How a “Perfect God” Undermines Human Morality

A talk I gave at Houston Oasis on 12/16/12:

I recently heard an interesting take on the “problem of evil”, also known as theodicy, which is the question of how the notion of an all-powerful and loving God can be reconciled with the evil and suffering we see in the world. It’s a problem that philosophers and theologians have struggled with since the very beginnings of organized religion, and which after thousands of years and countless hours of contemplation, nobody has yet to find a satisfactory answer for.

As the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus pointed out over 2,300 years ago:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Well a philosophy professor named Stephen Maitzen recently pointed out how this problem, taken to its logical conclusion, not only undermines the notion of an omnipotent and loving god, but actually subverts human morality as well, and eliminates the most obvious and clear reasons we have for showing kindness and benevolence towards others. The argument goes something like this:

If God is truly good and all powerful, he would not, and could not, subject a person–particularly an innocent person such as a small child–to needless or morally unjustifiable suffering. So what exactly would fit under that definition?

Well one of the stock responses you’ll often hear is that an innocent person’s suffering might be for the greater good of others, or for the benefit of society overall. So when a child is experiencing a terrible disease, someone might say that it will result in the the parents being drawn closer to God, or that it will somehow make the parents better people. In other words, somehow that child’s suffering is ultimately justified as part of some greater plan. But that justification fails, because it means that the innocent child is effectively being exploited, by God, for the benefit of others. Which would be inherently immoral and thus not an act that is reconcilable with the notion of a perfect and loving God.

It also doesn’t work to say that the suffering child will be compensated in some way later, in order to make up for the suffering being experienced now. Because to compensate someone for an injustice being done to them doesn’t mean the original act wasn’t wrong. If anything it’s an admission that it was wrong.

So what we’re left with is the conclusion that the suffering of an innocent child is only morally justifiable if it is for the direct benefit of that child–for example, if the child’s suffering draws that child closer to God, or if by undergoing that suffering, it results in some long-term benefit to that child later in life which comes about as a direct result.

But that leads to an even more problematic conclusion. Because if the suffering must be for that child’s direct benefit, then it means the worse a child is suffering, the more it must be for the child’s own good, and the less reason we have for trying to end or alleviate it. In essence it turns morality completely upside down, and means that even the most obvious examples of compassionate morality cannot be reconciled with the traditional theistic concept of “God”. And if such acts cannot be reconciled, it’s hard to imagine how any acts of moral behavior can be reconciled, unless one is to discard traditional theism entirely and adopt a secular worldview based on rational, humanistic moral principles.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Theresa actually received a great deal of criticism for her openly-stated stance on the issue of suffering (for example when she made comments such as “the suffering of the poor is something very beautiful”, or when she referred to suffering as “the kiss of Jesus”) as well as for not doing more to utilize the vast resources at her disposal to help alleviate it. But perhaps she wasn’t being indifferent to the plight of those who suffer, as her critics alleged, but was simply taking her traditional theistic worldview to its logical conclusion. After all, if suffering truly brings people closer to God, what right does anyone have to prevent it from happening?

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 4

Saying that religious claims “don’t make sense”. It’s true there are countless religious claims which don’t make sense, and can never make sense. But I’ve always felt that saying something “doesn’t make sense” sounds a little too close to “I don’t understand it”. It’s the kind of thing one might say when trying to understand advanced calculus, not just things which are inherently nonsensical. But most of us are atheists precisely because we do understand religion, and speak from a position of having too much information on the subject, not too little. So that’s why I find myself catching myself, and instead of saying the concept of the trinity, for example, “doesn’t make sense” (which it doesn’t), I say it’s incoherent. Instead of saying that the concept of an infinitely loving God punishing people with infinite torment for finite sins “doesn’t make sense”, I say that it’s paradoxical, not to mention unethical. To me that sends a much stronger message: that the issue isn’t with us, it’s with metaphysical claims that directly contradict what we know to be true about the world we live in. Other options: logically invalid, fatally flawed, internally contradictory, unintelligible.

“When it comes to the Bible, you can’t just pick and choose what you want to believe…” Not only can Christians do this, they absolutely have to. And as I point out here, every time someone repeats this cliche they are actually giving the Bible far more credit than it deserves. Also, do we really want to imply that absolute fundamentalism is the more admirable position, simply because it happens to be more logically consistent?

“Christians believe serial killers can still go to heaven just by becoming Christians on their deathbeds”. For the most part this is absolutely true–particularly when it comes to evangelical Christians, who largely believe that salvation is achieved by faith and faith alone. But a secular argument could at least be made that it is conceivable for someone to commit the most horrific crimes imaginable, and eventually come to deserve forgiveness for those crimes before dying. But consider the same scenario in reverse: a law-abiding, devout Christian who later becomes a sadistic mass murderer, and remains one until the day he dies… How many people realize that according to the Christian doctrine of irrevocable salvation (“once saved always saved”), this hypothetical person is still guaranteed a spot in heaven while Einstein and Gandhi burn in Hell? Such a scenario is FAR more perverse than the hypothetical “deathbed conversion”, yet is every bit as consistent with the professed beliefs of fundamentalist evangelicals.

For the first three parts in the series:

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 1

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 2

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 3

Atheist Cliche’s to Avoid – Part 3

“The books of the Bible were just decided by popular vote”. The Da Vinci Code has probably done the most to perpetuate this myth, and even went so far as to claim that the Biblical Canon was voted into existence at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD under direct order from Roman Emperor Constantine. In reality none of that is true. Yes, the canonization process was in large part subjective, and often based on faulty premises (the alleged authorship of the texts supposedly going back to Jesus’ disciples, for example). But the process of canonization took place over hundreds of years, as a result of many decisions made by many individuals, and to this day it still has not been truly “settled”: Different branches of Christianity still recognize different canons, with many of them—even the Catholic canon—not being formally ratified until the 16th-18th centuries.

OK, just kidding. This is what Jesus actually looked like.

“The Bible has gone through so many translations we don’t know what it originally said”. There are indeed many translations of the Bible, and in some cases the specific translation you read can make a pretty big difference. But it’s not like the Bible was written in one language, then translated into another, then translated from that into another, and so on and so on until it eventually reached “English”. We actually have existing manuscripts in the languages the Bible was originally written in (primarily Hebrew for the Old Testament, exclusively Greek for the New Testament), and we’ve translated those texts directly into English. But the irony is, this is actually MORE damning to the trustworthiness of the texts than if it weren’t the case.

That’s because Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, not Greek, and they were largely if not entirely illiterate by the Bible’s own admission (with the exception of Paul, who let’s face it was not one of Jesus’ disciples). So the fact that the books attributed to Jesus’ disciples were actually first penned in Greek (and not just Greek, but in many cases highly literate and fully fluent Greek) means they could not have been written by their alleged authors, or anything resembling first-hand witnesses. At-best they were oral accounts passed down for decades before being committed to paper; at-worst they were literary creations based on a kernel of historical truth but written for the first time decades after the fact.

“Pretty much anything from Zeitgeist”. It really says something when an atheistic documentary has been thoroughly and independently debunked by just about every atheist/skeptic website, magazine, and podcast out there. Here’s a good one from Skeptic Magazine.

For the rest of the series:

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 1

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 2

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 4

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 2

“Jesus never existed”. Not only is there overwhelming scholarly consensus that he did (even among non-Christian scholars), but any atheist making this claim is ultimately doing themselves a disservice–not only by setting the bar artificially and unnecessarily high and essentially flipping the burden of proof onto themselves, but because the strongest arguments for Jesus’ existence are also arguments against his divinity and his status as the so-called Messiah.

“Jesus said bring them and slay them before me”. This is “true” to the extent that the Bible claims Jesus uttered those words. But Jesus was actually telling a parable–in an attempt to justify the doctrine of Hell–of a hypothetical king who says those words within the context of that parable. In other words, Jesus did not literally order any men to be killed before him. Of course, the irony here is that this is actually more damning (ha) than the alternative: If Jesus had truly ordered these men to be killed, an apologist could find some way to rationalize their deaths as morally justified, or claim that the story was only applicable to that specific instance at that specific point in time. But parables are by definition intended to be universally applicable, and the orthodox doctrine of Hell (if it were real) is infinitely more morally abhorrent than the mere execution of a few men.

Ridiculing Genesis. The Genesis stories are prime fodder for atheists and standup comedians everywhere, and for good reason: They are the most ridiculous stories in the entire Bible. But everyone already knows that, and most Christians will simply dismiss such ridicule by saying that the stories are meant to be taken metaphorically.
So instead of Genesis, how about ridiculing the problems with the Bible that people don’t know about, and which aren’t as easily written off as “metaphorical”? Think Jesus destroying a fig tree because it wasn’t fig season. Animal babies being born with stripes because of what their parents were looking at while mating. Jesus saying the end of the world would come within the lifetimes of his original followers. Or my personal favorite, Jesus riding into Jerusalem on two donkeys at the same time because the writer of Matthew sucked at reading Hebrew. No more Noah’s Ark jokes please.

This is what Jesus actually looked like.

“How the hell could they have fit two of every animal on the Ark?” OK, sometimes taking jabs at the Ark story is just too hard to resist. But if you’re going to do it, at least don’t make this mistake: Despite the popular conception of “two of every kind” on the Ark, the Bible is clear that there were actually seven pairs (or just “seven”, depending on which translation you read) of every “clean” animal–which includes the VAST majority of animals–and two of every “unclean”. That’s right… the Noah’s Ark story is even more ridiculous than even most atheists realize, by a factor of three to seven times.

For the rest of the series:

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 1

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 3

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 4

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 1

Christian author Christian Piatt recently wrote a series of articles on “Christian Clichés To Avoid”, which generated quite a bit of buzz in both the Christian and atheist blogospheres. It was a great read, even if (maybe even particularly if) you’re an atheist.

It was so good, in fact, it prompted me to start this series on “atheist clichés” we should also avoid.

These are a basically things I hear from other atheists all the time, in some cases even highly prominent figures in the atheist community. Some are weak arguments against religion (where similar but much stronger arguments exist). Some are statements that atheists make in an attempt to defend atheism, yet actually downplay the atheist position or even implicitly marginalize atheists overall. And some are simply things which are flat-out, demonstrably false.

“I don’t believe in God”. There’s obviously nothing wrong with saying this in casual contexts, particularly in the company of other atheists. But the problem is the way “believe” can be interpreted as whether you support a particular position, not just whether you believe in its existence. One can say they “don’t believe in” the death penalty, for example, but that says nothing about whether they believe the death penalty exists. And as absurd as that interpretation may sound, it plays directly into the mindset of countless religionists who claim that atheists know deep down that God exists, but we simply choose to “reject Him”. Also notice how the wording is subtly yet inherently biased in theists’ (particularly monotheists) favor, while making the subtle presupposition that the existence of their god–particularly the Judeo-Christian God–is somehow the default position. That’s why I prefer the slightly more wordy (but far more accurate) “I don’t believe in the existence of any gods” (of course, if you really want to get under a theist’s skin, there’s also “I don’t believe in the existence of your god”).

“(So and so) lost their faith”. Think about this for a second; what else is there that we refer to as a “loss” that isn’t something we’d like to have back? If you ask someone you how they’ve been lately, would they ever say “I had a really bad cold but I lost it a few days ago”? Would someone ever say they once had a smoking habit, but “lost it”? Simply saying “became an atheist” avoids that connotation.

“(So and so) actually believes…” (Examples: “Catholics actually believe the bread and wine literally become Jesus’ flesh and blood”; “Mormons actually believe magical underwear will protect them”; “young Earth creationists actually believe the Universe is less than 10,000 years old”). Unless we’re psychics we have no way of truly knowing if someone believes in the specific metaphysical claims of their religion (with the possible exception of suicide bombers). Even if they explicitly and publicly proclaim it, there is simply no way to know what private doubts someone may harbor, or whether they’re simply toeing the party line when it comes to professing their beliefs.

That’s why to say that a person or group “claims to believe” something is not only more accurate and more intellectually honest, but it subtly conveys the point that just because people claim to believe in absurd, ridiculous things doesn’t truly mean that deep down, they truly believe in those absurd, ridiculous things. And as Richard Dawkins points out, in many cases they probably don’t.

For the rest of the series:

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 2

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 3

Atheist Clichés to Avoid – Part 4

How Atheists Sell Themselves Short

A talk I gave at Houston Oasis on 10/7/12:

Unlike our previous members who have shared their community moments with us over these past few weeks, I didn’t come from a religious family, and never had any form of organized religion. Which is not to say I was raised as an “atheist” per-se, but while growing up religion was never really an issue in my family, and my parents simply never really talked about it. Instead, they allowed me to make my own decisions about what to believe, which naturally in retrospect I am extremely thankful for.

So, with that being the case, I thought I’d go for a slightly different approach and share with you something I’ve been thinking about lately, which is how we, as freethinkers, secularists, atheists, and humanists tend to “sell ourselves short” so to speak, when speaking about ourselves and our beliefs, often in ways that we may not even realize.

For example, I’ll often hear people say that “Non-religious people can be moral too”, or “You don’t need religion to be a good person”. Which, of course, is absolutely true. But saying we “can” be moral implies that, as a general rule, we’re not. And saying that you don’t “need” religion still suggests that religion might make us better people than we already are.

Yet the truth is that when compared to the religious, freethinkers are statistically more “moral” than virtually any other demographic group. In the United States, on a per-capita basis we commit less crime, have lower rates of divorce, have lower incidence of teen pregnancy, higher levels of education… And the same holds true when you break it down worldwide; the nations in the world with the lowest religiosity have the least crime, the lowest corruption, and the highest standards of living in the world. By virtually any objective metric you can think of, freethinkers are statistically more moral than the religious, not less. And all without any fear of infinite torment in the afterlife, and no expectation of any metaphysical rewards for simply being the best person we can be.

Another thing I often hear, when it comes to religious claims (or religion in general) is that it “doesn’t make sense”. And it’s true there are countless religious claims which don’t make sense, and can never make sense. But I’ve always felt that saying something “doesn’t make sense” sounds a little too close to “I don’t understand it”, the kind of thing one might say when trying to grasp advanced calculus, not just things which are inherently nonsensical.

But as is probably case for most, if not all the people in this room, we’re probably here today at Houston Oasis because we do understand traditional religion, and we speak from a position of having too much information on the subject, not too little. So that’s why I find myself catching myself, and instead of saying the concept of the trinity, for example, “doesn’t make sense”, I say it’s incoherent. Instead of saying that the concept of an infinitely loving God punishing people with infinite torment for finite sins “doesn’t make sense”, I say that it’s paradoxical, not to mention immoral. To me that sends a much stronger message–that the issue isn’t with us, it’s with metaphysical claims that directly contradict what we know to be true about the reality we live in.

And finally, I also often hear people referring to themselves, as having “lost their faith” after they’ve left religion behind. But think about this for a second. What else is there that we refer to as a “loss” which isn’t something we would like to have back? If you ask someone how they’ve been lately, would they ever say “I had a really bad cold but I lost it a few days ago”? Would someone ever say they used to have a smoking habit, but “lost it”? Of course not. People lose money. They lose car keys. They lose sanity. But as freethinkers, we didn’t “lose” religious faith. Instead we gained reason, we gained a richer, fuller understanding of reality. And that’s something I would encourage all of us to be proud of.

Further Reading:

Society without God by Phil Zuckerman

Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans by David Niose

The God Virus by Darrel Ray

Picking & Choosing from the Bible (Part 1)

Ask any atheist what their biggest complaint is regarding “moderate” or “casual” Christians, and I can pretty much guarantee the answer you’ll get:

“They feel like they can pick and choose what they want to believe. They accept some parts of the Bible and reject others, just depending on whatever suits them”.

Which is true, of course. There is absolutely nothing in that statement that I disagree with. But there are a couple of reasons you will never, ever find me criticizing Christians in this way.

The first is that even though the statement is technically true, it completely misplaces the blame. The problem is not with the believers who “pick and choose”; the problem is with a holy book which is so convoluted, so ambiguous, and so internally-contradictory, it’s simply impossible not to pick and choose which tenets to believe and which orders to obey.

Is it good or bad to be wealthy? Should you judge others or judge not? Are you supposed to honor your parents, or hate them and turn against them? Is salvation achieved by faith alone, or is faith without works dead?

When the Bible simultaneously teaches mutually contradictory concepts on fundamental issues of belief, what is a believer to do other than “pick and choose”?

Yet implicit in such criticism of “moderate” Christians is the unspoken assumption that they could somehow believe differently, and somehow find a way to believe in ALL of the Bible with 100% conviction. Yet not only is such an assumption incorrect, any attempt to criticize Christians in such a way actually gives the Bible itself FAR more credit than it deserves.