be wrong, and do wrong, since I'm so familiar with it. 

(If I'd remained a Catholic for 35 years, then became an atheist, likely I'd be using Catholicism as an example of bad religion.)

Fairly frequently commenters on my blog posts about the Dhillon family's alleged criminality will say something like, "Brian, when it turns out that the guru did nothing wrong, you're going to be unable to accept this." 

That really isn't true. 

Because I'm adept at changing my mind, if the Indian legal system ends up exonerating Gurinder Singh Dhillon, I'll accept that reality with very little trouble. In the same fashion, back in November 2016 it took a few days for me to fully accept that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.

But it didn't take long for my mind to adjust to a new reality.

Now I'm hoping Trump will be a one-term president. If that doesn't happen, and he is re-elected, I'll be disappointed. However, I won't deny that this happened. (I do worry, though, that Trump won't be able to accept the reality of a 2020 defeat.)

I'll end by noting that even though I'm used to many varieties of religious craziness after 15 years of regularly writing here on the Church of the Churchless, it still surprises me when a commenter expresses extreme surprise at how I could have changed my mind about the validity of the RSSB teachings after being a member of the organization for such a long time.

Often I'll ask them how many things they have changed their mind about during their lifetime. Have you stuck with the same job, same car, same residence, same friends, same political views? Almost certainly not.

There's something about religion that encourages a rigidity of mind that isn't nearly as evident in other areas of life. Members of some religions, like Mormonism or Scientology, will shun people who leave the religion. Yet if someone changes their mind in a way that leads them to join the religion, that's not only fine, it's marvelous. 

For many fundamentalists, mind-changing is a one-way street. It's great if you convert to their religion, yet horrible if you deconvert.

Strange? Yes.

But since just about every religion believes that it, and it alone, is privy to the eternal ultimate truth of the cosmos, this encourages true believers to denigrate anyone who embraces that religion, then chooses to leave it. I guess changing one's mind makes those fundamentalists fearful that their chosen faith really isn't true.

Which, almost certainly, it isn't.

I feel good about having changed my mind to realize this. It's much more pleasurable to accept reality as it is, or at least as it appears, than to cling to a rigid way of thinking that no longer makes sense to me.

Critical thinking welcome here. Preachiness, not so much.

On this blog I've gone back and forth with moderating comments. After deciding a few weeks ago to return to approving comments before they're published on this blog, I'm feeling good about doing this.

I'd rather have just a few -- or even just one -- thoughtful comments on a post than a bunch of irrelevant comments, especially if they're of the "Praise God!" or "Praise Guru!" variety.

But for many years my boundless Buddha-like compassion for religiously-minded beings has led me to offer an "open thread" option to those who want to express themselves in a fashion that isn't appropriate for comments on regular blog posts. Such as, being preachy.

(Here's the newest Open Thread that I just put up.)

This is a big difference between open-minded atheists like me, and dogmatic religious devotees.

I can pretty much guarantee that few religious web sites or blogs allow commenters to criticize their faith, while most non-believers are fine with open discussion of their viewpoints. 

Critical thinking is key. I love comments that exhibit thoughtfulness, even if the commenter disagrees with me. 

Now, I don't have a definition of "critical thinking," nor do I feel like looking one up. Instead, here's my ideas about what this entails.

I'll start with the most important word, critical, since I think most people understand what thinking means. Critical can mean "important," and that's certainly true with critical thinking. It also connotes a certain skeptical questioning, not taking things on faith.

A critical thinker isn't a blank slate, since all of us have preconceived ideas, assumptions, world views, and such.

However, we need to be willing to hold the attitude "I could be wrong." Many, if not most, religious believers aren't willing to do this. Though they may use critical thinking in other parts of their lives, they put it aside when it comes to their belief in God, heaven, life after death, and so on.

The main goal of critical thinking is to understand reality as clearly, completely, and accurately as possible. A related goal is to enable individuals to have productive discussions of what reality consists of, since without critical thinking as a foundation for such discussions, they'd degenerate into people making claims that stifle open debate.

Let's imagine a group talking about global warming -- it's causes, consequences, and what should be done about it. Then someone chimes in with "Jesus saves!" or "God is in control, so no worries." That would stop the discussion in its tracks.

Critical thinking mainly is directed at objective reality, the world outside of our internal subjectivity. 

If someone says, "I believe in God," or "I like chocolate ice cream," there's little that I'd feel like saying in response except, perhaps, wonderful. However, if that person says "God is real," or "Everybody should like chocolate ice cream the best," I'd want to argue with them.

During the 15 years I've been posting regularly on this blog I've seen countless (almost) examples of religious believers mixing up their subjective faith with objective reality. No reasons need be given for subjective faith, but very good reasons must be provided if a claim is made about objective reality.

Typically, truths about objective reality require an extensive process of review, discussion, debate, and criticism.

No one gets to say "the world is like this: _____" without that claim being put under the microscope of critical thinking. Saying so doesn't make it so. Facts, evidence, sound arguments -- those things make it so.

Look, I'm not saying that every comment on this blog outside of an Open Thread needs to be an intellectual tour de force. I'm simply encouraging visitors to this blog who want to leave a comment on one of my posts to be thoughtful in your arguments. Which doesn't mean serious, necessarily. Humor and thoughtfulness are allies, not enemies.

Each of us should be able to laugh at our mistakes, our tendency to believe that we're correct even in the absence of evidence, our unwillingness to admit I could be wrong.

Again, I see this as a difference between us atheists and religious believers.

I'm not certain that God doesn't exist. I'm open to evidence and arguments that God does exist. All I ask is that religious believers have the same attitude. Admit that you aren't certain God exists. Be open to evidence and arguments that God doesn't exist.

If this happens, we can have a dialogue based on critical thinking. 

Here's a few cartoons about critical thinking.

 

Here's the problem with living: we're going to die

This isn't exactly breaking news, but I'll say it anyway. Each of us is going to die. 


Those seven words are undeniably scary. Life isn't always pleasant. Yet the gulf between having a difficult life and no life at all is more than immense. It's immeasurable. There's no way to compare being alive and being dead, or existence and non-existence.

The worst day anyone can have is on a different dimension than not existing at all.

Understand: I'm not saying that life is always worth living. Suicide and death with dignity testify to the fact that sometimes people prefer to check out of life early, rather than waiting for the involuntary eviction notice.

There are many reasons most people on Earth embrace some form of religiosity. However, a central reason has to be the reassurance almost every religion provides that when the last breath is taken, that doesn't mark the end of their life, but rather the beginning of a new form of existence.

I don't believe this is true.

There's no convincing evidence of life after death. Nor is there convincing evidence that human consciousness can exist without a functioning brain. Comas, anesthesia, being hit on the head with a baseball bat -- there's abundant evidence that consciousness is a product of the brain, though how this happens still isn't fully understood.

Still, each of has to come to grips with the reality of death whether we're an ardent atheist, committed religious believer, or somewhere in-between. 

Leaving aside the option of not thinking about death until it stares us in the face (which can be a good way to live, for those capable of doing this), it seems to me that there's two basic approaches to preparing for the inevitability of our eventual demise.

One is to try to expand our self. The other is to try to shrink our self. 

Almost all religions take the first approach: expanding the self. For example, some religions say that after death there is either bodily resurrection (Christianity) or reincarnation (Hinduism). Mystical aspects of religion proclaim that the soul can merge with God, taking on divine attributes. 

Aside from the fact that self-expansion, or consciousness-expansion, likely isn't possible in any sense that extends beyond the bounds of a single physical life, there's other reasons to shy away from this approach.

It encourages grandiosity.

I see this all the time in comments religious believers leave on my blog posts, notably those who are devotees of an Indian form of spirituality known as Sant Mat, or the Path of the Saints. They're fond of claiming that this is the highest form of religion, supposedly leading as it does to knowledge of an ultimate divine reality.

Of course, just about every religion makes this same claim.

Since there is no evidence of one religion being superior to another, almost certainly because they all are "fake news" (to borrow a phrase from Donald Trump), it seems ridiculous for a member of any faith to say that their way is the only way -- sort of like people arguing about which unicorn color is the most attractive, given that unicorns don't exist except in one's imagination.

So I prefer the other approach to dealing with life and our eventual death: shrinking the self. 

After all, us humans already are pretty damn insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Aside from having a lot of company here on Earth -- the human population is about 7.6 billion -- we are on a planet circling one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, which is one of at least 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

And we're very lucky to live 100 years, which is an infinitesimal blip in the 13.7 billion year old universe we inhabit. 

Thus it doesn't take much for us to shrink down to almost nothing, either figuratively or literally (the whole "ashes to ashes' thing). But our egos enjoy pretending that we're way more important than we really are, which goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of religions.

God so loves us, he sent his only son to die for our sins. The soul is destined to return home to its heavenly father. Humans are the pinnacle of creation. 

The myths of religion are innumerable. I much prefer reality:

Each of us is nothing special. We're connected to all other living things through the secular "miracle" of evolution. We live for a while, then we die. Humility is not only a virtue, it's the way things are in a world that is much grander and longer-lived than us.

Of all the world's religions, in my opinion Buddhism and Taoism are the best at offering ways to help us shrink our sense of self. One reason is that neither posits an enduring Self, or Soul. Rather, they teach that life is ever-changing, as are we. Our existence is intimately connected with that of everything else on Earth. We're humble parts of the whole.

He who stands on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show is not enlightened.
He who boasts achieves nothing.
He who brags will not endure.
According to followers of the Tao, 
    "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage."
They do not bring happiness.
Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.
    -- Tao Te Ching

As a concrete example of the difference between grandiose and humble approaches to spirituality, I spend exactly zero time and effort on religious web sites or blogs trying to push my atheist point of view. Sure, I enjoy sharing churchless/atheist ideas here on my own blog, but I don't go out of my way to convince others that they should adopt my perspective.

But ever since I started this blog in 2004, religious believers -- mostly of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas/Sant Mat variety -- have commented in droves on my blog posts. The way I see it, this shows that they're not very confident in their belief system, since when someone presents arguments against what they believe, they take this as a battle cry to fight against.

Thus I'm pleased to be a humble churchless blogger rather than a grandiose believer in religious dogma. It's much more relaxing that way, since my only commitment is to the truth as best I can understand it. Truth doesn't require any attempt to boost it up, since it stands tall on its own.

Regarding death, my bet is that what will happen to me is exactly the same thing that happens to every other person: we die and are gone forever. The way I see it, the more I can reduce my sense of ego and specialness, the easier it will be to let go when the moment of dying comes.

Until then, I'll enjoy life.

Sure, religious believers typically derive comfort from a fantasy that death won't be the end for them. But the price they pay for their belief strikes me as too high -- feeling like they are the special beloveds of God or some other higher power, which leads to a sense of separation from everybody else who won't enjoy such a marvelous afterlife.

I'd rather feel like I'm simply part of the dead-and-gone-forever crowd. If somehow I discover that I'm living on after I die, that'll be great news. I'm not counting on it, though.

I'm an atheist with more faith than any religious believer

A week ago I came up with the title to this blog post.

The next day I wrote a comment in reply to someone who goes by "In Search Of" that ended up being a good start to explaining why I consider that atheist me has more faith than religious believers.

Here it is.

Following my comment you'll find excerpts from one of my first Church of the Churchless blog posts from way back in 2004, "Just have faith." I'm pleased that while I've become more of an atheist over the past fifteen years, my basic faith in reality hasn't changed.

In Search Of, you asked: "Brian, help me out here. Am I being unreasonable? Why can't I get an intelligent response to my question? Are we unable to differentiate between logic and faith? Or are the two at opposite poles? Is this the real question we're trying to answer? And is it an answerable question?"

Great questions. Interestingly, I came up with the title of a future blog post yesterday that I wrote down for future reference: "I'm an atheist with more faith than any religious believer." In brief, here's what came to mind that led to the idea for this blog post.

I have faith in reality.

Not just bits and pieces of reality, but reality as a whole -- the entire unimaginably vast cosmos, including the aspects that we humans currently know about and also the parts that remain a mystery. Sure, I also have faith in discrete entities. My doctors. Scientists. My VW GTI. My MacBook Pro.

But it isn't possible to have 100% faith in anything discrete.

For example, every finding of science is open to revision if new facts are revealed. Ditto for my faith in my car, which has had defects that needed to be fixed. And certainly ditto for religious leaders, even those like Gurinder Singh Dhillon that are supposedly "perfect masters."

Yet even given all that, I believe in a cosmos that operates according to some beautiful laws of cause and effect.

This applies at the quantum level also, though the laws appear to be more probabilistic than deterministic. Still, probability is a law, or quantum mechanics wouldn't be such a precise science that's responsible for much of our modern technology.

So my mantra is: "I open myself to reality, however it may appear." I wrote a blog post about this: "An atheist meditation that pleases God."

Where I went astray during many of my 35 years of being devoted to RSSB and the Sant Mat meditation practice was having undue faith in a particular aspect of reality. Namely, RSSB and the gurus in that tradition. My observation is that many others fall into the same trap.

They ignore evidence that doesn't fit into their mental model of what reality is like.

But reality doesn't give a shit about our mental models. Reality is simply what it is: reality. As another favorite saying of mine from Philip K. Dick puts it, "Reality is that which, when we stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

The guru's financial dealings/wrongdoing aren't a matter of belief. They're well documented. But RSSB devotees are so used to relying on belief, they aren't able to accept that no matter what they believe, reality remains.

So no, I don't believe that faith and reason are opposed.

At least, not in how I view faith: as trust in a reality that exists independent of our beliefs about it. Thus my view is that it's up to us humans to do our best to understand reality, not for reality to comport with our beliefs about it. That latter option leads to magical thinking.

I see it all the time in comments on this blog. RSSB devotees feel that if they only scream loudly enough into cyberspace, "The guru did nothing wrong! The guru is God! Stop criticizing the guru!", somehow this will change the reality of the guru's behavior.

All of our mental models are false to some extent.

However, we get so attached to them, often there is no crack in the mental model armor where greater and more accurate knowledge can enter.

Religious people are especially prone to this, because their need to believe that not only this life, but also their afterlife, is in the hands of a higher power is so strong, so compelling, so desperate, their reluctance to adjust their mental religious model is equally strong.

With my VW GTI, which I like a lot but am not hugely devoted to, I still found it difficult to accept that a creaking in the sunroof really was a major defect. I tried quite a few ways to fix it before it finally dawned on me, and my dealership, that the whole thing needed to be replaced, basically. See: "My VW had a creaky sunroof. Here's the tale of a 5-week repair."  

There's an analogy here.

Sometimes an entire mental model needs major refurbishing, or even replacement. That's what happened with me and the RSSB teachings. Well, looks like I just wrote a good portion of the above-mentioned planned post. Thanks for giving me that head start.

And here's the excerpts from the above-mentioned "Just have faith" post.

Faith is wonderful.
Faith is all we need to be spiritual.
Just faith. Faith alone.
So we shouldn't have faith in anything other than pure, naked, empty faith.

...Here's how to tell the difference between true faith and false faith:

Imagine that you are standing in the middle of a bare windowless room. Two doors lead out of the room. Both are closed, but can be opened with a turn of the doorknob. The doors are marked with signs that describe what awaits on the other side: (A) Reality, (B) Belief

After you open a door, you have to walk through it. The door then will shut and you never will be able to leave the place you have entered.

Choose Reality and you will know things as they really are, from top to bottom of the cosmos.

You will know whether or not God exists and, if so, the nature of this ultimate divinity. You will know whether death is the final end of your existence or if it is the beginning of another form of life. You will know whether there is a meaning to the universe beyond what human beings ascribe to it.

Or, choose Belief and you will know only what lies within the confines of your current suppositions about the nature of the cosmos.

For the rest of your life you will be confident that what you believe to be true, really is. Any evidence to the contrary will not make an impact on your mind. You will remain doubt-free, faithful to the beliefs you now hold about God, creation, life, death, and the purpose of human existence.

Which door would you choose to walk through?

Before answering, consider carefully the potential ramifications of your choice. Reality is an unknown, a mystery. It could be frightening or fabulous, painful or pleasurable, warmly loving or coldly uncaring. Do you want to embrace absolutely real reality? Or would you rather hold on to your beliefs about what is real?

Someone with the type of faith extolled by the Church of the Churchless would unhesitatingly choose Door A and boldly stride into Reality. For their faith is not in anything particular, but is a faith that truth can be known, should be known, and, indeed, must be known.

On living an atheist life: nothing special, not feeling alone

As I've done in previous posts, here's an email interchange I had recently with someone who visits this blog regularly and likes to share ideas with me. 

I WROTE:

Yes, giving up the feeling of being special is indeed a relief. As you’re probably aware, I’ve written about this from the perspective of index investing. Trying to beat the markets both takes a lot of work and has been proven to usually be a waste of time, since investors typically buy high and sell low, rather than the reverse.

Likewise, so is believing that you can beat the God market. As I’m sure I’ve noted before, now I simply say, “God, if you exist, it’s up to you to show yourself to me, since there are so many ways people have used to find you, they can’t all be correct.”

 

Even if it can be argued that God likes all of these ways, seemingly God also would like my attitude of “I want to know you, but it’s your job to make the connection.”

 

To me this is much more logical and scientific than picking one way to know God, which statistically speaking is almost certain to be wrong. So I just sit in as much inward silence as my meditation allows, and wait for God to show up. So far, nothing. Unless God is that nothing, in which case I’m decidedly enlightened.

 

THE OTHER PERSON REPLIED:

Hi Brian, thanks for writing.  I really like that last paragraph.  “Unless God is that nothing, in which case I’m decidedly enlightened”.  Awesome.  

I really enjoyed the post, Here’s a positive sign of my (mini) enlightenment.

And I can totally relate to much of it.

This part really got me thinking:

“But now I've come to feel something different, and seemingly more attainable. I simply want to be as fully aware as possible of whatever it is I'm doing until I take my last breath. What that whatever is doesn't matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.”

Good stuff! 

I was thinking about something sort of similar recently.  I was listening to someone talk about things they want to do before they die.  Like the bucket list you mentioned.  This person happened to be a Christian, so the list consisted of things they believed God wanted them to do, and some of their own desires. 

Funny how those are separate.  And they felt like if they didn’t accomplish the God stuff, they wouldn’t get their full reward and all that.  Sounds exhausting!  But I get it.  I used to think the same way. 

I’ve noticed that, after practicing mindfulness to varying degrees for the last few years, that I don’t really have a list of things I want to do, anymore.  I’m mostly content to live day to day.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few things I’d like to do in the near future, but they aren’t things that are on an important list. 

Even if I did have a list of cool stuff, and was able to do most or all of them, the memories and emotions tend to fade pretty quickly.  Especially when living mindfully.  I was kind of laughing thinking that when we die, assuming there is nothing after all this, we won’t remember any of the cool stuff because… well, we will be dead.  LOL 

And if there is some kind of afterlife that’s anything like what people think, it will probably be cooler than the cool stuff we did here, so the stuff we did here will pale in comparison. 

I don’t know if this sounds nihilistic or not, but I don’t think of it that way.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t plan fun activities.  Like this summer, my wife and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage and we will go to Florida for a week.  I’m sure it will be great.  But I’m not driven to cram in as much stuff into my life as I can before I die.  It just seems more relaxing that way.

I’ve noticed something interesting going on with me.  I don’t have any atheist friends.  And I only have a couple of friends who would probably be considered agnostic.  I’m finding myself feeling, I guess lonely, for lack of a better word.  I know for a fact that is why many people go to church.  It’s part of their social life. 

Christianity is so prevalent in this part of the country that it permeates everything.  So it kind of changes how people view the world and life.  I know my views on most things have changed drastically since I left religion behind. 

I was meditating with a Buddhist friend on Sunday mornings for a while and we had some really good conversations after our meditation time.  But we stopped meditating because his schedule changed.  I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being able to talk to someone about my current views without judgment until recently. 

So I find myself reading blogs and listening to podcasts.  Not really to learn something new, but I guess it’s that human need to hear other people say things similar to what I believe.  It’s interesting to hear people talk about going from a religious life to an atheist life.  Lots of similarities in their stories.  I guess that kind of makes me feel not as alone as well.

I hope you and yours are well.

Talk to you again soon.

Atheists like me are by far the most disliked religious minority

Minorities tend to be misunderstood by majorities.

Whites don't really know what it is like to be African American. Heterosexuals don't really know what it is like to be homosexual, or more broadly, LGBTQ. And religious believers don't know what it is like to be atheist.

(Note: I was a religious believer for 35 years, Eastern mysticism variety, so I'm very familiar with both religious belief and atheism -- having deconverted from my previous belief about 14 years ago.)

So as an atheist, I haven't been surprised by the response of many to my also-atheist wife, Laurel, using the public comment period at a Salem (Oregon) City Council meeting to complain about the Mayor's 2019 State of the City address being preceded by a Christian pastor calling upon God/Jesus to bless the Mayor, and for everyone in attendance to pray.

I wrote about this a few days ago in "Praying shouldn't be part of public meetings." That blog post attracted the attention of KATU news in Portland, which interviewed my wife and Mayor Chuck Bennett as described in this KATU story and accompanying video. 

On Facebook I've seen numerous comments along the lines of, If you object to praying, just don't do it and You should leave religions alone to do their own thing. 

While these sorts of attitudes roughly reflect how my wife and I also feel, they miss a crucial point: Atheists in the United States aren't only bothered by religious beliefs that are unscientific, non-factual, and often appallingly political. We also object to a long history in this country of atheists being discriminated against, a prejudice that continues to this day.

Though  I don't believe in heaven or hell, I do think this familiar movie phrase applies to me, my wife, and many fellow atheists: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Meaning, since the founding of the United States atheists have been wrongly put down as immoral, un-American, and elitist. A book by two emeritus Cornell professors, R. Laurence Moore (history and American studies) and Issac Kramnick (government) explains this in great detail. 

Here's an overview of "Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life" via a Publisher's Weekly review:

From the pages of state constitutions to the seats of Congress, Moore and Kramnick (The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness) search for places for the godless in American politics and find few.

Beginning with the country’s roots in England, with its official state church, the United States’ protection of religious liberties excludes one group: nontheists and their nonbelief in a religion or deity. The authors explain that 18th- and 19th-century Americans associated morality with religion, so eschewing one was considered a rejection of the other.

The tensions of the Cold War reinforced this historical bias, with rhetoric tying communism to atheism and implying a corresponding relationship between belief and patriotism. The concept of the dangerous, un-American—or worse, anti-American—atheist paved the way for the addition of “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and “In God We Trust” to America’s currency in 1957, and constrained nontheists’ chances at public office and judicial seats.

Synopses of pivotal Supreme Court cases demonstrate how atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, and nontheists are frequently cast as an amoral minority. Through cautious and sensitive comparisons between nontheists and other marginalized groups, the authors present the marginalization of nontheists as an equal rights issue.

This accessible and sincere book usefully makes explicit often-unspoken currents in American political life.

The Pew Research Center says that 31% of people in Oregon, where I live, are unaffiliated religious "None's" -- 5% atheist, 8% agnostic, and 18% nothing in particular. However, that last category is made up of 12% for whom religion is unimportant and 6% for whom religion is important. 

Thus let's subtract those "nothing in particular" people who don't consider religion important.

That still leaves 25% of Oregon's population as decidedly non-religious. Is it possible that a quarter of the citizenry deserve these sorts of discriminatory attitudes, as described in the Godly Citizens in a Godly Republic book? (Boldfacing added for emphasis.)

-- "Of the respondents to a Pew Research Center survey question on attitudes to specified religious groups in 2009, 49 percent scored atheists negatively, while the unfavorable response to other groups was dramatically lower: Muslims, 32%; Mormons, 26%; Hindus, 21%; Buddhists, 20%; Evangelical Christians, 17%; Jews, 11%; Catholics, 11%.

-- "A 2011 Gallup poll that asked, 'If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be atheist would you vote for that person?' found that only 49% of Americans said yes. Responses for other similarly well-qualified nominees: black, 94%; women, 93%; Catholic, 92%; Jewish, 89%; and Mormon, 76%."

-- "An earlier iteration of the 'willingness to vote for your party's nominee' in 1999, which included homosexuals among the choices, ranked them at 59%, higher than atheists at 49%."

-- "When asked into what group they would least like their children to marry, nearly half of Americans list atheists first, significantly higher than Muslims, African Americans, and Jews." 

-- "So too, when asked to name 'the group that does not at all agree with my vision of American society,' 40% of Americans put atheists on top, followed by Muslims, 26%; homosexuals, 22%; conservative Christians, 13%; recent immigrants, 12%; Jews, 7%; African Americans, 5%."

The book's authors ascribe this distaste toward atheists as reflecting three foundational features of American sociocultural belief: (1) A conviction that one can't be a good person if one is not a believer; (2) one can't be a good American if one is not a believer; (3) American anti-intellectualism, since many see atheists as cultural elitists -- philosophers, scientists, and artists who threaten the beliefs of ordinary people.

Thus there's a lot going on beneath the surface of my wife's complaint about a Christian prayer being offered at a public meeting here in Salem.

Us atheists, along with the broader category of "None's," are tired of being viewed as second-class citizens. We're fed up with being put down and marginalized just because we don't believe in unbelievable supernaturalism. We no longer find it acceptable to stay silent while religious speech (mostly Christian) fills the airwaves.

Nationally 23% of Americans are religious None's. That's about four times more than the 6% of Americans who hold to non-Christian faiths. Here in Oregon, the ratio is even higher: 31% None's and 7% non-Christian.

Yet I'm willing to bet that an atheist, agnostic, or other non-believer has never been invited to give the invocation at the State of the City address in Salem, even though non-Christians such as Jews have.

This points to the disturbing falsehood that the authors of Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic emphasize: atheists are viewed by religious people as less moral and trustworthy, even though there is no evidence of this being true. It's just a discriminatory attitude that would be viewed as abhorrent if a racial or ethnic minority was being typecast in this fashion.

Why do religious people go on atheist sites?

Here's a positive review of my new comment policy on this blog, where I now moderate (approve) comments before they're published. One day in, I'm enjoying the lack of off-topic crazy comments from dogmatic religious believers. 

I regularly exchange emails with the person who wrote what follows. John used to be religious, but now, like me, he's seen the atheist light. 

John makes some good points. I don't know any atheists, which includes me, who go to religious sites and try to convert believers to atheism. But this churchless blog gets many visits and comments from religious people.

Why? Well, like John says, I agree that believers in God get a lot more defensive when someone questions their religion, than atheists do when someone questions their lack of belief in God.

Which makes sense.

I don't get upset when someone questions why I don't like country music. Since I don't have any attachment to that type of music, it doesn't bother me if a country music lover thinks I'm a fool for not being a fan of that genre.

Plus, atheists are used to being put down by religious people, while this is much less common for believers -- given that the vast majority of people in the world believe in some form of supernatural divinity.

This is the message I got from John today.

Hey Brian, I saw where you are moderating comments again.  Good for you!  I think I’ve talked about this before, but I can’t understand why religious folks go on sites like yours and try to convert people, or “prove” that others are wrong, or whatever.  It seems very common. 

I wonder if atheists go on religious sites and rant and rave and such?  I would think there are some, but my suspicion is that it’s less common.

I kind of understand why the religious folks like to argue their points.  I was never really zealous in my religious days.  I was very serious about my faith, but I didn’t argue with many people who didn’t believe like I did.  But I think it’s more threatening to have a believer’s beliefs questioned than it is for a non-believer to have their non-beliefs questioned.  LOL  If you know what I mean?

There were a few times that I got into a discussion with an intelligent atheist or agnostic and they would ask me questions that I just didn’t have the answers to.  That was very unsettling!

I thought the cartoon that you posted was great, as well.  Oh man, how accurate is that?  I remember, in my early days of walking away from religion, I read a lot of Wayne Jacobsen’s material.  At that time, he talked a lot about how religion always seems to have a hook in it. 

“Invite your non-churched friends to the church picnic!”  Why?  Just so you can get to know that and bless them and see that they have a good afternoon getting to know some great people?  NO!  It’s so we can get them to come back, and eventually get them saved.  And then they will tithe, of course. 

And inevitably, if they get worked on long enough without getting saved, then they are normally discarded and the believers move on to someone else.  Often with the attitude from your cartoon.  I’ve heard many a church member say something along the lines of, “well, I’m glad they are going to hell”.  Really?!?!? WTF?  Ugh.

I have yet to hear of a blogger whose mind was changed by the religious comments on their blog.  And vice versa. 

In my experience, and in others that I’ve talked to, any time a person makes a big change in their beliefs, it’s usually because something happened to make them start thinking and seeking answers.  Now, in that seeking they may come across someone who says something that will help them down the road a bit. 

But the classic knocking on someone’s door out of the blue and converting them to your beliefs, or flooding someone’s comment section, usually doesn’t have the desired result.  Most of the time, it actually works in the opposite direction!  The person being preached to normally walks away just that much more sure of their own beliefs.

Thanks, as always, for the great posts.

Talk to you again soon.
John

"Seven Types of Atheism" is intellectually dishonest

Last month I shared a critical Amazon reader review of John Gray's book, Seven Types of Atheism, in a blog post: "Great review of 'Seven Types of Atheism' by someone who hasn't read the book."

I said in the post that I wasn't going to buy the book. Then I changed my mind. Not sure why. Maybe I wanted to see if the book was as bad as I thought it would be.

Now that I've read Seven Types of Atheism, I'm glad I did. Here's my own review.

The most glaring irritating thing I found in the book was that Gray defines atheism on page 2, then forgets his own definition on the following pages. Here's the early-on definition.

A provisional definition of atheism might still be useful, if only to indicate the drift of the book that follows. So I suggest that an atheist is anyone with no use for the idea of a divine mind that has fashioned the world. In this sense atheism does not amount to very much. It is simply the absence of the idea of a creator god.

OK, as an atheist I generally agree with this. There could be other types of gods than a creator god, but the major world religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism -- all teach that the world was created by a divine mind, or being.

So I figured that in the rest of his book, Gray would view atheism as how he defined it: the absence of the idea of a creator god. This fits with how I view my atheism. It also fits with how every atheist I know views atheism. Again, as the absence of a belief in god.

But in many places in Seven Types of Atheism, Gray speaks of a "religion of humanity," a "self-deifying humanity," "secular religion," and such. How could this be if atheism is the absence of the idea of a creator god? Wouldn't religion then be the presence of the idea of a creator god?

No, not according to Gray's twisted logic. 

Because on page 3 of his book, Gray offers up a decidedly strange definition of religion. It isn't a belief in god, creator-variety or otherwise. Nor is it an attempt to understand reality in terms of supernatural or divine phenomena. Rather, Gray says:

A provisional definition of religion may also be useful... Religion is an attempt to find meaning in events, not a theory that tries to explain the universe.

Wow. What a weird definition of religion. The Amazon reviewer who hadn't read the book nailed Gray on this, since he'd heard Gray speak in the same fashion in an interview. Here's part of what that reviewer said.

Gray said: If you asked an anthropologist or a sociologist or even a cultural historian about religion, not one of them nowadays, or very few of them, would think of religion as bodies of theories or beliefs or propositions which try to explain the world.

For starters, if we're talking about the three Abrahamic religions, they absolutely assert theories, beliefs and propositions for the purpose of explaining the world.

In a feeble attempt to support this claim, Gray uses a straw man. He says, "The myth about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden was never meant as an early theory of how life came about on this planet." Even if that is true, it doesn't change the fact that the Abrahamic religions assert that God had a hand (direct or indirect) in the creation of the universe, which ultimately led to the creation of humans, with whom God has a special relationship.

Moreover, the Abrahamic religions assert that God has a hand in laying down morals. Clearly, these assertions are intended as theories, beliefs and propositions.

Thus what Gray does at the beginning of his book is intellectually dishonest. He defines atheism as the absence of the idea of a creator god. But he doesn't define religion as the presence of the idea of a creator god. Rather, Gray defines religion extremely broadly as "an attempt to find meaning in events."

Again, wow.

The day I got married was deeply meaningful to me. So apparently I make a religion out of marriage. The results of last Tuesday's midterm elections were deeply meaningful to me. So apparently I make a religion out of politics. 

But obviously every attempt by us humans to find meaning in events isn't religious in nature. But this obviousness isn't apparent to John Gray, because the bulk of his book is an attempt to paint atheism with the brush of religion, since atheists find meaning in events, history, humanity, and other non-godly entities.

Wait! Aren't atheists defined by Gray as lacking a belief in a creator god? Yes, but Gray says atheists are religious because they find meaning in events. Thus every person on Earth who finds meaning in events is religious by Gray's absurd logic. 

Here's some passages from Seven Types of Atheism that reflect this absurdity.

But it was Saint-Simon who first presented the religion of humanity in systematic form. In future, scientists would replace priests as the spiritual leaders of society. Government would be an easy matter of 'the administration of things.' Religion would become the self-worship of humankind.

...Having renounced the idea of any divine power outside the human world, human beings could not avoid claiming divine powers for themselves.

...A free-thinking atheist would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom.

...Contemporary atheism is a continuation of monotheism by other means. Hence the unending succession of God-surrogates, such as humanity and science, technology, and the all-too-human visions of transhumanism.

Gray doesn't believe that "humanity" exists. Only individual humans do.

Fine, he's entitled to that belief. I don't agree with him, because our species, Homo sapiens, does have common characteristics, and the modern world has erased many of the borders that used to separate humans by geography, culture, and such. 

John Gray doesn't believe that our species advances. This is highly debatable. Witness how slavery, the subjugation of women, and world wars have faded away (though still existent, or possible) in the past several hundred years. 

But since Gray holds that belief, and he wanted to bash atheism in his book, he needed to define religion in such a way that anyone who finds meaning in human events or history is "religious." Hence, humanists are religious, and any atheist who finds meaning in a hope that humanity is progressing is also "religious."

I'm an atheist. I'm a progressive. I'm not religious. I don't believe in a creator god.

So Gray ignored the reality that the vast majority of atheists simply don't believe in god. But this fact doesn't fit with Gray's desire to make atheism into a secular "religion," so he ignored it.

Great review of "Seven Types of Atheism" by someone who hasn't read the book

When I first heard of John Gray's book, "Seven Types of Atheism," I thought I'd be interested in it. But after reading some reviews, I decided against buying it. (For example, see here and here.)

In another post I'll have more to say about an article in The New Yorker, Without a Prayer, which is partly about Gray's book. For now I'll just note a quotation from the book that illustrates how far off-base Gray's take on religiosity and atheism is:

"A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity, and the difference between the two may be less than you think."

Wrong. A godless world leads one to embrace modern science, which provides many answers to the questions that religious believers attribute to God. So there is considerably less mystery in a godless world.

To give one example, the theory of evolution does a much better job of explaining how us humans came to be than the countless creation myths put forth by religions. 

Now, I haven't read Gray's book. Neither has someone who wrote a scathing review on Amazon. But he listened to an interview of John Gray discussing "Seven Types of Atheism," which is the next best thing. 

Below is what Steven Mason says in his review. It seems right-on to me, given what is said about Gray's book in The New Yorker article. What Gray appears to ignore is what Mason zeroes in on: the fact that religions make truth claims about the world/universe.

This means that atheism has a much stronger leg to stand on than Gray admits to. I know lots of atheists. They all are fine moral people who are every bit as caring, virtuous, and loving as religious believers.

What they reject about religion is simple: it isn't true.

Put another way, there is no evidence that God or the supernatural exists. So again, this means there is a huge difference between (1) believing in a universe suffused with divinity, and (2) not believing in this sort of universe.

Here's Mason's review:

Amazon review by Steven Mason of John Gray's "Seven Types of Atheism."

I haven't read this book but I did listen to a long interview of the author discussing this book. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This is a review of the author explaining his book.

If any defenders of Gray would like to have a discussion with me about the views expressed in this book, I encourage you to post a comment. I assume that the views expressed in the interview are also expressed in the book. Let's get started:

Gray said: The first thing that's wrong with the so-called New Atheism is that there's nothing in it which is new.

Even if this were true (it's not), it's irrelevant. The so-called New Atheists are responding to the current crop of theists who are using, or trying to use, the power of government to force their religious beliefs on everyone, and other theists who are using pseudoscience to "prove" that God exists. It could be said, slightly tongue-in-cheek, that New Atheists are a response to New Theists. Moreover, while religion is exempt from taxes, there's no reason it needs to be exempt from criticism.

Besides, if originality is the name of the game, Gray should criticize himself because he doesn't say anything new.

Gray said: None of the New Atheists knows anything about the history of ideas.

That's an ad hominem attack that has no evidence to support it. This remark reminds me of "the true Scotsman" fallacy. In this case, Gray gets to define "knows anything" in a way that makes his claim valid (in his own mind, at least).

Gray has advanced degrees in philosophy and politics, so it's quite possible that he has acquired more knowledge about the history of ideas than most of the New Atheists. But that doesn't mean that the New Atheists have "no knowledge." Nor does it mean that having less knowledge than Gray necessarily invalidates their criticisms of religion. This is elitism of the worst kind and it's also the fallacy of "appeal to authority."

Gray said: If you asked an anthropologist or a sociologist or even a cultural historian about religion, not one of them nowadays, or very few of them, would think of religion as bodies of theories or beliefs or propositions which try to explain the world.

For starters, if we're talking about the three Abrahamic religions, they absolutely assert theories, beliefs and propositions for the purpose of explaining the world.

In a feeble attempt to support this claim, Gray uses a straw man. He says, "The myth about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden was never meant as an early theory of how life came about on this planet." Even if that is true, it doesn't change the fact that the Abrahamic religions assert that God had a hand (direct or indirect) in the creation of the universe, which ultimately led to the creation of humans, with whom God has a special relationship.

Moreover, the Abrahamic religions assert that God has a hand in laying down morals. Clearly, these assertions are intended as theories, beliefs and propositions.

Gray said: What we now call Hinduism, a very bold body of beliefs, of practices associated with very sophisticated philosophies, has never been summed up in a single body of beliefs. The same goes for Taoism, or Taoism and Confucianism and Shinto. Judaism hasn't been embodied in any single list of propositions or creeds.

What is Gray's point here? Even if there are many varieties of religious beliefs within broad families of religions, each variety still asserts "theories, beliefs and propositions that try to explain the world."

Gray said: I seriously considered not discussing New Atheists at all because I do find them boring and feeble in their arguments. But I did in the end, because most readers, if we say the word 'atheism,' wouldn't nowadays be most familiar with figures like Dawkins and Sam Harris and the others that you mentioned. I did discuss them quite briefly.

One gets the impression that Gray "discusses" New Atheists mostly to point out that they are ignorant about atheism, ideas, and religion, and they are boring besides. But again, if New Atheists are responding to what some power-hungry and pseudoscientific theists are trying to do in the world today, why does Gray find this "boring"?

For example, does Gray want a world in which Creationism is taught in public school science classes, as if it were a valid theory supported by evidence? Doesn't Gray know that is exactly what some theists are trying to do?

I could respond to lots more quotes, but you get the idea. These few quotes are more than sufficient to convince me not to bother reading this book, or any other book by Gray. Even if I were receptive to his views, there is certainly nothing "new" about them.

Join the godly, supernatural, mystical "I Don't Know For Sure" club

It gives me great pleasure to invite not only visitors to this blog, but everybody in the whole freaking world, to join a non-exclusive club I've just formed:

The I Don't Know For Sure club. 

Admission is free. There are no dues. Also, no meetings. Nor any sort of organization. This club exists only in the minds of those who answer "no" to a simple question.

Are you 100%, completely, absolutely, without-a-doubt confident that what you believe about god, the supernatural, and mystical experiences is objectively true?

Now, though this question is simple, I still feel a need to explain it.

What I'm after here is getting people to consider whether there is at least the tiniest sliver of doubt that their spiritual/religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are true.

And I've used "objectively" to define true.

Meaning, I'm not asking about whether someone has an absolutely firm belief that, for example, God either exists or doesn't exist; that life after death either exists or doesn't exist; or that it is possible or impossible to experience a supernatural realm.

A belief is subjective. I'm asking about objective reality. For it sure seems that either God exists, or God doesn't exist, no matter whether humans believe or don't believe in God. 

I've become an atheist. I no longer believe in God, life after death, or supernatural mystical experiences. Yet here's the thing: 

I don't know this with absolute certainty. So I'm a non-card-carrying member of the I Don't Know for Sure club, with a membership number of #1 (which, as noted above, only exists in my own mind).

If you also want to join this club, leave a comment on this post to that effect.

And if you like, mention whether you're (1) a religious/spiritual believer who isn't 100% sure that what you believe is objectively true, (2) if you're an atheist who isn't 100% sure that your non-belief is objectively true, or (3) someone in-between who isn't sure whether whatever it is you believe or don't believe is objectively true. 

My theory, which admittedly may not hold up, is that despite the obvious great divide between religious believers and atheists, there's a thin bridge that unites most of them: a recognition that what they consider to be objectively true, may not be.

In my case, I see atheism as being much more probable.

But this means there's a chance I could be wrong. I readily admit this, and have done so frequently in my churchless blog posts. That said, I don't think there's a high probability I'm going to live on in some ethereal form after my bodily death.

However, if this happens I'll be overjoyed to tell whatever loving divine being I meet on the "other side," Wow, I sure was wrong. (If it's a hateful devilish being, I won't be as enthusiastic about this.)

Admitting that no one knows for sure strikes me as a wonderful way to bridge the gap between religious belief and atheism. Sure, it isn't a wide bridge, given that I suspect many, if not most, people would say they're at least 99% sure that, say, God either exists or doesn't exist.

But any admission of "I don't know for sure" leaves open the door to looking upon those with different views with a kinder, gentler, less dogmatic eye.

And this is a very good thing in our current world where people are increasingly divided into opposing tribes that find little or nothing good to say about the other side, or see little or nothing they have in common.

Oneness is like the Hotel California: you can't leave it

I'm a big fan of spontaneous, well-written, heartfelt descriptions of how someone realized that atheism is the way to go. And if they've got a bunch of profanity in them, even fucking better!

So when I read a comment by regular Church of the Churchless visitor Osho Robbins that met those criteria, I knew the comment should be elevated into a blog post.

There's references to Indian words in the comment, but it can be understood just fine without knowing Indian philosophy. Briefly, Sach Khand is roughly equivalent to heaven. Sat Purush is God. And the lyrics to Hotel California are here. 

(The key lyric: "You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave!")


This is the sort of comment I envisioned when I started this blog fourteen years ago. One of my first posts was "Our Creedless Creed." It's worth reading whether or not you're new to this blog, because it shows what my philosophical intention was both at the start, and now.

I mention this because periodically I have to remind commenters on this blog that it's a damn churchless blog.

I'm fine with religious people commenting on my posts, so long as they keep preachiness to a minimum. Today I had to put one regular commenter, "777," on a month-long time out, because he was an unrepentant repeat offender -- too often preachy, incoherent, and off-topic.

Anyway, here's Osho Robbins' pleasingly on-topic comment. I've corrected a few typos and changed the formatting a bit to make it more readable.

Appreciative Reader, I read your comments. My first response is this: “I ain’t got a fucking clue.” However, now that you’ve raised the subject, I will attempt to give a rational explanation.

I have never bothered to categorize myself, but I’ll do it now – just for the hell of it. I am just thinking aloud here and have no idea where this will lead me.

First thing: I don’t like the ‘God’ word – nothing personal – just in case she is reading this blog. So I don’t fit into the theist category or the gnostic category. I neither believe in God; nor do I know there is a God. (personal god)

The issue I have with “God” is the ideas and concepts attached to that word. (A powerful, all knowing guy who lives in Sach Khand and hangs out with his two pals Anami Purush and Agam – or I might have that wrong – whatever.)

So I used to believe in a character called Sat Purush, many many years ago in the days when I used to follow Darshan and Thakar and Charan.

Back then I was definitely a Theist. Then someone told me it’s all bullshit.

My first reaction was that he just hasn’t meditated hard enough. But as I spent time with him, it became clear that he fucking knew what the fuck he’s talking about. Which is more than you could say about me at the time.

All I had was grand ideas and concepts about the inner regions and about the man in the sky and I “knew” I would get there one day and have a good chat with him.

He showed me that I was a fucking lunatic. And I fucking listened – and one day I fucking agreed. That day my life turned fucking around.

I still had one question that would not go away. “What do I need to do next?” “How will I realise this fucking oneness?”

He laughed at my silly questions. “You still don’t fucking get it, do you?” I admitted the obvious. Then he dropped the bombshell.

There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to attain.

“You mean I am already there?” I asked in disbelief.

“Where?” he asked

“Well, you know, in the ONENESS?”

He laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You never left because you’re not allowed to leave. Nobody is allowed to leave. Nobody leaves.”

“You mean, it’s like the Hotel California?”
“I can check out any time I like?”
But….. “I can never leave?”
I laughed too. “You mean everyone is trying to get back to where they never left?”
“Well fuck me!” were my last words before I left him that night.

Oneness – at least to me – has nothing to do with God. There is only one thing that is real (the way I define real: changeless, formless etc). The oneness cannot be seen or experienced. It just is. Everything I say about it will be a lie.

I could call it “nothingness” and it would be just as valid (or invalid) as calling it the ONE. I don’t claim any mystical experience. I don’t believe there is any such thing. I believe the seekers make it out to be mystical because they don’t understand the simplicity of it. It’s a very simple realization.

Actually it appears I might actually be an atheist after all. The atheist says he doesn’t believe the theist claim of a God. Well – I don’t believe it. Since I don’t have a belief in a personal God of any sort – including Sat Purush.

The hard atheist goes further and says “I know there is No God”  I would say the same when it comes to a personal God. I now say categorically that there is no Sat Purush or Sach Khand. And his pals, Alakh, Agam and Anami don’t exist either, except in the fertile minds of the seekers.

So it turns out I am actually a hard atheist – a far cry from the Theist I once was, many years ago. Not sure where this leads – but at least it was entertaining to write about.