Sinners At The Hands Of A Silly God

Richard Carnes writes a bi-weekly column for the Vail Daily newspaper. This week he wrote a really good piece called "Atheist is not a four-letter word". Read it and you'll find the same points that we make here at UTI all the time.

[Richard Carnes] Atheist is not a four-letter word. Neither is it a euphemism for devil worshiper, totalitarian dictator, child molester or moral-free heathen who reads “Nietzsche for Dummies” for philosophical reference.

An atheist is simply a non-theist, meaning one who does not believe in the existence of gods.

I liked the article, but I had to respond to one of the Christian commenters on the story.

Not only does commenter "frelor" seem to completely mis-understand Richard Carnes' very clear prose, but he also has some pretty wacky ideas about atheism, how to raise good Christian robotschildren, and a masterful plan to out-breed the dreaded Muslim menace.

More below the fold...

First he begins with an analogy of a child's mind. According to frelor, a child's mind is like a series of cubby holes...

At the center of the cubbies there is a space labeled “core belief system”. Each and every human has this space, from which, subjects originate that cause us to ask questions like “Where did I come from?”, “Why am I here?”, “What will happen to me when I die?” There is no getting around this, each and every person has or will ask these questions in the course of their life.

No, sorry, that would be the "curiosity" cubby.

I believe the largest problem with this proposition is how do you know the belief system your child finds will be acceptable to you?

Is it important to you that your child chooses a belief system that is acceptable to *you*? You don't think that maybe they should choose a belief system that is acceptable to, oh I don't know, themselves, maybe?

Better yet, maybe you or the public school system could teach them some critical thinking skills and they could weed out the fluff and the magical thinking, and live in the real world? Golly, that would be swell, don't you think?

The only belief system we were provided was the one taught by the public school system.

Ah, the good old unconstitutional days of yore. How I pine for them. The public school teacher punishing non-Christian children for refusing to participate in Christian prayers. The school bullies taunting the JW child who cannot stand for, or say the Pledge Of Allegiance. The public school football coach forcing his own particular flavor of evangelical Christianity upon his public school athletes - and those same athletes quietly accepting this in order to get on the team and get some playing time.

Yes, those were good times, good times.

Today, my sister is an atheist, one brother is a Buddhist, and my other brother is a Muslim.

How horrible for you! Perhaps you should have them put into rehab? It is apparent that they don't have any idea what they are doing with their own lives, and they are possessed by Satan. You, obviously, know what religion they should freely choose - your own! I mean, it just makes sense! Why would they willfully and maliciously choose a religion other than your own, except as a transparent ploy to hurt your feelings and leave a bad taste in your mouth? Don't they know that atheists, Muslims, and Buddhists make Baby Jesus cry?

I take my children to Sunday school every Sunday. Why?

Because - um - because they are dirty rotten little sinners? Am I close?

Several reasons. First, I would much rather they have a Christian spiritual belief system based on love and caring for others, then to accept, later in life a belief system based on hatred and violence.

Preach it, Brother Frelor! The Knights of the Crusades and the Priests of the Order of the Inquisition would no doubt agree with your assessment! "We had to kill them to save them." No hatred and violence involved there, let me tell you. The Christian spiritual belief system is blameless and pure as the driven snow. It teaches it's adherents to kill people in a loving and caring way, with compassion. Not like that nasty Islam, those awful Buddhists, and those dirty, uppity atheists, by God!

Second, the lessons of Christianity build their moral character and teach positive values.

Because, as we all know, a secular society that surrounds and immerses a human child in it's morals and values, demonstrated by people who act in a certain moral and valuable way, will never, ever be able to teach or inform that child through years of experience and observation.

Instead we must teach them moral character and positive values from the texts of an ancient book of magical incantations and "just so" stories about illiterate, desert dwelling barbarians. That is the ONLY way to teach our children the morals and values of our modern society, obviously.

Third, the bible is an excellent body of knowledge and wisdom that can help people navigate the tough problems of life.

Oh, no disagreement here! Why, just the other day my neighbor's teenage son got drunk with his buddies on Friday night after the football game. So, after consulting the bible to help us navigate through this tough problem of life, we hauled him out into the street and threw rocks at him until he died. (Deut. 21:18-21).

Mr. Carnes writes “To that end, there is no greater gift a parent can give a child than honesty, and future generations deserve nothing less.” His attempt is to lead the reader to believe that there exists a concrete body of scientific knowledge revealing a truth that there are no Gods.

You're projecting. There is not one atheist on the face of our planet who claims to base his or her absence of god-belief on "revealed truth." Actually, what Mr. Carnes said was that all evidence to date trends towards the whole "non-existence of a god or gods" thing - and none of the evidence points towards the *existence* of a god or gods of any sort. His exact words were:

[Richard Carnes] Notice I did not say non-theists lay claim that there are no gods, as making such a claim would require evidential proof (of which there is none for either side), but instead that there is no evidential proof for any supernatural existence at all.

Zero.

In fact, 100 percent of the empirical data collected since the beginning of recorded history points in the other direction, thus heavily inclining rational thought to one very specific corner of logic.

You really should try a reading comprehension course.

...the reality is that there is no more evidence to support the atheistic belief system then the theistic belief systems.

The reality is that as soon as you tack on the words "belief system" to the words "atheist" and "theist", it is quite painfully obvious that you don't have a clue what the words really mean.

"Atheist" means a person in whom god-belief is absent. "Theist" means a person in whom god-belief is present. Neither one is a "belief system". Mr. Carnes also made this exact same point in the original article, but you failed to notice it, instead preferring your own fantasy-land version of "atheist" over what the word really means.

In terms of what I teach my children, an Atheistic belief system...

Of which there is no such thing. Nor is there a "Theistic belief system". Don't be obtuse.

...doesn’t provide any moral framework, nor does it provide a body of knowledge and wisdom for life, and it certainly doesn’t teach the concept of caring for others the way Christianity does.

Nor was it ever meant to. Theism and atheism are descriptive words. They indicate whether or not god belief is present or absent in a human being. Period. The end.

But, golly, creating a strawman "Atheist Belief System", or equating atheism with being a religion, makes it a lot easier to argue against though, doesn't it? And don't worry about the inconvenient little fact that what you're arguing about doesn't actually exist (the aforementioned "atheistic belief system") - because it's all about winning at any cost, isn't it? Even if you have to lie to do it, by God!

I love this country and what it stands for (or at least what it used to stand for).

Ah, I see. That explains your theocratic, totalitarian, bigoted ideas about how to raise children. Because NOW our country stands for freedom, and equality for all men and women. Not just the Christians ones. You need to join us here in the 21st century, sir.

I’m sure many of you reading this would agree with those words – or at least say you do. Like it or not, this country was founded on Christianity.

• “The government of the United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.”
  — (First) Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 (8 US at L 154)
• “The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.”
  — George Washington

Goodness! The law, the Constitution, and our first President disagree with you! That's gotta sting a little.

Our laws and our government are based on biblical principals.

No, they weren't. Otherwise we would be stoning people to death every day.

Hospitals were founded by Christians,

ALL hospitals were founded by Christians? All hospitals, ever? I find that very difficult to believe.

...the Red Cross was founded by Christians.

Bully for them! I think I've got a gold star around here somewhere...

Christians are historically a people that looked for higher moral ground and cared for others.

Seeking higher moral ground is admirable - as long as the "morals" are acceptable to the society in which you happen to be living in. Telling your neighbors that *your* morals are better than *their* evil, nasty, un-Christian morals is inviting trouble, in my opinion. No one likes a "holier than thou" person living on their street (or in their society, usually).

Caring for others seems to be hardwired into our genes at some level. I don't see where Christianity has anything at all to do with it. "Christian morals" are nothing more than a gussied-up reflection of our genetic predisposition to care for others of our family, our tribe, or our species. This has helped our species survive in the long run - and it has been around a lot longer than Christianity.

Aren’t those values you would want your children to express?

Well, sure! But, as I see it, Christianity is more of a hindrance than a help in instilling those values.

Don’t think for a moment that Muslim followers are sitting on the fence (as Christian Americans are) trying to decide whether or not to pass on their belief system to their children.

Translation: The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming! We must out-breed them!

Get a grip. The answer to stopping a virulent, violent religious meme is NOT another virulent, violent religious meme. The answer is that teaching our children critical thinking skills will eventually eradicate all magical thinking, including the Muslim variety.

Oh, and the Christian flavor as well.