FFRFMCC Holds 4th Discussion Workshop on “Challenging Religious Beliefs”

“Challenging Religious Beliefs”

FFRFMCC Discussion Workshop #4 — Summary

 When confronted with questions from those of religious faith, non-theists must answer in ways that challenge the believer to critically think about their beliefs.  Simply telling people of faith they are being irrational with their beliefs should not be considered a useful tactic.  That rarely works and only puts people on the defensive and does not help to initiate an honest discussion.  Asking non-confrontational questions about their beliefs encourages believers to delve deep into that part of their brain that convinces them God exists.  The questions/topics summarized here reflect the views of participants who took part in our fourth discussion.

 Topic #1

“You claim to be an atheist, but aren’t you in fact just a person who has yet to find God in your heart?  If you would seek God, you would know he exists.”

This is a question many non-theists are often confronted with, and is not necessarily a Christian question.  It could also come from someone of the Jewish or Muslim faith.  Its essence is the root of ideological arrogance from those who claim to have knowledge of something that is unknowable.  And since many of religious faith feel they are doing a “good deed” by helping non-believers find God in their heart, it is incumbent upon the non-believer to let them know, in the most rational and polite way possible, that their “help” in this regard is not necessary.

Here are some responses/questions from the workshop participants on how they would follow-up to this question posed by theists:

• Which god are you asking about? There have been thousands of gods worshiped throughout history.  Which one should I be seeking?
• As a religious skeptic, I have learned to ask a lot of questions when it comes to religious faith. And I’ve found the more questions I ask, the less convinced I am there is a god.  I’ve read the Bible, And I assume, if you’re a Christian, you have as well.  But have you been willing to open your mind to other viewpoints.  For example, have you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins?  Or “God Is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens?  Or “God:  The Failed Hypothesis” by Victor Stenger?  Or “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris.  Or “The Good Atheist” by Dan Barker?  Perhaps if you opened your mind as I have, your feelings would be different.
• What difference would it make in my life if I did believe in God? Would that make me a better person than I am now?  And if so, do you feel I need to be better person just because I don’t believe?
• How do you know God exists? In other words, how do you feel God in your heart?  Is this something you can specifically explain to me since you seem to think this is something I lack but need?
• Many non-theists started out believing in God because of the environment in which we were raised. We have looked for God and could not find him.  I have tried to find God, but just found it to be a fruitless endeavor.  Should God hold it against me for not believing in him even though I have tried my best?  If he does exist and made each, and every one of us, he obviously made me different from you in the respect of how I view him.  Is it my fault because the way I think about God is different from you?
• I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be an atheist. I had to do a lot of thinking and research about it, which allowed me to weigh the evidence.  A comforting, emotional response is not enough for me to maintain a belief.
• I would be open to anything if there is evidence. If I would see the evidence for a god, I would believe.  But I have yet to see the evidence.  I understand you believe you “feel” God, but feelings to not equate to evidence.  And feelings are just not enough to make me believe in something.
• I’ve tried talking to God (praying), and didn’t feel as if I was actually talking to something that was listening. It didn’t generate the emotional response that perhaps you feel.  It doesn’t make me right and you wrong.  It just means we think differently.
• You believe in God. But what if you lived in a country that forced you to hold to a certain doctrine of religious belief that was not yours?  Would you be willing to be subjected to incarceration or even death for not following a government mandated religion?  Most people in this country have never been exposed to such pressure because of our First Amendment rights.  But it’s important for people of religious faith to ask how important their beliefs are when their life truly depends on it.
• Is faith and belief the same as hope? Do the faithful, because they must acknowledge faith is belief without evidence, just hope there is a god?  Is faith in God, or the lack of faith, simply a matter of what is considered important to the individual?
• We are all born atheists, and then raised to believe a certain religion is true. In reality, religion is a tendency of geography.  Where we are born and who we are born to determines what we believe.  Consider those who are raised in a place where they have no knowledge of a god.  What would compel them to seek something they have no knowledge of?
• I replaced God with logic and science. Education led to a conflict, moving me away from a belief in the supernatural.  I just believe in one less god than you.  I’ve also yet to find Zeus, or Osirus or Satan in my heart as well.
• How do you know I haven’t tried to find God? How do you know I was not once a believer?
• We should ask the theist what they mean by “God in your heart.” Have them define God.
• Can non-theists be just as good as theists? For those theists who acknowledge that fact, they should then be asked why is it necessary to believe in God.  Why is the existence of God considered to be an important question?  Does a belief in God actually make the world a better place?  Or is it simply people acting kind to one another the only thing that truly matters?
• Religion/faith and logic are not in the same box. We cannot use logic to convince people but we can ask logical questions in order to get them to think about why they believe what they believe.
• There are a lot of things I don’t believe and your god just happens to be one of them.

Topic #2

“What motivates or inspires you if you don’t believe in God?  How could anything be important and why would you care about anything without the hope of an afterlife?  What does it all matter?” 

This is a question that gets to crux of religion – asking, “Why was I created?  What is my purpose and what happens to me when I die?”  From the standpoint of most believers, lack of godly belief equates to apathy.  Since those of religious faith believe the sense of purpose and caring, and an understanding of right and wrong is a characteristic given to us by God,  Theists typically do not understand how non-theists can have any sense of purpose without belief.

The following provides responses from the participants on how to address this topic when posed by believers:

• The time to be happy is here and now. Not in the future.  It is because (emphasis) that we do not believe in a god who looks after us, or an afterlife, that we look at this life as the most important.
• Our purpose should be to cooperate in order for our society to thrive and survive. And we should believe something because we know it to be true.  Not because it’s convenient.
• Do you choose to believe in heaven simply as a way to deal with our mortality?
• I would like to believe heaven exists. Can you describe to me what you believe heaven to be?  And where did you get that definition of heaven?
• We should be able to turn the question of an afterlife around on the believer by asking: “How can anything seem important and why would you (emphasis) care about anything if this life is so much less important? If this is all temporary and the afterlife is so much better than this life, why should we care about our earthly existence?”
• Because I believe this is the only life we have, that is what motivates me to make this world as good as it can be for us, our children, our grandchildren, and the sake of humanity’s future. To believe in an afterlife is to diminish the importance of the existence we have now.  We’ve had the good fortune of becoming living beings as the result of winning a cosmic lottery.  So why would we want to waste that opportunity?  So, life itself is what motivates me!
• Those who choose to believe in an afterlife look to reward as their motivation for doing good rather than doing good because it’s the right thing to do.
• I do not need God to tell me to do the right things. These are feelings I’ve had without ever having believed in God.

Facilitator question to the participants:

“But where do atheists get their feelings about knowing what is right or wrong?”

• Why does the abstract concept of God motivate the believer? Why do you think God is needed to be a member of a society?  Our brain is enough to give us the ability to rationalize what is right and wrong.
• Through the study of evolution, we have found evidence of moral and ethical behavior within other animals that live in family groups. It’s really no different for humans, and doesn’t make us any more special than other evolved forms of life on this planet.
• The common belief is that people have to be compelled to be moral through the threat of hell or the reward of heaven. In actuality, for me, I act kindly to others because it makes me feel good.  It’s a rewarding response in itself.
• Does purpose and doing good for the sake of communal benefit, come from the instinct of survival? The objective of life and evolution is survival, which have nothing to do with God.
• To the religious person, we should ask, “Do you feel your purpose is to do good in order to either receive a reward (heaven) or avoid punishment (hell)? And if that truly is your incentive, do you believe that to be altruistic?  Or is it just being selfish?

Facilitator Question to the Participants:

“But is it a bad thing to do good for selfish purposes?”

• Selfishness from receiving enjoyment is itself a motivation for life. We live for enjoyment, whether its climbing a mountain, scuba diving, spending time with our families.  From the atheist point-of-view, these are things we cannot do when we’re gone, so we are motivated to do them now.
• I have just come to the conclusion that we have all been born into a certain space and time. And it’s up to us to decide what best to do with that.  It seems obvious to me that being good to others, taking care of the planet, not doing harm to yourself, is better than the opposite.
• Nothing is really a selfless act. If we look at doing good things as part of our purpose, we do so because we do expect a reward from that, but not necessarily from the person we are helping, or from a god.  We are rewarded in the sense that doing something kind and generous for someone makes us, in turn, feel good.  It is human nature to seek pleasure for ourselves, and whatever we do to bring ourselves pleasure should be considered part of our purpose.

Facilitator Question to the Participants:

“But what does it all matter if we have no knowledge of what happens after we die?  Why should we care about anything when we’re alive if it’s true we won’t even see that all the good (or bad) we’ve done in our life is being remembered by those we leave behind?”

• Does it not diminish our existence here on Earth knowing our purpose is assigned to us by something else? We should consider our lives more meaningful when we know we’ve taken control of our lives and have determined our own purpose.  It would make me feel very inconsequential if I knew that who I am and what I do is the result of someone’s else’s plan.  That, to me, is antithetical to the entire concept of “being.”
• We fear death because we fear the possibility of missing out on opportunities in life, like being with our families, watching our grand kids grow up, or not accomplishing everything we wanted to do in life. Non-theists understand why people cling to the comfort that can come from the hope of an afterlife, because it can lessen the pain of cessation of an existence here on Earth.  But the reality is, death is not a pretty picture.  Which is why we need to make the most of life while we are able.  So not believing in an afterlife is motivation enough to be the best person we can be in order to be remembered after we are gone.  And we acknowledge that, in reality, we will have no knowledge of what transpires after we die.  But that should not lessen our desire to be remembered one bit.  Call it human pride or even ego.  But however we describe it, it is our purpose in life to leave a mark.  And that mark is more meaningful when it was a result of creating our own purpose – not by thinking we had to rely on someone else to give us that purpose.

Recommended reading:  Peter Boghossian, “A Manual for Creating Atheists”

YouTube videos:  Anthony Magnabosco — Street Epistemology  https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210