Atheist vs Christian debate: Final smackdown!

This is my closing entry in the debate over the topic "Why I reject theism/atheism as a valid worldview." If you missed any of my or Pastor James-Michael Smith's previous exchanges on the subject, just click on our respective titles, L.A. Atheist Examiner and National Methodist Examiner. That will link you to lists of our respective articles.

 

This debate has been framed in negative terms, to wit: Why I reject theism rather than why I accept atheism as a valid world view so most of my remarks will be about theism instead of atheism. I think when you're evaluating something as important as what to believe about religious claims, you should at least apply the same standards a jury uses in a court case. You don't need to prove a claim beyond a shadow of a doubt but you do need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt... and there are so many reasonable doubts that apply to religious claims. Take the claim for the witnessing of miracles, for instance. This is a claim common to religion ever since the first shaman shook a rattle over a sick person and "cured" him in front of the tribe. Witnesses though, even expert ones, don't rattle off an unvarnished record of what they saw or heard. As courts have determined through long experience, such testimony is filtered through the life experiences and biases of the witnesses. What comes out of their mouths in court is not what they actually saw but, more accurately, an interpretation of what they saw. That's why some people will see an image of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich while others just see lunch.

 

As a case in point, let's look at a modern miracle worker, the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. He is what Hindus call a "godman", someone of high spiritual attainment and paranormal powers. According to Wikipedia, he has a following of 6 million people and regularly performs "miracles" in front of thousands of witnesses. Here's how Wikipedia describes the claims made about him:

 

 

His devotees claim that such miracles are also associated with his image, his alters and through prayer. Does any of this sound familiar? Can thousands of witnesses possibly be wrong about what they saw or what they feel in their hearts to be true?

 

Let's talk about that feeling in the heart for a moment since JM refers to "the subjective evidence of my own personal encounters with the Holy Spirit." Then we'll go on to my concluding statements. JM offers other arguments but I'll save them for some other occasion. This is partly because I've covered some of them in previous posts and partly in the interest of brevity. I haven't even ennumerated all of the other problems with witness testimony yet and there's an abundance of reasons to feel reasonable doubt about his remaining arguments as well.

 

The fact that, as JM admits, this evidence is subjective is probably the most telling argument against it -especially for someone who insists their truth must be absolute. That a person may feel something to be true with every fiber of their being... has no bearing on whether it is true or not. Revelation and the feeling of being in touch with something larger than yourself is not the exclusive property of any religious tradition. It's hard to think of any of them where it's not included in some form or other (JM and others regard this apparent universality as evidence of an innate or designed human need for the divine but there are other explanations available. The neurological aspect of it is explored in this 2007 Time Magazine article, What Your Brain Looks Like On Faith) but the problem is that these "revelations" are often very different -many times even for people within the same religious tradition - and plenty of them flatly contradict one another. So how do you determine which, if any, reflects that absolute truth most theists demand? The traditional theistic method is to say, "well this one fits more or less with our Hindu/Moslem/Jewish/Catholic/Protestant/FITB (Fill In The Blank) dogma so it must be God-sent. Everything else is a delusion/heresy/blasphemy/insanity/FITB sent by Satan/the Devil/Shaitan/drugs/inbreeding/FITB and the person claiming it should be shunned/punished/prayed over/committed/beheaded/burned at the stake/stoned/FITB. Whether you look at revelations and feelings of oneness with Buddha (or whomever) this way or some other way, it should be obvious that there are other possible explanations for the apparent universality of such phenomena than just saying "God did it" -and this too is a reasonable doubt.

 

You know, all this time JM and I have been talking about an "atheist worldview" as if it were an alternative to a theistic worldview. The plain fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as an "atheist worldview." Atheism, despite the fervent desire of some to characterize it as such, is not a belief system but a conclusion. It is, in many ways an unfortunate term since it defines people by what they don't believe instead of what they do. No one calls me an a-astrologist or an a-flat earthist though I don't believe in astrology or a flat earth either. Freethinker is somewhat better but methodological naturalist (say, what!?) fits me best. It's a fancy phrase for the philosophical position that knowledge is best attained and explained by testing hypotheses using the evidence found in the natural world. It's also called "scientific naturalism." That's my worldview. Atheism, as I mentioned, is a conclusion drawn from it and a tentative one at that. It's tentative because the naturalistic worldview includes a framework for accepting change when new evidence requires it. Most atheists these days arrive at their conclusions using similar methods whether they are concious of what it's called or not. It is by it's very nature the antithesis of the absolutism that most theists so lovingly embrace and demand from any other worldview before they'll seriously consider it.

 

I'd like to conclude by addressing this expectation of absolutes and why it makes me shudder every time I encounter it. JM says I have to realize that if morality is inherently subjective rather than, as he puts it, objectively absolute, then all meanings we give it are equally valid and "nothing more than sentimental decoration meant to camouflage the underlying nihilistic reality of a closed system universe with no purpose, justice or moral foundation." I find this kind of absolutist "my way or the highway" thinking, this idea that there is no possibility of any middle ground, to itself be morally abhorrent. The validity of any ethical idea or system is dependant on how well it fulfills the goals it is intended to address. If I want the greatest degree of freedom and happiness for myself, my family and my community, goals which I share with many others, then I will always prefer the ideals of Western humanism preserved in documents like the American Constitution over an absolutist system such as Islam where the goal is serving the will of God. There is no question that, as far as the freedom to think and act for ourselves, Western ideals of individual rights are far superior to Islam's emphasis on subserviance and duty. I am happier not to have my role in life defined for me by circumstances beyond my control such as my gender or the social status of my family.

 

JM is a very nice guy and he has a lot of progressive ideas. He says that he doesn't believe faith should be totally blind. I agree. You don't need to be totally blind to have it; just selectively so. When you embrace a system that enshrines it's rules as absolute truths, you have to be willing to ignore or rationalize away any data that doesn't support them; to turn a blind eye towards it, so to speak. I can't do that. I'm a mature adult with enough wit to understand why being a positive part of the human community benefits me as well as the community. I'm sorry, but a theistic worldview requires too much blindness from me.

 

-author unknown

 

Photo credit: Luisen 12 via Photobucket

 

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