The Geeky Atheist

I had a theist follow me on twitter, and as I usually do, I click around a bit. He had a video on YouTube that required much more than 500 characters to reply to. Here's the video:

It's hard to respond to this video, because there are so many separate statements. I'm going to tackle the first half of the video and respond to every statement. I'm not responding to the second half purely because if I can't show how ridiculous these statements are by just responding to the first half, the rest will fall on deaf ears as well.

From looking around, this person is clearly a Christian, and thus my answers will be showing the hypocrisy in his statements (and likewise the book he got them from).

Just in case no one reads to the end, the main thing points anyone should take away from this are:

1. All of the statements must be false for all other gods than the one you believe in, otherwise your god is not the thing that inspires/creates the concept being questioned. Otherwise, all gods are equally valid.
2. Even if you claim "X does not exist if god does not exist", unless you can prove that atheists cannot experience or see "X", it doesn't make it true.

Now, onto the fun part:

First of all, if there is no God, man has no soul or spirit.

I don't have a problem with this statement. The interesting part is that this is somehow implied a problem with atheism. This is only a problem to those who want to believe that we will have something after death.

People have no greater value than other life-forms.

I'm actually somewhat agreeing with this statement. After all, if all of the other organisms did not exist, we wouldn't have a source of food and we would eventually run out of oxygen. Thus, everything in the universe is truly needed to get us to where we are today, and without it, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

There is no right and wrong, no morality and no integrity.

Right and wrong are defined based on a moral understanding, so let me address morality. I've already defined my thoughts on the origin of morality. Beyond showing that there is a clear way to have morality without a god, this statement also implies two things:

1. The only thing keeping theists moral is their belief that they will be punished eternally if they sin.
2. There are many instances of things that we consider immoral today in the bible (slavery, incest, polygamy, genocide, rape of children, etc.). The main moral teaching people claim for the bible is the golden rule. However, the golden rule dates way back before it was ever mentioned in the Bible.

Human destiny belongs to the clever and strong.

This is true, and I'm surprised you wouldn't agree with it. Who is the most powerful person today? Arguably it would be Barack Obama, a clever and strong (in the needed ways) person. Our destiny of the human race does depend on world leaders deciding to cooperate, despite their opposing and often conflicting religious teachings.

At any level, we have leaders who make decisions for groups of people. This trickles up all the way to the scope of our planet. Thus, we have ourselves constructed a system in which we allow the smart, trusted, or powerful people to make our decisions. When enough people disagree, we have revolutions or civil wars to attempt to overthrow the leader.

The concepts of worth and value do not exist.

I assume that this means of life itself and not the economics terms. Life is as valuable as you allow it to be. For the extreme case of value, let's ponder whether you consider your life valuable enough to keep living. If you think the only reason you would want to live is to please a god, I think you're lying to yourself. In fact if you honestly believe there is a heaven, you should be taking as much risk as possible to spread the gospel to the far reaches of the world. Who cares if you're martyred, right? You'll be going to heaven, and will be praised for doing your best to spread Christianity.

Of course, you want to stay alive. You don't want to take the risk. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the source, but I remember hearing of a study that showed that Christians who were facing death in hospitals fought harder to stay alive by requesting experimental medicines and procedures than non-believers in the same situation. The opposite should be true -- if god dealt you a hand that would get you to heaven more quickly, why not take it?

There is no love, and love is no better than indifference

There are many sciences that have studied and essentially explained love. Evolutionary psychology can hypothesize about how we evolved love. Additionally, neuroscience, anthropology, biology, and psychology all have a lot of research showing how love is a physical, natural thing, not inspired by a god.

Life is no better than death.

If you say so. I personally value my life greatly, as it's the only one I have. I'd say I've enjoyed being alive more than I did not existing.

There is no difference between life and non-life. Humans are just simply a collection of atoms, how is that different from a rock?

That's the inverse intelligent design argument. That's like saying if you have a wedge and a platform that it's no different than putting the platform on the wedge and having a lever.

Obviously the way things are put together makes a huge difference. A rock does not reproduce, asexually or sexually. That is one of the main differences between life and non-life.

There is no hope beyond death, and death is the end.

Correct. To be honest, this was the hardest thing to cope with as I was losing my faith in Christianity. However, I see nothing wrong with this statement, other than it is an implication of atheism.

There is no purpose or design in the universe.

Correct. Implying purpose is something we like to do, as it's been helpful for us in our evolutionary past. For example, let's look at simplistic behavior of someone who doesn't know about pain relievers: if someone had a toothache and found that chewing a certain weed/herb made the tooth not hurt anymore, one would imply that its purpose was a pain reliever.

However, the plant itself doesn't serve a purpose. In fact, the same pain relieving effect can be a toxin to its natural predators and this was a line of defense that was naturally selected that allowed the plant to survive.

Even though this is all hypothetical (I'm too lazy and tired after my road trip today), it shows how we have evolved to assume a purpose behind things. However, I'm completely fine with thinking there is no divine purpose in life.

Peace is no better than war. War can be good because it is the perfect environment for natural selection, "Survival of the fittest."

Says the person who has a god that commanded war a lot in the bible, and whose religion has a history of starting wars in the name of that god. After all, there is a time for war, and there is a time for peace. There is a time for everything.

Natural selection is indeed survival of the fittest, but we've reached a point in modern warfare where it's no longer about fittest. Nuclear holocaust is not about fitness, but purely who has the nukes and presses the button first. Because of our gross allocation of planet-threatening warfare, we've come to realize we need to learn how to get along rather than go to war. This is much more of a modern concept than a concept you find in the bible.

Humans are not responsible for the care of the earth. Why are humans more responsible than elephants. Why does human intelligence make them responsible for the care of the Earth? Why not simply the exploitation of the earth?

This actually made me laugh out loud. Do you realize who in America is most against attempting to reverse our recent influences on our atmosphere? Bible-thumpers. Most atheists recognize this planet as being something we have the ability to influence, and as a whole we've recognized that our technological advances have had negative impacts on the planet.

Why should we take responsibility? Well, if we don't, we may not survive. While that may not be reason enough for you, I take pride in us possibly being one of the only intelligent organisms in this universe, and I would like us to exist long enough to potentially meet others if they exist. I may not be here for it, but if I can do something to ensure that our descendants are, I'm going to do it.

Freedom is no better than slavery.

Again, says the person who's holy book sets out the rules for slavery. Yes, your bible specifically states how much to pay for slaves and how to treat them. In fact, it specifically outlines what the limits of punishing a slave are:

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

That's right, the slave owner can punish his slaves within inches of death, as long as the slave doesn't die within two days. Only if the slave dies is this wrong and the owner should be punished.

The abolition of slavery happened relatively recently, and I would take that as a victory for the morals of society overcoming the moral teachings of our ancestors, including that of the bible.

There is no beginning and no end and time is an illusion. The past and the future don't exist because they cannot be directly observed. And the present is always moving into the past, so it cannot be directly observed. And without direct observation, we are told things do not exist.

While an interesting thought experiment, this statement doesn't actually reflect reality. We are not told that direct observation is required to think things exist. Direct observation is one form of empirical evidence, but it is not the only. We have writings, pictures, archaeology, and many other physical pieces of evidence that allow us to see that dinosaurs existed. By writings, we can see what people did back in their time. We can also compare writings to archaeology and other writings to better understand what really happened in a given period.

This argument is trying to claim that we atheists claim that we can't believe in anything we can't directly observe. That's just a flat out lie.

Innocence is no better than guilt.

So the only thing keeping you from stealing, raping, murdering is that you fear it would upset your god?

There is no murder, because murder depends upon human value. Unique human value. We don't speak of killing an ant as murder. Or even of killing a dog, or even killing an elephant. That's not murder.

Actually, for the dog argument, I've actually heard that be called murder. In fact, one of the definitions of murder is, "to kill brutally or inhumanly."

To the original statement, we as a society don't like people killing each other. If we allowed people to kill each other, we would be in constant fear for our lives. Thus, there is a benefit to encouraging people from killing other people. We've chosen a word "murder" to represent that concept.

There is no reason for sexual purity and the concept of marriage. The only reason for sexual purity is because of certain sexual taboos that come from religion. And specifically Judeo-Christianity.

The bible specifically shows, without disapproval:

• Rape: Offering young daughters up to be raped instead of letting the mob have access to the two angels. (Gen. 19:8) 2 Peter 2:7-8 calls this same man "just" and "righteous"
• Incest: (Including, but not limited to) Daughters getting their father drunk and having sex with him. (Gen 19:31), God getting angry for not reproducing with his brother's wife (Gen 38:8-10),
• Polygamy: A lot of verses

... And without that, one can have sexual relations with as many people as one wishes, at the same time or different times. After all, the most successful organism is the one who bears the most offspring.

Two thoughts:

1. STDs are a good reason not to have sex with many partners. If you claim god responsible for STDs, then you might have a point.
2. While we may be more successful as humans if we reproduce a lot, we will overcrowd the planet and drive extinction of the very animals we rely on as a source of food.

According to atheist ideas, there is no reason for compassion and caring for others. There's no reason for generosity or philanthropy. There's no reason for kindness. There's no reason for gentleness above cruelty.

You're only kind to people because your God tells you to be? I've already linked to the golden rule page above, and that shows that this statement is false.

Human joy is no greater than animal contentment.

This is just a nonsensical statement. It certainly is superior to whomever is experiencing it. However, the animal doesn't know what it's missing out on.

We're in a unique position as humans because we've evolved a consciousness.

There's no love beyond lust, and no intimacy beyond physical touch.

This again is another repeat statement.

Honesty is no better than lying and stealing.

Again, basically the same as "no morality"

At this point I became too bored with the repeats and lack of actually stimulating things to discuss. If these statements are representative of the level of discourse provided by the book you mention, I would highly recommend against this book. It sounds like a lot of fluff with some tired, old arguments.

This is my first National Day of Reason as someone who would choose reason over prayer. I think this is one of those campaigns that is positive and hard to criticize.

The largest allegation could only be that prayer is more powerful than reason, which we simply cannot accept purely because we reason. Without reason no allegations can be proven true or false.

The main issue with the corresponding National Day of Prayer is that by passing a law that designates a day to prayer, it bucks at the very foundation of our government and is representative of our ability to waste resources on completely unneeded laws.

Firstly, it goes against the establishment clause in the constitution, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; [...]

Now, the National Day of Prayer bill was carefully worded to not favor any specific religion. That would have been blatantly unconstitutional. Rather the interpretation of this clause can be that by making a law that shows favor to prayer, it is establishing religion as a whole as part of this country's laws.

When interpreting a text, one must consider the authors, so let's see a few quotes by our founding fathers:

Thomas Jefferson:

Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it. ...civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.

James Madison:

There has been another deviation from the strict principle in the Executive Proclamations of fasts & festivals, so far, at least, as they have spoken the language of injunction, or have lost sight of the equality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution. Whilst I was honored with the Executive Trust I found it necessary on more than one occasion to follow the example of predecessors. But I was always careful to make the Proclamations absolutely indiscriminate, and merely recommendatory; or rather mere designations of a day, on which all who thought proper might unite in consecrating it to religious purposes, according to their own faith & forms. In this sense, I presume you reserve to the Govt. a right to appoint particular days for religious worship throughout the State, without any penal sanction enforcing the worship.

Combine this with the general notion of separation of church and state, as highlighted in many court cases and the infamous Treaty of Tripoli:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

It seems clear that the National Day of Prayer should never have been a law. I'm not against people praying. I'm not against a religious group organizing a National Day of Prayer. I'm just against it being codified by our congress and signed into law by our president.

Happy National Day of Reason.

This morning on reddit I stumbled across a new debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza. I don't watch the debates specifically to hear theists. Their arguments are rather predictable at this point. Rather, I watch for three reasons:

1. Hitchens has an eloquent way of talking that I find very refreshing to hear.
2. Beyond being eloquent, his recall of literary works is phenomenal, and I am constantly hearing new quotes and explanations from Hitchens. Short of reading and studying all of these works, this is a great way to learn.
3. Often I find myself thinking, "Why doesn't he just argue X?" Not all of the arguments I think of are original, for sure, but there are a few cases I see rarely argued that I think illustrate the point more clearly than the current favored argument.

One of these arguments is a favorite argument of the source of morality. D'Souza argues that without an inspiration of morality from a divine origin we couldn't be moral.

This argument is often dealt with on an individual basis, but I think it's quite logical to address this from the perspective of society. Let's take a step-by-step look at how we can arrive at having morals:

Without modern weapons, each of us stands a small chance of survival in the wilderness when pitted against ferocious animals such as bears, wolves, etc. We can posit that just as wolves roam in packs, we could also likely roam in "packs" or small groups without divine inspiration.

As a member of a small group, we can see how it would be more beneficial to the group to work towards a common goal of hunting a larger animal together to share rather than killing each other. Again, just as wolves have discovered and evolved this trait, we could as well. This provides us our first moral lesson: it isn't right to kill a member of our group.

When encountering another small group, there are three choices: 1. Attempt to kill/repel the other group to protect your territory. This was likely to be a common response early on, and this instinct can still be observed today. 2. Join together again for the common good. This was probably a less common scenario that happened, but would provide an advantage over smaller groups in that it would be easier to defend your territory. 3. Go separate ways. This is a peaceful alternative to #1.

With these choices we can easily see why #2 would be naturally selected to be the preferred behavior. And thus forms the building blocks for society.

As a whole society forms morals. How can I say that? Let's take a biblical example. In the old testament, slavery was codified as part of the law (Deuteronomy 15:12-15; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1). Now, to say that we were innately inspired with morality is cut sharply with this. If we were inspired to be moral beings, why did it take society a couple thousand years to outlaw the practice of slavery?

The truth is that we came to a realization what we were doing was wrong. Those slaves were human beings. This was a choice of society, not of god. We as a whole rose above the stigma of the past, and pushed for equal rights. This has happened time and time again, with the rights of women, animals, and while many are still fighting it, homosexuals.

The bible has many versus which can be shown to go against the aforementioned issues. Take for instance how some Christian denominations still disallow women from taking a leadership role in the church.

Society is a powerful mechanism. It allows us to somewhat democratically decide what we allow and disallow. Even when things are not forbidden by law, certain actions will be looked negatively on by society as a whole. As an example look at the dress/skirt length for women who are in public places. Over the years the dress code has relaxed. It was never part of our nation's laws, but society has become more tolerant of some actions over the years.

I think it's a big copout to say that our morals come from anything but us. We should take pride in how we've advanced morally in our generation and previous generations. And we should find hope in how we may be able to influence the betterment of our societies morals for generations to come.