What are these five prominent myths? Below I examine them one by one roughly in the order of their difficulty of negation.
1. Atheists Deny God
This is perhaps the most popular myth, because on the surface it appears to make eminent sense. Careful thought, however, might disclose how absurd this is. For example, one generally refrains from denying anything for which belief is withheld. Let’s take the example of alien colonies on the Chesapeake. Someone or group makes the claim, they exist, and are planning to siphon water to take to their planet.
Fair enough. I hear the claim, but in the next breath ignore it. It is of no concern to me because it is simply too preposterous to waste investing intellectual resources. The reason is that evidence-free claims can be regarded as false or spurious until such time a modicum of evidentiary basis is provided. If this is so, it follows there is even less reason to invest precious intellectual resources to deny the claim! Why the need?
Indeed, if one “denies” a specious claim, he’s already given it a plausible (if unconscious) underpinning. Any expenditure of mental energy in denial presumes there is at least “smoke” (if not “fire”) to deny! On the other hand, if the claim is totally nonsensical, simple withholding of belief quite fits the bill and is more than adequate. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:
"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”
What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)
Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.
It isn’t difficult to see from the above context that the more conservative (and reasonable!) position is withholding belief until a claim is validated. One does not, after all, accept a claim then do further research. One ab initio doubts the claim and then sets out to devise tests to ascertain the validity! And in the case of extraordinary claims (which certainly include “God” and visiting aliens in spaceships), “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” as the late Carl Sagan used to emphasize.
It also isn’t difficult to see that this is exactly analogous to the atheist withholding belief in a deity. After all, If God genuinely exists, why is he/she/it not uniformly perceptible, at least in basic features, to all peoples? As we saw in the previous chapter, there are nearly as many different versions of deity as there are people. (Or at least, religions!)
This isn’t surprising after all, since each person filters deity through his or her own background, knowledge, experience and perhaps even genes (cf. Psychology Today (Aug., 1997), “Nature’s Clones,” by J. Neimark, p. 36.) Thus, it is far more reasonable to make reference to “God-concepts” rather than God, just as it makes more sense to refer to an “unidentified aerial phenomenon” than a craft from another planet when one observes one or more strange lights in the sky. Caution is the byword, and withholding of belief is warranted, until proof or adequate evidence is produced.
While we’re on this topic, let’s consider a collateral, erroneous assumption related to this myth of denial. That is, if anyone withholds belief in deity (presumed to be the Creator of the cosmos) one is obliged to come up with his or her own version of how the cosmos came to be. In fact, this is a non-sequitur. It doesn’t follow from what’s being considered.
First, it hasn’t been established to the satisfaction of the skeptic that any “God” has been proven, far less that the cosmos could have been created by this unproven entity. Indeed, in epistemological (knowledge-basis) terms the believers haven’t even gotten off first base. They have not, after all, even offered a definition of “God” in fifty words or less that can be used as a basis for practical debate. Without at least a definition, we are back to square one and Jean Luc Marion’s “unthinkable xxG-O-Dxx argument.” In other words, the debate is ended before it’s begun.
Second, and in a more general sense, the withholding of any conviction for some presumed claim (or even hypothesis) doesn’t imply the skeptic must offer an entire counter-hypothesis of his own. For example, an astronomer friend may theorize that massive, invisible, dark energy particle fields are really responsible for solar flares. That doesn’t mean a casual listener is obliged to take him seriously or accept his hypothesis under the proviso that if he rejects it he must arrive at his own.
Why? The mere outlandish nature of the claim is in itself enough to warrant suspicion. The listener can therefore reject it on its face, even if he knows less than nothing about dark energy or solar flares. In any case, it isn’t incumbent upon him to develop a whole, entire theory of solar flares as a counter! (It is incumbent on him, perhaps, to do some follow up reading or maybe “googling” of the key issues!)
In a more prosaic case, let’s say I get into an argument with a lawyer at a cocktail party. He asserts that chapter and section blah of a state contract law deems that corporations are “persons” under the 14th amendment, and hence can seize personal property if they’re maligned. At most, I can give him a wink and a nod, but I’m not obliged to accept his claim even though I’m no lawyer. Moreover, I’m not obliged to arrive at my own contract case law to reject his interpretation! (I can point out that state laws of eminent domain, to my recollection, have never been invoked to the extent he claims!)
In all these cases, an unreasonable burden is placed on the skeptic merely for being skeptical. That is, that s/he is somehow not entitled to reject a claim unless a full, meticulous counterclaim can be worked up – into theory, case law or origin of the cosmos as the case may be.
2. Atheists Reject Morals
This is one of my favorites because it’s preposterous on its face. It’s also important because many otherwise sober people believe that atheists live by the rule “anything goes,” since we don't acknowledge any god. On many occasions, I've been telephoned by religious types who ask: "If you don't believe in God what's stopping you from going out and raping, robbing, murdering or doing anything else? If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God's laws."
Invariably, I respond that decent, civilized behavior doesn’t depend on god belief or adhering to 'laws' of a god. Rather, it depends on rational and objective analysis of a situation, and sound decisions maximally promoting the welfare of all concerned.
As William Provine notes ('Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ in MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25), people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force, but to protect their own long-term self-interest .
In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own. No god is necessary.
By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. This blindness probably results from a “control” meme that proclaims the morality as ‘god-ordained’ or revealed in some scripture or other. If ordained by a god, whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh or whoever, it cannot be compromised or altered no matter what.
As an illustration of this point, despite the fact the planet is grossly overpopulated and we are approaching ecological catastrophe, the Roman Catholic Church continues it campaign against artificial birth control. Even more importantly, it prohibits its practice, under pain of grave sin, even in impoverished nations suffering in destitution from the overload.
Kai Neilsson poses it this way (Ethics Without God, Prometheus Books, 1990.):
Is an act good because God did it, or is it good independent of such action?
For a genuine ethical basis, any human action must be totally independent of whether a god did it (in scriptures) or ordains it. It must be good on its own merits. A first test, as Neilsson observes, is ethical choice predicated on a humane standard. Consider: if a human parent knows his child is trapped in a burning house, s/he will try to save it however s/he can. There is no way the human parent will simply walk out and allow “fate” or "free will" of the child to make the decision. If the human parent has an ounce of common decency s/he must intervene.
However, god-ists seem quite happy to let their deity off the hook, when and where it suits their fancy. Start then with the standard deity template, say espoused by most Christians. This entity is posited as both omniscient and omnipotent (all knowing and all powerful).
Let us say, as occurred back in the spring of 1994, It knew from before all time a twister was headed for its house of worship in Alabama. Being omnipotent, it also had the power to deflect said twister and let it tear up some nearby forest or woodsheds- as opposed to its church with people inside.. Did it? No it did not! It permitted the tornado to demolish the church and many of those children within. All innocents. All dead.
Those who would defend such a deity but hold a human parent accountable for negligence or manslaughter by allowing their child to perish in a house fire (when the child could be saved), disclose inchoate ethics. To wit, demanding a vastly lower ethical standard of behavior for their deity than for fellow humans.
Those who beg the question with theo-babble ("we cannot fathom the ways or mind of God") are no better, and do no better. In many ways, they're worse, because they lack even the courage to face their own logic and the consequences of their definitions! They either invoke the escape clause of "faith" or the impotence of human logic beside the alleged Divine Mind. (And surely, if humans sprung from such a mind, comprehensibility of its ways and modes must follow. Else he, she or it could as well be a Demonic clown who allows humans - innocent children- to be slain for sport)
Thus it follows, even from the most generic examples (presupposing a supernatural, omnipotent force) that human ethics trumps divine ethics on its face. If this is so, then it must also trump any and all human extensions of divine ethics, whether the ten commandments, canon law or wherever. Hence, it follows that human ethics and ethical standards can exist independently of invoking any divine or religious fluff, affiliations or baggage.
In terms of said "baggage" what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of (humane) ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" that will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him."
Ethics (or morality) without god is human behavior elevated to its highest consistent standards without the need for baffling with bullshit or, in this case, interjecting an external, non-physical but supreme moral arbiter where none is required.
1. Atheists Deny God
This is perhaps the most popular myth, because on the surface it appears to make eminent sense. Careful thought, however, might disclose how absurd this is. For example, one generally refrains from denying anything for which belief is withheld. Let’s take the example of alien colonies on the Chesapeake. Someone or group makes the claim, they exist, and are planning to siphon water to take to their planet.
Fair enough. I hear the claim, but in the next breath ignore it. It is of no concern to me because it is simply too preposterous to waste investing intellectual resources. The reason is that evidence-free claims can be regarded as false or spurious until such time a modicum of evidentiary basis is provided. If this is so, it follows there is even less reason to invest precious intellectual resources to deny the claim! Why the need?
Indeed, if one “denies” a specious claim, he’s already given it a plausible (if unconscious) underpinning. Any expenditure of mental energy in denial presumes there is at least “smoke” (if not “fire”) to deny! On the other hand, if the claim is totally nonsensical, simple withholding of belief quite fits the bill and is more than adequate. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:
"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”
What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)
Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.
It isn’t difficult to see from the above context that the more conservative (and reasonable!) position is withholding belief until a claim is validated. One does not, after all, accept a claim then do further research. One ab initio doubts the claim and then sets out to devise tests to ascertain the validity! And in the case of extraordinary claims (which certainly include “God” and visiting aliens in spaceships), “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” as the late Carl Sagan used to emphasize.
It also isn’t difficult to see that this is exactly analogous to the atheist withholding belief in a deity. After all, If God genuinely exists, why is he/she/it not uniformly perceptible, at least in basic features, to all peoples? As we saw in the previous chapter, there are nearly as many different versions of deity as there are people. (Or at least, religions!)
This isn’t surprising after all, since each person filters deity through his or her own background, knowledge, experience and perhaps even genes (cf. Psychology Today (Aug., 1997), “Nature’s Clones,” by J. Neimark, p. 36.) Thus, it is far more reasonable to make reference to “God-concepts” rather than God, just as it makes more sense to refer to an “unidentified aerial phenomenon” than a craft from another planet when one observes one or more strange lights in the sky. Caution is the byword, and withholding of belief is warranted, until proof or adequate evidence is produced.
While we’re on this topic, let’s consider a collateral, erroneous assumption related to this myth of denial. That is, if anyone withholds belief in deity (presumed to be the Creator of the cosmos) one is obliged to come up with his or her own version of how the cosmos came to be. In fact, this is a non-sequitur. It doesn’t follow from what’s being considered.
First, it hasn’t been established to the satisfaction of the skeptic that any “God” has been proven, far less that the cosmos could have been created by this unproven entity. Indeed, in epistemological (knowledge-basis) terms the believers haven’t even gotten off first base. They have not, after all, even offered a definition of “God” in fifty words or less that can be used as a basis for practical debate. Without at least a definition, we are back to square one and Jean Luc Marion’s “unthinkable xxG-O-Dxx argument.” In other words, the debate is ended before it’s begun.
Second, and in a more general sense, the withholding of any conviction for some presumed claim (or even hypothesis) doesn’t imply the skeptic must offer an entire counter-hypothesis of his own. For example, an astronomer friend may theorize that massive, invisible, dark energy particle fields are really responsible for solar flares. That doesn’t mean a casual listener is obliged to take him seriously or accept his hypothesis under the proviso that if he rejects it he must arrive at his own.
Why? The mere outlandish nature of the claim is in itself enough to warrant suspicion. The listener can therefore reject it on its face, even if he knows less than nothing about dark energy or solar flares. In any case, it isn’t incumbent upon him to develop a whole, entire theory of solar flares as a counter! (It is incumbent on him, perhaps, to do some follow up reading or maybe “googling” of the key issues!)
In a more prosaic case, let’s say I get into an argument with a lawyer at a cocktail party. He asserts that chapter and section blah of a state contract law deems that corporations are “persons” under the 14th amendment, and hence can seize personal property if they’re maligned. At most, I can give him a wink and a nod, but I’m not obliged to accept his claim even though I’m no lawyer. Moreover, I’m not obliged to arrive at my own contract case law to reject his interpretation! (I can point out that state laws of eminent domain, to my recollection, have never been invoked to the extent he claims!)
In all these cases, an unreasonable burden is placed on the skeptic merely for being skeptical. That is, that s/he is somehow not entitled to reject a claim unless a full, meticulous counterclaim can be worked up – into theory, case law or origin of the cosmos as the case may be.
2. Atheists Reject Morals
This is one of my favorites because it’s preposterous on its face. It’s also important because many otherwise sober people believe that atheists live by the rule “anything goes,” since we don't acknowledge any god. On many occasions, I've been telephoned by religious types who ask: "If you don't believe in God what's stopping you from going out and raping, robbing, murdering or doing anything else? If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God's laws."
Invariably, I respond that decent, civilized behavior doesn’t depend on god belief or adhering to 'laws' of a god. Rather, it depends on rational and objective analysis of a situation, and sound decisions maximally promoting the welfare of all concerned.
As William Provine notes ('Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ in MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25), people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force, but to protect their own long-term self-interest .
In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own. No god is necessary.
By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. This blindness probably results from a “control” meme that proclaims the morality as ‘god-ordained’ or revealed in some scripture or other. If ordained by a god, whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh or whoever, it cannot be compromised or altered no matter what.
As an illustration of this point, despite the fact the planet is grossly overpopulated and we are approaching ecological catastrophe, the Roman Catholic Church continues it campaign against artificial birth control. Even more importantly, it prohibits its practice, under pain of grave sin, even in impoverished nations suffering in destitution from the overload.
Kai Neilsson poses it this way (Ethics Without God, Prometheus Books, 1990.):
Is an act good because God did it, or is it good independent of such action?
For a genuine ethical basis, any human action must be totally independent of whether a god did it (in scriptures) or ordains it. It must be good on its own merits. A first test, as Neilsson observes, is ethical choice predicated on a humane standard. Consider: if a human parent knows his child is trapped in a burning house, s/he will try to save it however s/he can. There is no way the human parent will simply walk out and allow “fate” or "free will" of the child to make the decision. If the human parent has an ounce of common decency s/he must intervene.
However, god-ists seem quite happy to let their deity off the hook, when and where it suits their fancy. Start then with the standard deity template, say espoused by most Christians. This entity is posited as both omniscient and omnipotent (all knowing and all powerful).
Let us say, as occurred back in the spring of 1994, It knew from before all time a twister was headed for its house of worship in Alabama. Being omnipotent, it also had the power to deflect said twister and let it tear up some nearby forest or woodsheds- as opposed to its church with people inside.. Did it? No it did not! It permitted the tornado to demolish the church and many of those children within. All innocents. All dead.
Those who would defend such a deity but hold a human parent accountable for negligence or manslaughter by allowing their child to perish in a house fire (when the child could be saved), disclose inchoate ethics. To wit, demanding a vastly lower ethical standard of behavior for their deity than for fellow humans.
Those who beg the question with theo-babble ("we cannot fathom the ways or mind of God") are no better, and do no better. In many ways, they're worse, because they lack even the courage to face their own logic and the consequences of their definitions! They either invoke the escape clause of "faith" or the impotence of human logic beside the alleged Divine Mind. (And surely, if humans sprung from such a mind, comprehensibility of its ways and modes must follow. Else he, she or it could as well be a Demonic clown who allows humans - innocent children- to be slain for sport)
Thus it follows, even from the most generic examples (presupposing a supernatural, omnipotent force) that human ethics trumps divine ethics on its face. If this is so, then it must also trump any and all human extensions of divine ethics, whether the ten commandments, canon law or wherever. Hence, it follows that human ethics and ethical standards can exist independently of invoking any divine or religious fluff, affiliations or baggage.
In terms of said "baggage" what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of (humane) ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" that will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him."
Ethics (or morality) without god is human behavior elevated to its highest consistent standards without the need for baffling with bullshit or, in this case, interjecting an external, non-physical but supreme moral arbiter where none is required.
3. Most criminals and insane are atheists
In a way, this is derivative from the preceding myth. After all, if one doesn’t adhere to a God, it’s possible s/he has no morals and may be criminal or insane because of it. I used to think this had only a small following until I accidentally got a glimpse of Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show(The Situation: aired on June 23, 2005 under the segment header “Doctors.”), in which he presented survey statistics that disclosed a majority of physicians “believed in God.” He acknowledged (to an atheist guest or at least someone playing Devil’s Advocate) that this was a “good thing” since otherwise doctors might think they were gods.
Leaving this foolishness out, since the existence of a single, uniform deity hasn’t yet been proven or even minimally demonstrated, he then went on to assert it was a good thing for people in general to think someone was “looking down on them” since otherwise: Who knew what they would do?
I refer to this as the “Big Daddy in the Sky” motif, since it’s predicated on an infinite version of Celestial “Homeland Security” where each human is tracked every second, every minute in every thing he or she does. It’s also totally preposterous, apart from being insulting, debasing and childish. Certainly, from a rational point of view, anyone who avoids wrongdoing because of fear of being “caught by Cosmic Daddy” has a much more primitive and degenerate morality that an upstanding atheist who simply acts decently because he believes all humans merit respect and basic tolerance.
One can query why any God worth Its salt would accept such a loser into his “Heaven.” I mean, this person isn’t obeying out of innate love of God, but because s/he fears getting caught and ending up in the eternal barbecue pit! Is there a real case to be made here for the divine to embrace cynical, exploitative cowards?
But let’s return to this “Homeland Security of God” racket. Despite Tucker Carlson’s childish TV slot endorsement, it actually has had a long history in the Roman Catholic Church. That is, early on in Church history “sins of thought” were incorporated into the “mortal sin” transgression matrix. The architects of these “sins of thought” pointed to a biblical verse for validation, noting that even Christ said that a man who merely looked at a woman with lust in his heart had committed fornication, at least in thought.
From here it was but one step to introduce the ubiquitous “impure thoughts” as mortal sins in their own right, meaning that if one entertained them then died in a sudden accident his (or her) soul was as Hell bound as if actual illicit, premarital sex acts had transpired.
To reinforce this point, a former Franciscan priest named Emmett McLoughlin once cited statistics to show Catholics were more preponderant in mental hospitals than other religious populations. He noted that “sins of thought” were at least partly to blame for this. (McLoughline, Emmett, 1962: Let the Statistics Tell Their Tragic Story, in Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church, Lyle Stuart Books, New York, pp. 189-214.) Thus, a Catholic teen that entertains “impure thoughts” knows he can as easily be earmarked for the eternal toaster as if he had actually committed fornication.
The beauty of “thought sins” is they open the gateway to perpetual mind control. As each xxx thought registers it becomes the 800 lb. gorilla in the room (your mind). You try your best to ignore thinking of the latest Playmate in all her nude splendor, but she’s sitting right there in your consciousness, so you can’t. The more you try to avoid her, the more she returns, until you finally relent and give in to the wicked thoughts. When you do, the attendant thought that “God has recorded it” instantly impinges. You must then run, not walk, to the nearest confessional! “Bless me, Father, my last Confession was five days ago. I just thought of that naked July Playmate again!”
As the cycle of thought betrayal and confession continues, one becomes more paranoid that in the next permutation he won’t make it to confession in time and will end up as Satan’s fodder. This leads to a persistent mental torment that afflicts all devout Catholic youths, sending them into precarious mental states and neurosis.
Had I not escaped the mental straightjacket of Catholcism's “thought sins” I’ve no doubt I’d have remained a virgin at least to the age of 35, and perhaps much longer. I’m also convinced my frustration levels would have metastasized to a critical breaking point, as well as mental instability driven by fear, shame and guilt. So, to me, leaving the Church was a matter of personal survival and one might even say “personal salvation.” I had no choice but to do it, or spend decades in the looney bin.
4. Atheists Always Recant Near Death.
Giving optimism on this score, are the deaths of two foremost American atheists: Isaac Asimov, and Carl Sagan. Neither capitulated to superstition in the final hour, though the prospect of death did bring further opportunity for reflection as it would for any sentient and intelligent being.
Nevertheless, those who embrace the traditional form of “Pascal’s Wager,” assume I am merely being an obstinate idiot. “What have you got to lose?” they ask. “If you believe you lose nothing in this wager. If you’re wrong and there is no God after all, so what? All you forfeit is your pride. But if you don’t believe, you stand to lose everything!”
Hence, they argue, the sane and optimal aet is to believe, rather than withhold belief.
I disagree. Let’s consider a rather different articulation of Pascal's Wager, as proposed by philosopher Michael Martin in his chapter: “The Wager Refuted,” in: Atheism: A Philosophical Justification ( 1990, Temple University Press, p. 232.)
In a way, this is derivative from the preceding myth. After all, if one doesn’t adhere to a God, it’s possible s/he has no morals and may be criminal or insane because of it. I used to think this had only a small following until I accidentally got a glimpse of Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show(The Situation: aired on June 23, 2005 under the segment header “Doctors.”), in which he presented survey statistics that disclosed a majority of physicians “believed in God.” He acknowledged (to an atheist guest or at least someone playing Devil’s Advocate) that this was a “good thing” since otherwise doctors might think they were gods.
Leaving this foolishness out, since the existence of a single, uniform deity hasn’t yet been proven or even minimally demonstrated, he then went on to assert it was a good thing for people in general to think someone was “looking down on them” since otherwise: Who knew what they would do?
I refer to this as the “Big Daddy in the Sky” motif, since it’s predicated on an infinite version of Celestial “Homeland Security” where each human is tracked every second, every minute in every thing he or she does. It’s also totally preposterous, apart from being insulting, debasing and childish. Certainly, from a rational point of view, anyone who avoids wrongdoing because of fear of being “caught by Cosmic Daddy” has a much more primitive and degenerate morality that an upstanding atheist who simply acts decently because he believes all humans merit respect and basic tolerance.
One can query why any God worth Its salt would accept such a loser into his “Heaven.” I mean, this person isn’t obeying out of innate love of God, but because s/he fears getting caught and ending up in the eternal barbecue pit! Is there a real case to be made here for the divine to embrace cynical, exploitative cowards?
But let’s return to this “Homeland Security of God” racket. Despite Tucker Carlson’s childish TV slot endorsement, it actually has had a long history in the Roman Catholic Church. That is, early on in Church history “sins of thought” were incorporated into the “mortal sin” transgression matrix. The architects of these “sins of thought” pointed to a biblical verse for validation, noting that even Christ said that a man who merely looked at a woman with lust in his heart had committed fornication, at least in thought.
From here it was but one step to introduce the ubiquitous “impure thoughts” as mortal sins in their own right, meaning that if one entertained them then died in a sudden accident his (or her) soul was as Hell bound as if actual illicit, premarital sex acts had transpired.
To reinforce this point, a former Franciscan priest named Emmett McLoughlin once cited statistics to show Catholics were more preponderant in mental hospitals than other religious populations. He noted that “sins of thought” were at least partly to blame for this. (McLoughline, Emmett, 1962: Let the Statistics Tell Their Tragic Story, in Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church, Lyle Stuart Books, New York, pp. 189-214.) Thus, a Catholic teen that entertains “impure thoughts” knows he can as easily be earmarked for the eternal toaster as if he had actually committed fornication.
The beauty of “thought sins” is they open the gateway to perpetual mind control. As each xxx thought registers it becomes the 800 lb. gorilla in the room (your mind). You try your best to ignore thinking of the latest Playmate in all her nude splendor, but she’s sitting right there in your consciousness, so you can’t. The more you try to avoid her, the more she returns, until you finally relent and give in to the wicked thoughts. When you do, the attendant thought that “God has recorded it” instantly impinges. You must then run, not walk, to the nearest confessional! “Bless me, Father, my last Confession was five days ago. I just thought of that naked July Playmate again!”
As the cycle of thought betrayal and confession continues, one becomes more paranoid that in the next permutation he won’t make it to confession in time and will end up as Satan’s fodder. This leads to a persistent mental torment that afflicts all devout Catholic youths, sending them into precarious mental states and neurosis.
Had I not escaped the mental straightjacket of Catholcism's “thought sins” I’ve no doubt I’d have remained a virgin at least to the age of 35, and perhaps much longer. I’m also convinced my frustration levels would have metastasized to a critical breaking point, as well as mental instability driven by fear, shame and guilt. So, to me, leaving the Church was a matter of personal survival and one might even say “personal salvation.” I had no choice but to do it, or spend decades in the looney bin.
4. Atheists Always Recant Near Death.
Giving optimism on this score, are the deaths of two foremost American atheists: Isaac Asimov, and Carl Sagan. Neither capitulated to superstition in the final hour, though the prospect of death did bring further opportunity for reflection as it would for any sentient and intelligent being.
Nevertheless, those who embrace the traditional form of “Pascal’s Wager,” assume I am merely being an obstinate idiot. “What have you got to lose?” they ask. “If you believe you lose nothing in this wager. If you’re wrong and there is no God after all, so what? All you forfeit is your pride. But if you don’t believe, you stand to lose everything!”
Hence, they argue, the sane and optimal aet is to believe, rather than withhold belief.
I disagree. Let’s consider a rather different articulation of Pascal's Wager, as proposed by philosopher Michael Martin in his chapter: “The Wager Refuted,” in: Atheism: A Philosophical Justification ( 1990, Temple University Press, p. 232.)
Martin here envisions a negative deity he calls the “Perverse Master” which (he imagines) acts in consistent contradiction to the “just God” of orthodox Christians. For example, rather than rewarding belief or faith in itself, especially if such belief is predicated on fear of torment, this entity punishes it for any supernatural being (including itself) while rewarding disbelief with eternal bliss. (Clearly this “PM” prefers not to have millions of “yes men” surrounding it, who’ve only espoused belief to save their sorry hides!)
In presenting a three-option truth table (based on probabilities, e.g. p1, p2 and p3) for the Wager, Martin is correct in observing that the problem with Pascal’s original version is there are other variants that he didn’t consider. None of those variants is ruled out a priori by Martin since, in the absence of irrefutable evidence for any one, all others have at least a finite probability. So it is with the “Perverse Master.”
Martin’s truth table ends up as a 3 x 3 matrix that carries within each ‘cell’ a choice resulting from the product of the individual probability and the consequence. The choices include: belief in the Perverse Master, belief in the traditional Judaeo-Christian God and belief in neither.
Next place in the table is for the Socinian deity, which is limited by never knowing more than the most advanced consciousness existing in the universe at one time. If limited in consciousness, the Socinian deity will also make errors. Physicist Freeman Dyson describes this entity almost like a child (Freeman Dyson: Infinite in All Directions, Harper & Row, p. 119.):
“The main tenet of the Socinian heresy is that God is neither omniscient or omnipotent. He learns and grows as the universe unfolds”.
Making a long story short, if we regard Martin's table globally, we see at a glance that the infinite utility and disutility for Pascal's "god" cancels out.
In presenting a three-option truth table (based on probabilities, e.g. p1, p2 and p3) for the Wager, Martin is correct in observing that the problem with Pascal’s original version is there are other variants that he didn’t consider. None of those variants is ruled out a priori by Martin since, in the absence of irrefutable evidence for any one, all others have at least a finite probability. So it is with the “Perverse Master.”
Martin’s truth table ends up as a 3 x 3 matrix that carries within each ‘cell’ a choice resulting from the product of the individual probability and the consequence. The choices include: belief in the Perverse Master, belief in the traditional Judaeo-Christian God and belief in neither.
Next place in the table is for the Socinian deity, which is limited by never knowing more than the most advanced consciousness existing in the universe at one time. If limited in consciousness, the Socinian deity will also make errors. Physicist Freeman Dyson describes this entity almost like a child (Freeman Dyson: Infinite in All Directions, Harper & Row, p. 119.):
“The main tenet of the Socinian heresy is that God is neither omniscient or omnipotent. He learns and grows as the universe unfolds”.
Making a long story short, if we regard Martin's table globally, we see at a glance that the infinite utility and disutility for Pascal's "god" cancels out.
In the same manner, the high and low probabilities (for SG and HG, respectively) cancel out, or essentially so. The (+, -) expectations for NG (“No God”) reflect that a negative disutility with negative finite probability (- P/2) attaches to having a belief in no God. Meanwhile, (+ P/2) with positive utility and positive, finite probability is attached to disbelief or withholding belief in a deity. (For reasons that have already been discussed in this book, e.g. that the theist is the one making the claim to add to the reality, the atheist merely passively responds by withholding investment of his intellectual resources)
When all is said and done, four positive expected values (including one infinity) cancel four negative ones (including one infinity), leaving only null expectation values or zeros. This not only refutes Pascal’s traditional wager, but also the basis for a Wager belief in any other halfway credible deities!
From these expectation results we conclude the atheist is on very firm logical grounds for his disbelief, and making the traditional Pascal Wager is knuckle-headed and a waste of time. It merely discloses that the Christian’s “mark” hasn’t done his or her full set of homework!
Aside from the theoretical and logical analyses, one need only read various soldiers’ journals and accounts (many of which have appeared in newspaper letters, or magazine articles) to see that there are, in fact, many atheists inhabiting foxholes! Probably as many or more also inhabit cancer wards (as the late astronomer Carl Sagan once did). Again, the myth that no atheist would dare do so really pivots on the orthodox Christian’s own perception of what s/he would do! But truly, a Christian attempting to put himself in the deathbed atheist’s place to decide on how he’d do the wager is preposterous, not to mention presumptuous. This is because it will always be skewed by the projections of the Christian’s own fears on the choices!
5. Hitler was an Atheist.
This myth is intended to achieve exactly what it appears to do: slander atheism by association with the most monstrous human imaginable. If, therefore, Hitler can be painted as an “atheist” and if Hitler’s deeds were so cumulatively vile, it follows (in a bizarre sort of logic) that atheism can only produce vile deeds. However, technically Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Robert Payne notes (Robert Payne: 1973, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, Praeger Publishers, p. 15):
“Adolf Hitler's birth certificate records that he was born at six o'clock in the evening on April 20, 1889, and goes on to record that two days later, at a quarter past three in the afternoon, in the presence of Father Ignaz Probst, the boy was baptized in the local Catholic Church”
As is known from standard Roman Catholic doctrine, once one is baptized a Catholic, he or she technically remains a Catholic unless excommunicated, or until death. Payne later documents Catholic Church attendance by a number of Hitler's luminaries, including Gregor Strasser, Erich von Ludendorff and others (op. cit., p. 386).
Ian Kershaw (1998, Hitler Hubris - 1889- 1936, W.W. Norton & Company, p. 34)documents Hitler's regret and "mistake in antagonizing the Catholic Church". Primarily because Karl Lueger's Christian Social Party had made such a "deep impression on him" given that it "was soldered together to appeal to Catholic piety and the economic self-interest of the German speaking lower middle classes."
Both Payne and Kerhsaw also document the extensive fertile soil provided by the anti-Semitic Vlksich movement (which Hitler played to), by the German Catholic Church itself, i.e. in depictions of the Jews as "Christ Killers" such as in their Passion Play at Oberammagau etc.
While it is true that Hitler was probably no more than a nominal Catholic by the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939, this doesn’t mean he was an “atheist” any more than the two Columbine killers (who professed being “atheists”) as they threatened any peers that refused to budge from their faith during the 1999 Colorado killing spree. Obviously these killers merely postured unbelief, invoking the red-flag word “atheist”, as a vehicle for their anti-social acts or to garner more media attention.
In fact, given Hitler’s hatred of Communists (clearly and historically associated with atheism), it makes more sense that he would have grouped both in the same undesirable category. And, by that I mean earmarked them for “final solution.” Let’s also bear in mind that it was the Vatican that assisted Nazi war criminals to escape Europe along the infamous “rat lines” to south America, just after World War II.
Closer to the mark, but no less egregious, is the epithet that “Stalin was an atheist” and hence we atheists ought to feel terrible because of Stalin’s murderous reign. Again, the key point is missed. That is, conflating and confusing the deeds of voracious mass-murdering individuals (who manage to gain control of state machinery) with the coincidental philosophies they may claim to embrace at the time.
Let's also bear in mind that the Inquisition, for example, met with the blessings of actual popes who gave it their seal of approbation and essentially determined that it was consonant with the doctrines of the Church itself. (The rationale being to spare any heretics from the far worse fate of eternal torment!). Pope Innocent IV, for example, issued a famous (or infamous) Bull known as Ad extirpanda, which provided the machinery for systematic persecution as part of the state itself. This included seizure of property, possessions.
This is at wide variance to Stalin et al, who merely seized the power of the state machinery available but invoked NO godless doctrine per se to rationalize it. It was merely his own paranoia and lust for consolidating power, combined with megalomania and bloodthirstiness. But no doctrinal benediction as was the case with the Inquisition!
When all is said and done, four positive expected values (including one infinity) cancel four negative ones (including one infinity), leaving only null expectation values or zeros. This not only refutes Pascal’s traditional wager, but also the basis for a Wager belief in any other halfway credible deities!
From these expectation results we conclude the atheist is on very firm logical grounds for his disbelief, and making the traditional Pascal Wager is knuckle-headed and a waste of time. It merely discloses that the Christian’s “mark” hasn’t done his or her full set of homework!
Aside from the theoretical and logical analyses, one need only read various soldiers’ journals and accounts (many of which have appeared in newspaper letters, or magazine articles) to see that there are, in fact, many atheists inhabiting foxholes! Probably as many or more also inhabit cancer wards (as the late astronomer Carl Sagan once did). Again, the myth that no atheist would dare do so really pivots on the orthodox Christian’s own perception of what s/he would do! But truly, a Christian attempting to put himself in the deathbed atheist’s place to decide on how he’d do the wager is preposterous, not to mention presumptuous. This is because it will always be skewed by the projections of the Christian’s own fears on the choices!
5. Hitler was an Atheist.
This myth is intended to achieve exactly what it appears to do: slander atheism by association with the most monstrous human imaginable. If, therefore, Hitler can be painted as an “atheist” and if Hitler’s deeds were so cumulatively vile, it follows (in a bizarre sort of logic) that atheism can only produce vile deeds. However, technically Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Robert Payne notes (Robert Payne: 1973, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, Praeger Publishers, p. 15):
“Adolf Hitler's birth certificate records that he was born at six o'clock in the evening on April 20, 1889, and goes on to record that two days later, at a quarter past three in the afternoon, in the presence of Father Ignaz Probst, the boy was baptized in the local Catholic Church”
As is known from standard Roman Catholic doctrine, once one is baptized a Catholic, he or she technically remains a Catholic unless excommunicated, or until death. Payne later documents Catholic Church attendance by a number of Hitler's luminaries, including Gregor Strasser, Erich von Ludendorff and others (op. cit., p. 386).
Ian Kershaw (1998, Hitler Hubris - 1889- 1936, W.W. Norton & Company, p. 34)documents Hitler's regret and "mistake in antagonizing the Catholic Church". Primarily because Karl Lueger's Christian Social Party had made such a "deep impression on him" given that it "was soldered together to appeal to Catholic piety and the economic self-interest of the German speaking lower middle classes."
Both Payne and Kerhsaw also document the extensive fertile soil provided by the anti-Semitic Vlksich movement (which Hitler played to), by the German Catholic Church itself, i.e. in depictions of the Jews as "Christ Killers" such as in their Passion Play at Oberammagau etc.
While it is true that Hitler was probably no more than a nominal Catholic by the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939, this doesn’t mean he was an “atheist” any more than the two Columbine killers (who professed being “atheists”) as they threatened any peers that refused to budge from their faith during the 1999 Colorado killing spree. Obviously these killers merely postured unbelief, invoking the red-flag word “atheist”, as a vehicle for their anti-social acts or to garner more media attention.
In fact, given Hitler’s hatred of Communists (clearly and historically associated with atheism), it makes more sense that he would have grouped both in the same undesirable category. And, by that I mean earmarked them for “final solution.” Let’s also bear in mind that it was the Vatican that assisted Nazi war criminals to escape Europe along the infamous “rat lines” to south America, just after World War II.
Closer to the mark, but no less egregious, is the epithet that “Stalin was an atheist” and hence we atheists ought to feel terrible because of Stalin’s murderous reign. Again, the key point is missed. That is, conflating and confusing the deeds of voracious mass-murdering individuals (who manage to gain control of state machinery) with the coincidental philosophies they may claim to embrace at the time.
Let's also bear in mind that the Inquisition, for example, met with the blessings of actual popes who gave it their seal of approbation and essentially determined that it was consonant with the doctrines of the Church itself. (The rationale being to spare any heretics from the far worse fate of eternal torment!). Pope Innocent IV, for example, issued a famous (or infamous) Bull known as Ad extirpanda, which provided the machinery for systematic persecution as part of the state itself. This included seizure of property, possessions.
This is at wide variance to Stalin et al, who merely seized the power of the state machinery available but invoked NO godless doctrine per se to rationalize it. It was merely his own paranoia and lust for consolidating power, combined with megalomania and bloodthirstiness. But no doctrinal benediction as was the case with the Inquisition!
See Also:
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