minister turns atheist dot org

Every once in a while, I get up in the morning and check my
email first thing. Not surprisingly, I find a rather lengthy email
from a friend who convinced himself that he could "prove" to
me God's existence and that I would therefore, return to the
fold of God one day. I proceed to read his "refutation" of
atheism. Almost regularly, the attachment is from Answer in
Genesis, Tekton Ministries, Apologetics Press, or some
other conservative "Christian evidences" mill. The heading
of the email usually says something like, "Good bye eternal
universe, Hello temporal one," or something along those
lines. When I have time, I read all 20 or so pages of the
article. I then make a reply to this little crusader and try to
point out why his material failed to convince me of the "error"
of my ways. Not much time will pass before this good fellow
sends me more material and tries again, all along failing to
see the difference in proving God's existence, and
starting with the assumption of God's existence,
while trying desperately to work backwards towards
proof!

I get my share of emails like this all the time, and the
message is the same: "God is out there and provable if only
you will listen, Joe!" It is amazing how many people always
look for alternative reasons as to why I don't "see" what they
do. They easily forget that I was where they are in theistic
belief. I know how believers think and how desperate they
are to find evidences to maintain their ideals. If anything,
they need to try and "see" what I see now. This is a serious
problem for believers. They keep convincing themselves
that they can prove the existence of God, a being who is
supposedly unknowable!

Being influenced by a skeptical western culture, our modern
Christians of today feel the compelling need to have their
faith seem logical, and I don't blame them for feeling this
way. Nobody wants to be thought of as holding an illogical
position, do they? As educated as folks generally are today,
we cannot step back into the dark ages and ignore what we
have learned, but that is what we would have to do to accept
the bible. Christians are bending over backwards to be
logical and scientific. I could save them a lot of trouble.

I remember emailing back one religious friend after he sent
me five different links to Christian "evidence" websites. Here
is an excerpt of my reply...

"Listen...., it's OK to believe in a sky spirit. You've grown up
with that view, and have a social network of friends who hold
to it. Since you've told me that you are 100% convinced as
to the truth of your position, then why are we playing this
logical debate game? Just have your faith and go to your
church and use those evidences to keep those who agree
with you in full faith. But you've got to know, your whole line
of evidences and thinking are going to get you no where in
the academic and secular worlds. Quit trying to prove the
existence of a god. It is a whole lot easier just to believe and
live your religion."

With all the aggressive counter-evidences to Christianity that
I present in a correspondence, they are shocked to hear me
encourage them to quit futilely trying to convince me. Of
course, as you might have guessed, this is reverse
psychology! I do not encourage them to embrace religion or
faith, but it helps them see that the real motive of "Christian
evidences" is undercut by the Christian's own desire to feel
scientifically validated, and to be accepted by the scientific
community. You might say that Christian evidences shows a
Christian's insecurity, and possibly even doubt in religion
and the concept of faith itself.

To those who might actually be interested in scientific and
logical truth, they should consider how the "proofs" they
offer never stand up to debate and academic scrutiny.
There are a number of ways to try and "prove" the validity of
theism in general, and Christianity in particular, but all of
these fail miserably...

1) The theist can try to prove God by physical
examination: This would be the most ideal form of proof we
could ever ask for. Why can't we see this god? Why can't we
examine his attributes and characteristics? If we could, this
website and all atheistic philosophy would not exist! But
instead of showing us God, we find that theists are God's
excuse makers. They can always give convenient reasons
why God won't show himself (he's too holy, too powerful, too
great for us, etc.), but in the end, we still have no hard
evidence of a God. The second best way to prove God by
way of physical examination is for the theist to perform a
miracle, a real miracle!

I live in San Antonio, Texas, a place where many diabetics
reside. How awesomely convincing it would be to find every
diabetic completely free from the disease tomorrow! This
would be a miracle rather than hearing the usual stories of
how a car was wrecked hopelessly and the driver walked
away with only a bruise, or a story about how a cancer went
into remission suddenly. The debate on the existence of
God could end today if only we had the real, hard evidences
of supernatural powers--but this is exactly the proof we don't
have.

2) The theist can try to prove God by reasoning in
the natural world: I can look around my world and, out of
ignorance, conclude that Jupiter and all the planets stay up
in space because invisible spirits hold them there. I can take
a leaf under a microscope and admire it, so as to see in it
"design." The problem with this line of reasoning is that we
have a much better model for examining the
material world, evolution. Evolution destroys the only
argument that past generations of theists ever had for the
existence of a god, the argument from intelligent design, the
teleological argument.

This argument did well for generations before man
understood the difference between natural design and
intelligent design. A watch may be designed by intelligence,
but this was observed. The creation of the world was not
observed, and therefore, it cannot be said that it was
designed since the design argument rests on observation.
To use the natural world as evidence of God is to beg the
question of the debate by merely assuming what must be
proved. Plus, even theists will admit that the main difference
between natural and intelligent designs is a big one. A sign
that says "Welcome to Alaska" was observably produced by
intelligence, not necessarily so with a leaf or the sun. We
have natural principles that more than account for natural
phenomenon like leaves and stars. So to say that leaves
and stars are designed is to beg the question of the debate.

Furthermore, if God is the "supreme intelligence" that
created the earth, then the design argument must account
for his design, which it cannot do. So reasoning by design is
a dead end for theists and this isn't even considering the
fact that what little order we seem to find is greatly
outweighed by the massive universal manifestations of
disorder that abound everywhere in the cosmos.

3) The theist can try to prove God by reasoning
based on pure logic: While every enlightened atheist will
hold up logic and sound reasoning as the greatest tools of
man to know and comprehend the world, without the world, it
is impossible to make sense of anything. When theologians
try to use logical arguments to prove their case (like the
axiological, teleological, ontological, and cosmological
arguments) it only hurts their cause as it demonstrates how
strained and inapplicable these positions are. Anyone can
use pure reason (out of context with the natural world) and
come up with every conceivable absurdity. "Every tree is
yellow, Adam is a tree. Therefore, Adam is yellow!" This
argument is valid, but hardly sound or true.

Now using reason based on the natural world in which we
live is completely valid. I look around me and see horrors
unfold that makes it more than reasonable to conclude that
this world, and we who live in it, are not the result of a
cosmic, compassionate intelligence. I see chaos and random
deaths and tragedies that make life a difficult thing.
Therefore, I can reasonably ask what kind of being would
design such a place. With this in mind, I can apply reason
and common sense to explain a vast world credibly. Every
observation of our natural world paints a drastically different
picture than does theism. Reasoning + observation =
atheism.

4) The theist can try to prove God by reasoning
based on myths, historical events and facts (a
flood, the Jews as a nation, the church, Jesus,
etc.): This is a very common line of reasoning. It is based
somewhat on reasoning in the natural world: Since palm
trees were found in the arctic then this implies a young,
created earth like Genesis reveals, and therefore, the God
of Genesis exists. Since the Jews survived for so long as a
nation when their contemporaries died out, they must have
been directed by God, and therefore, God must exist. Since
the Catholic Church survived her battles and kept her faith
intact, she must be the true church, the true work of God,
and therefore, God must exist. Since the gospels weren't
written like so many other myths of their day, they must be
the genuine word of God, and therefore, God must exist.
These few samples of ridiculous reasoning meet an
unforgiving death by scrutiny when we examine them. Palm
trees found in the arctic say something about the past of the
area in which they were found. Every place on earth in the
past had a warm and tropical-like climate at some point,
including the Sahara desert and Antarctica. In regard to the
Jewish nation surviving, they were simply king of the
mountain. The laws of average and probability show us that
one or a few nations and faiths must survive. The Jews
happened to be one such people. The same is true of the
Catholic Church. Many religions and cultures simply didn't
make it to the top. This is to be expected. And contrary to
the claims of Christian apologists, the gospel myths are not
particularly unique. In fact, they are made up of borrowed
components of dead religions (Jesus born in a cave/inn,
virgin born, arguing with the elders of his community, casting
out demons and healing miracles, crucifixion, and
resurrection). The New Testament times were rich in myths
of dead men deified and dying and rising savior-god myths.
There is nothing really original about the Christian myth.

Sound reasoning dictates that we look for the simplest
explanation to a dilemma first. So even if the evidence,
somehow, someway, did seem to support the idea of a great
flood in the past (which it doesn't), the most natural answer
would be to accept that a great flood happened, but not
necessarily a worldwide, complete deluge as recorded in the
bible. We apply these principles of reasoning all the time:
superstitious people are always claiming miracles, from
Catholic saints working miracles, to Charles Manson
levitating buses. Why don't you believe all their claims?
Because you realize that there are more logical ways of
explaining recorded "miraculous" events. If only the same
logic could be unbiasedly applied to the Christian faith and
theism, we'd be that much closer to understanding each
other. Logic must take precedent over emotional wishes and
romantic thinking of all kinds.

5) The theist can try to prove God based on the
bible and the things it contains: Here is where attempts
are made to show prophecies and scientific truths, allegedly
demonstrating inspiration and evidences for its God, but
there are no true biblical prophecies, despite theist's best
efforts to the contrary. I can, however, show prophecies that
failed, in refutation of this prophecy idea. One example is
the city of Babylon. The "prophecy" said Babylon would be
destroyed never to be rebuilt again. But history and the New
Testament both contradict this and show it to be false
(Isaiah 13:19-22 vs. I Peter 5:13). Babylon exists today! In
the final analysis, there is nothing in the bible to substantiate
supernatural knowledge like prophecy. Everything the bible
contains actually works against the bible being viewed as
the word of a God. In fact, the book leaves no doubt that it is
not inspired!

6) The theist can try to prove God based on
personal experiences and basic human intuition:
These are as defeating and varying as the amount of
people who claim them. A depressed person prays hard into
the night that God reveal himself to him. After hours of no
contact, suddenly, he hears a voice, "I am God and I love
you." With rejoicing, and after another few minutes of
prayer, he drifts off to sleep to awake to face another day,
this time more joyous than before and ready to face the
hardships of life. Each experience is unique to each person
as is each god.

So I ask, which ones are genuine and which ones are not,
and how can we tell the difference? You can't! If I must
accept one religious experience, then I must, with equal
weight, accept them all, and this will create irreconcilable
conflicts between them. If there is some basic human
intuition of God, some inner-yearning for a divine father,
then I must ask why deprived children raised in bad homes
and without mental stimulation at birth show no evidence of
"yearning" or calling out to some god? Children raised by
wolves (and their really have been some cases) do not have
any "intuition" of God. If they choose, a theist can argue that
there was an original set of morally perfect standards in the
garden of Eden (silly as this idea is), but the idea that
ingrained in man is a "seed" of God's morality is even less
tenable. The maze of personal experiences and the human
psyche is so convoluted, so differing, so fallible, and so
unreliable, both by way of memory and clarity of thought,
that only a naïve fool would dare trust unverifiable stories
from such sources.

In the final analysis, all these avenues of "proof" fail. Bear in
mind that it is easy to convince someone who already
agrees with you and not so easy to convince someone who
doesn't. Christians could so much better utilize their time
going out and trying to convert the uneducated to the bible
rather than those of us who see it's flaws. If they did, they
will have an easier and more profitable evangelistic work.

So please, fundamentalist Christians, quit trying to prove
your case. You are likely never going to prove to me that a
snake deceived a woman in a garden and caused the earth
to tilt, bringing in original sin and a cursed creation with
thorns and painful childbirth for women. Myths are full of
talking animals, and lo and behold, there is one more in
Genesis! You are likely never going to prove to me that a
woman was turned to salt for looking back at a city she was
told not to, especially when a myth exists that has Orpheus
taking his wife out of the under world and as she looks back,
she is confined to stay there forever. In a land that is more
than 30% salt, it is only obvious that salt myths developed
as is the case with the Lot's wife story. You are likely never
going to prove to me that an axe head floated, that bread
came from heaven, that Joshua stopped the earth from
turning, that the walls of Jericho fell down by marching
around them, that there was darkness over the land for
three hours after Jesus was crucified (3 days if you believe
the Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 10:9!), that many people saw
dead bodies of saints marching through the city of
Jerusalem after the crucifixion as per Matthew 27:52-53. But
if you persist in thinking that Christianity is so viable that it
can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, then I invite you
to try and convince me. You can begin by making or reviving
an argument for the existence of God. Please address the
invalid arguments I addressed in Questions for God. After
that, please refute satisfactorily the main arguments against
the existence of God, and then you can move on to
answering the contradictions on my bible discrepancies
page. If you can get this far (and I am satisfied with your
answers), then why not try and explain away the bible
atrocities, and the scientific ignorance in the bible.

If you can provide the answers, then I will gladly convert to
whatever faith you demonstrate to be the right one. But I
must warn you that given the odds of accomplishing all of
this, you'd probably have better luck lassoing Neptune and
pulling it down to earth. Best of luck!

(JH)