Pharyngula

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | September 4, 2010 10:44 AM

Ah, good idea to set it out front! Repeating myself:

In brief, one nice resource is "Parenting Beyond Belief" and its associated website stuff. It's geared towards how to raise kids with morals and ethics without religion, which is nice for oneself as well. Also, if you haven't yet, check out Dan Barker's autobiography "Losing faith in faith". He used to be a pastor and details his entire path from that to atheist activist and his interactions with friends and family.

Posted by: Rorschach | September 4, 2010 10:47 AM

Ok then...I repost my answer from the Thread :

As to the question, it doesn't pose itself for me.I'm trying my best to be moral and whatever upstanding means, because I have been brought up to think that that's the right thing to do.By my parents.No gods or bibles required.

Posted by: Chuck | September 4, 2010 10:51 AM

1. I'll take Hitchens's tack and just say that I find it hard to believe that humans had no idea that it was "bad" to kill, cheat, or lie before God chose to write those 10 commandments down on Mount Sinai. I suppose if you're looking for guidance there are various secular ethical systems to choose from (act/rule utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, communitarianism), but Dan Barker's "avoid unnecessary harm" is probably the simplest.

2. Yes, my atheism caused quite a rift between my family and friends initially. Gradually, they either came to accept it and even respect it (after much argumentation, friendly and otherwise), or simply stopped hanging out with me. I find I don't miss the few who chose the latter.

Chuck

Posted by: theshortearedowl | September 4, 2010 10:55 AM

It is one of the most difficult things we can ever face in life: to do the right thing, not because we may be punished if we do not or rewarded if we do, but just because it is the right thing to do.

In terms of what is the right thing to do? Well, you should just know this by instinct. Basically, don't do anything that hurts someone else, whether physically, financially or emotionally , or restricts their rights to movement, free living or free thinking.

Ultimately, you will find that making these decisions for yourself is liberating and enlightening, as it forces you to genuinely try to understand others before acting in complicated situations.

Posted by: philboid | September 4, 2010 10:57 AM

I've been tinkering with the Golden Rule a bit and I believe I have been improved upon it. Rather than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you " (that could be messy if God made one a sadist), I think one ought to try to see things from the "others" point of view, to the extent that's possible and practical, then do that unto them. (Could also get messy in the sad-masochist dynamic, but that's why there's a possible/practical clause. It's Golden Rule 2.0 (beta version, so exercise caution).

Posted by: dgerard | September 4, 2010 11:02 AM

Can I plug RationalWiki again?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_Atheism_FAQ_for_the_Newly_Deconverted

This is for people somewhat after the requester, but answers the questions.

Posted by: Pikeman85 | September 4, 2010 11:03 AM

I don't post here often (though I am an everyday reader), but I feel it's important to share my story so that this person, and anyone else reading in a similar situation can benefit.

Well, to explain myself - at first I was very, very, very religious as a child and teenager (used to preach on the playground, nearly got suspended for school for it), read the Bible for a half hour a night without fail for six years straight (when I missed it, I made it up. I doubt I missed more than a total of a week AT MOST for those 6 years). Wanted to be a minister. However I enjoyed reading about science.

Eventually this came to a head when I had two competing views of reality in my head (young Earth creationism) and a basically atheistic scientific one. I was 15-16 years old at the time. This kind of difference in ideology is obviously untenable in the long term. This, and the fact that there were many religions had me decide to try to view the world as an atheist for a while, to get a better view of how the world actually was.

I have never gone back. It was tough, very, very tough for me. I remember crying for ages, begging God to demonstrate to me, in some tangible way that I was incorrect. This is the tough part, and if you do come to this conclusion and have to go through what I did, I bid you well. It's difficult, especially if religion was as important to you as it was to me.

Now, to answer your questions -

When I first stopped being non-religious, I didn't accept any sort of morality or ethical system. That doesn't mean I was a mean, evil person - I simply followed my own proclivities, which tended to be benign. I don't like hurting people, and I like helping them. We all have various moral concepts - either informed by society or possibly influenced by our biology as tribal/group animals.

I eventually modified this - I took ethics in college and became quite enamored with act utilitarianism, which I feel is the best way to view morality/ethics, because it leads to the best outcomes for everyone, I feel. YMMV.

As for the second? My family was conservative Christian and Republican (American political party, if you're not American). I dropped my religion, and my family was not supportive. As I was a teenager, they felt it was a "phase". I was told that I had to believe in God, that that was a rule of the house (more my grandparent's house). I obviously refused, but they didn't push much. I was still invited to church, and over the years it became less of them saying I should be religious and more of them accepting I was not. Last year, when my young (7 and 9 at the time) cousins found out I was non-religious, they scolded me. My grandparents actually defended my irrelgiousity to the children.

I don't attend church - and have only very, very rarely. Some people still do - I wish there was some sort of secular church-like organization that taught children basic ideas of helping people, as well as scientific background, and gave them a community structure, but alas that's not the case.

The religion thing was not as profound an issue to my family as the political - I changed my entire political views shortly after my religious ones. But I believe both contributed to distance with my family.

Now, the only real issues I have are that my sister begs me to believe, as she is afraid I will go to hell, and she has forbidden me from mentioning my atheism around her soon-to-be baby. (she also has scolded me when I frankly and openly discuss my non-religion with my young cousins).

I've been non-religious for something like nine years now - it gets easier over time. Eventually you don't even really miss it. It's just a belief you held when you were far younger. I can still quote the Bible to an amazing degree, if that's any benefit to my upbringing.

Anyway, good luck.

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 4, 2010 11:05 AM

A direct answer from Dr. Myers! From what I've seen, this seems to be rather unusual. I'm honored you'd take the time, and I really appreciate your thoughtful response. I'm definitely taking all this into consideration.

Also, Dr. Myers, I saw while browsing a few minutes ago (I hadn't been by here in a few weeks) that you were recently in the hospital with a heart problem. I hope you're doing much better now. Believers and non-believers should all hope for the other's welfare, whatever differences we have between each other. It looks like you're back at home and posting regularly again. That's awesome to see. Again, all the best. And, while I'm at it, I'd like to send out some good vibes to Dr. Hitchens in his fight against cancer.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | September 4, 2010 11:11 AM

1) I won't lie. My motivation to be moral is the same as my motivation to get along with the people around me. Which is not always a compelling motivation. So even though I don't believe in sin per se, I'm still a sinner, know what I mean? But motivation is less of a problem at times than choosing an action that will support that motivation, fuzzy as it is.

For me, that's the struggle. Moral dilemmas exist. I just have to think them through, and do my best. Even when all is said and done, I don't always have a way of knowing if I've made the right choice. Because there is no external arbiter etc. However, I have two parents who nearly always behave admirably (they could be a little nicer to each other but that's another story). If I'm on the fence, I call them and talk about it.

2) I work with a student atheist group, and this is the big issue. Letting go of faith is not a free-fall for many. For many students, the rejection of their belief in god entails a rejection of their entire support system....with very real implications regarding getting help with student loans, means of transportation, etc. It can be a bold move, and in this regard being part of a community of people who have recently made the break seems to provide some comfort and alternative access to "family". Fortunately, this wasn't a problem for me. I was raised in a strongly Catholic household, but have never been a believer. However, my family is even more clannish than it is Catholic, and there is NO EXCOMMUNICATION. When my uncle came out of the closet, most members of my family found it easier to abandon the idea that homosexuality was a sin than to abandon my uncle. My atheism was greeted similary. I mean, they are all praying for me, but I feel no less a part of the fam.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | September 4, 2010 11:13 AM

1) I won't lie. My motivation to be moral is the same as my motivation to get along with the people around me. Which is not always a compelling motivation. So even though I don't believe in sin per se, I'm still a sinner, know what I mean? But motivation is less of a problem at times than choosing an action that will support that motivation, fuzzy as it is.

For me, that's the struggle. Moral dilemmas exist. I just have to think them through, and do my best. Even when all is said and done, I don't always have a way of knowing if I've made the right choice. Because there is no external arbiter etc. However, I have two parents who nearly always behave admirably (they could be a little nicer to each other but that's another story). If I'm on the fence, I call them and talk about it.

2) I work with a student atheist group, and this is the big issue. Letting go of faith is not a free-fall for many. For many students, the rejection of their belief in god entails a rejection of their entire support system....with very real implications regarding getting help with student loans, means of transportation, etc. It can be a bold move, and in this regard being part of a community of people who have recently made the break seems to provide some comfort and alternative access to "family". Fortunately, this wasn't a problem for me. I was raised in a strongly Catholic household, but have never been a believer. However, my family is even more clannish than it is Catholic, and there is NO EXCOMMUNICATION. When my uncle came out of the closet, most members of my family found it easier to abandon the idea that homosexuality was a sin than to abandon my uncle. My atheism was greeted similary. I mean, they are all praying for me, but I feel no less a part of the fam.

Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized | September 4, 2010 11:15 AM

I guess I'd turn the question around. Rather than how can you be good without god, I'd wonder why you need god to be good. Simple kindness doesn't need a god telling you what to do.

The first step I took in giving up religion was giving up fear: fear of hell, fear of god's disapproval. This was a fairly big step for me.

These days, I consider myself a secular wiccan. I like wiccan rituals, with their respect for the earth, celebrating the turning of the seasons. I don't *believe* any of the mythology, but some of it is very pretty, just like many other fairy tales.

Posted by: NotStradamus | September 4, 2010 11:17 AM

I was raised a Christian and remained that way until I was 15 years old. By then I had come to the conclusion that Christians and Christianity in general could not be trusted.

I didn't think much about my reasons for rejecting religion until I was in a position where I was forced to seriously consider my beliefs. My father-in-law is a Protestant minister and I had a very long and probing interview with him before he would agree to me marrying his daughter.

He asked about my religion and I told him I had been a Christian but later rejected all religion. When he asked me why, I realized for the first time that no religion could match my standard of morality. I could never commit the atrocities or stand for the bigotry, cruelty, and intolerance I saw in most religions. I grew up in a place where Catholics and Protestants were constantly fighting over something or other. When I was 11 years old I was amazed to find out that both groups used the same holy book.

I was shocked when my future father-in-law agreed with me on many points. He told me himself that he found religion to be very political and many of the leaders were less than upstanding.

Posted by: kanderson321 | September 4, 2010 11:18 AM

I can answer #1 -- I'm not doing bad things because I know how bad it feels when it happens to me. I don't like the feeling of being cheated on or lied to, or for that matter, stabbed, so I don't do it to other people. It's the social contract I "signed" to live with others of my species in close proximity. No browbeating from an angry god necessary.

As for #2, I grew up with an agnostic father, and a Catholic mother. I was encouraged to explore religion (by my mother, not my father so much), and I dabbled in Unitarian Universalism, thinking that I could respect a group that pulled its faith from multiple traditions.

I ended up marrying an atheist, though religion (or lack thereof) had nothing to do with my attraction to him. My family knows we're "not religious" and they seem to be fine with that.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | September 4, 2010 11:20 AM

... I also started reading some of the stuff on Dawkins' site, because I really liked his calm approach ...

Accepting evolution can be tolerated, and even doubting the existence of deities might be forgiven, in some circles. But there is one breach of doctrine that simply cannot be allowed.

Denying the stridency of Dawkins will earn you a very warm spot in the deepest Infernal depths!

Posted by: Crommunist | September 4, 2010 11:23 AM

Can't believe nobody's said this here yet, but good on you for approaching this issue with honesty and integrity. It's rare to see someone actually take the time to examine their beliefs in the face of evidence, so you should be commended for that.

1 - Make friends with a philosophy student, buy him/her a couple of beers, and ask him/her to summarize three philosophers for you: John Stuart Mill, Emmanuel Kant, and John Rawls. With a grasp on the core ideas of those three people, you can get yourself a pretty decent moral code that works well in answering pretty much all of the important moral questions. Don't be surprised to find that the principles you consider "Christian" are reflected well in those thinkers. This video is a decent place to start.

This video is awesome, but has nothing to do with that.

2 - Don't be too shocked if some people don't get it. You seem to have a decently open mind, and that doesn't happen in a vacuum, so maybe your close family will understand, but to be completely honest with you it will lose you some of your church friends.

Posted by: raven | September 4, 2010 11:24 AM

For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

As an exXian with two xian parents, I didn't tell them. They are old and probably know but don't care at all. We are all don't ask, don't tell.

The extended family consists of Catholics, Protestants, a few Jews, and the kids all seem to be No Religions.

On the holidays we all recreate the Reformation Wars, Pogroms, and the burning of apostates and heretics at the stake and then all go home mad a few hours later. Actually we eat a lot, drink some wine, watch movies, play with the cats, go for walks and so on. No one really gives one damn what anyone else believes or not.

Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | September 4, 2010 11:25 AM

Nice post, Nerd.

Posted by: goldfinch | September 4, 2010 11:26 AM

You know that slavery is wrong. That rape is wrong. The bible doesn't say that. Morality comes from empathy as Myers says. Live in accordance with what you value and you will be fine. You know what you value, you don't need religion to know what is right or wrong. And the close questions are never answered by religion anyway.

I am an undercover atheist. My husband is Hindu and is very religious. He thinks it is shameful to not believe in God/the Absolute and thinks that it is a personal failing to not have faith. I keep my mouth shut. He thinks any questioning on my part is intellectualizing and disrepectful. I'd get a divorce but I can't afford it. We are retired and live on a limited income.

I am living inconsistent with my values. It probably will shorten my life. It certainly doesn't help me sleep at night.

Posted by: philboid | September 4, 2010 11:27 AM

"Believers and non-believers should all hope for the other's welfare, whatever differences we have between each other."

Yes, we call it 'empathy.' No gods necessary.

Posted by: raven | September 4, 2010 11:32 AM

but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible?

We all get our morality at the supermarket, aisle 2, frozen foods. So do the xians. Far superior to anything in the bible.

The bible isn't a good source for morality. The OT is a horrible anthology full of slavery, genocide, weird sex and irrelevant rules. You are supposed to stone disobedient children to death, buy and sell children as sex slaves, and dozens of other trivial things that are death penalty offenses. The NT isn't any better. Jesus gives advice on how to beat your slaves, who to hate (parents, Jews), and solves the male sexuality problem by telling them to castrate themselves.

Anyone who followed a biblical lifestyle would be doing multiple life sentences in prison.

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR | September 4, 2010 11:34 AM

Why be good? It's very simple; I love my children, and I want the best possible world for them. I also love my friends and neighbors, and their children, and (thanks to the infrastructure of the modern world) people across the globe. I want the best possible world for them. No gods required; indeed, the divisiveness of religions is antithetical to my goal of a best possible world.

I do not hide my atheism from my family or friends, but it rarely causes conflict. It has, on occasion, but I am only confrontational about it when someone else makes an indefensible comment first. I have lost the friendship of one couple--oddly enough, not because I became an atheist, but rather because they became born-agains and stopped coming by.

Posted by: Brian, Defender of Tone Trolls | September 4, 2010 11:36 AM

Hey ES. Great questions. After years of missionary work and even more as a common or garden christian I had very similar struggles.

The first question has been answered pretty comprehensively so 'nuff said.

The second though is a tough one and approaches can vary. I was terrified for years to mention it to my wife; primarily for fear that I was wrong and thus condeming her and my daughter to hell if I was sufficiently convincing.

I need not have worried. When I finally blurted it out I discovered that she was several steps ahead of me! My daughter has grown up in Sweden and is a hardcore agnostic, especially since Dad's apostasy occurred during her formative years. In my defence we did bundle her off to church and youth (which she still attends) to ensure she got the opportunity to hear the other side, but she never found it especially compelling.

Sound your family out gently. See where they are at. Maybe you'll be surprised. I've lost a few friends and relatives as a result of my change of heart. I think mostly because, like a new non-smoker, I went through an "in your face" phase. I'd recommend that be avoided when talking to close family or good friends that disagree with or are appalled by your apostasy. You are an intelligent person who believed, so am I, odds are so are they. You can respect them without respecting the crazy.

That is not to say that the vitriol doesn't have it's place, it does, but it's not a good strategy with people you love.

I miss the fellowship and have sought out fellow agnostics/atheists/skeptics here in Sweden. Ironically, since religion isn't a significant problem here, there really isn't the push back that is so visible in the US, so it's been a bit of a bust. Fellowship is important, so if I were you I'd find a local agnostic group and join it. Even if you are not that far along (in your apostasy), dipping in and out of both communities might be instructive.

However if there is one thing you absolutely owe it to yourself to do, it's read Daniel Dennets "Breaking the Spell". This really is a great read for the thoughtful Christian trying to come to terms with the erosion of their faith.

Good luck!

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/c8vgv20epfOnyZYgaPKrcYfDk4TekTh7#ed6d2 | September 4, 2010 11:37 AM

Ethics, well, I suppose, like one of the commentors above, I'm basically a utilitarian (though I'm still working on the utility monster problem, I think the solution might involve a distinction in the utility of various sorts of harm. I've solved the issue of masochism, you replace the notion of pain as negative utility with the notion of suffering (the masochist isn't suffering from pains they enjoy, even though those pains make others suffer)), though I must admit a certain fondness for the avoidance of hypocrisy built into Kantian ethics (I well aware of its flaws as well). At a certain point, we can't just do things because our parents or authority figures told us to, we have to do them because they are right. How do we figure out if things are right? We use some system to try to avoid harm and promote fairness.

As to the telling people, I became an atheist very young, at about twelve (after having spent years researching and trying to learn about it, ah, the joys of nerdhood). As far as my family, my mother isn't religious, my father was already gone and had been a terrible parent (he's an abusive, alcoholic, crack smoking narcissist). My older sister, who, at this point, was my primary caretaker, didn't really care about religion. It just wasn't on her radar. My maternal grandmother is very Catholic, but she lives far away and we only communicate via my mother, so I really don't know what she does and does not know about me (this goes for me being queer as well), but she isn't a big part of my life, so it is not really important for me to try to tell her. My sister in law is one of the more waffly christians. We have had a few discussion, but I don't think they were too upsetting (the kind of discussion that ends with a change of subject, or the start of a card game).

As to friends, I was very young and I am autistic, so at twelve, I pretty much didn't have friends. I told my teachers and other students when the issue of religion came up, which did get me my fair share of pamphlets, glares, and mockery. The fact that I was intellectually so far above my peers and not yet over my agression problems meant that, when it came to an argument, I joyously crushed them. I'm still a very passionate person about my opinions, but I try to take most disagreements now as an opportunity to teach, rather than one to decimate the enemy until they flee in tears. So, all of the people I befriended already knew about and dealt with me being an atheist. I don't have friends who didn't know. Amoung my friends, there are no very dedicated christians (in part because of the conflict with queer people and women's rights), though I do have a friend who is an intensely religious pagan. He actually finds it amusing that I tend to treat his beliefs like any other religion(there's a church there, having a pagan stone circle isn't any more ridiculous).

Posted by: Argama | September 4, 2010 11:39 AM

For question 1 I've run my life with empathy and intelligence. You should head to Rational Wiki for details -- and here too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyd6om8IC4M

Question 2, among my family some of them are a tad bit religious, I think. Used to try to avoid the matter or stay quiet about it, but nowadays I don't make my stance a secret. And what if I do run into a member that is gets steamed or uncomfortable about me being an atheist? Personally I don't mind and I don't care. He/She would only be upsetting himself/herself and honestly I'd rather not hang around them anyway -- though it hasn't happened yet. As for the people around me, outside of family, it helps filter friends from acquaintances.

Furthermore, maybe I'm just lucky right now, but I don't think ANYONE I've met around me really believes in this religious shit. They haven't done anything or challenged me yet, then again I think it's because they're not familiar with the concept of challenging religion. I live in Malaysia, if you must know.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | September 4, 2010 11:41 AM

If you do decide that you no longer believe in god you won't turn in to some sort of baby-eating monster

Speak for yourself. I like mine grilled with just a little bit of salt and pepper to let the natural succulent flavors shine through.

Posted by: LightningRose | September 4, 2010 11:42 AM

In addition to the above comments regarding the Golden Rule, I'll add enlightened self interest.

Even if I aspired to be the Biggest, Baddest, Mofo on the block, I'm bright enough to recognize the likelihood there is someone down the street who is even bigger and badder than moi.

Posted by: tytalus | September 4, 2010 11:46 AM

goldfinch at #35 mentioned slavery -- something that hits upon the first question...

...what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible?

Keep in mind that when believers talk about their rules from their god-concepts, and some may speak of 'objective morality' being superior to that of the skeptic, or that we need rules from god in order for them to work...slavery is an excellent example debunking this nonsense.

Slavery was perpetuated by otherwise well-meaning xians with full biblical support and when the question came up in America, they dueled with bible verses like believers and skeptics sometimes do today. Xian morality changed. The bible was unclear. And there are more issues about which xians continue to argue today.

As for the basic question of atheist ethics, it's not that hard. Invest as much time into thinking about why to do something as you like. You may come up with perfectly mundane, reasonable arguments for ethical behavior -- and why not, since xian ethics are not in any way special or eternal. Even as a xian child, I very rarely stopped short of doing something to consider what god would have me do. I doubt people do that much as grownups either.

For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

As an ex-catholic, it came up when I stopped going to church. It didn't really alienate anyone but my dad, and we argued and yelled about it for a good couple of years. I took on him, his priest, and a few other concerned folks until my arguments against their god-concept were fairly bulletproof.

My family's not that religious, so it wasn't that big a deal beyond my dad. I'm not that social, so the 'fellowship' of church wasn't that important to me. I didn't lose anyone to this change, so I count myself lucky. I understand it goes harder for some people. And I understand some people are more social than me. There are outlets for that (UU churches for example). My social outlets tend toward forums like these, and whatever get-togethers of geekery exist in my area. It's enough for me.

Posted by: Chuck | September 4, 2010 11:48 AM

A quick point on the "Golden Rule:" many theists will say that we atheists are merely borrowing language from Christianity when we talk in terms of morality, and abiding by the Golden Rule is just one more instance of this. They'll tell you Jesus said it, and there's no reason to follow it if you're not also a follower of Jesus.

Call bullshit on them. Confucius was probably the first to give a version of the Golden Rule, in a negative form (the "Silver Rule"): "Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you." Though not perfect, it is probably a better formulation than Jesus's, since it avoids the obvious problem with masochism. And Confucius said this 500 years before Jesus.

Socrates also had a version of the Golden Rule, as well as a formulation of "turn the other cheek," since in his discourse on Justice he stated plainly that it is never just to harm another, even if s/he has harmed you.

There really isn't anything unique about Christianity, especially on the ethical front. It's just the system most of us are most familiar with.

Chuck

Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right | September 4, 2010 11:56 AM

Hi, EvolutionSkeptic!

Glad to hear you're thinking about some important stuff. One thing that people have realized for thousands of years, but keep forgetting, is that people conceive of gods who act like them and have their values. We know what's right and wrong, for one class of sins: we know it's wrong to hurt and cheat because we don't like it done to us. The great moral guides are Miss DoAsYouWouldBeDoneBy and Mrs. BeDoneByAsYouDid. Very recently, research has shown that people asked what God thinks about something will conclude that God thinks just the way they do. I eventually realized that gods are a way of reinforcing what we naturally think is good behaviour.

On top of that, there are religious "sins" such as disrespecting your deity or not doing the proper ceremonies or not paying enough money and attention to your priests. These are the self-interested rules that priests use to make a cushy living and control people.

To reinforce priestly control, there are also manufactured sins such as feeling that sex or masturbation is wrong, or "original sin," the sin of being human and fallible. I've come to believe that these are the religious equivalent of a criminal con game. There's a con where a psychic will tell you that your money or jewellery have been cursed by someone, but if you bring in your valuables, the psychic can lift the curse, for a fee of course. This imaginary danger is manufactured by the psychic to earn the fee or even to swap your valuables for something worthless and flee. Some religions do the same thing. Look at Christianity: you're told that YOU are sinful and dirty. In effect it's a curse on your family jewels. And for a hefty price of obeying and paying them, priests will say the magic words that lift the curse off you. It's the biggest and oldest con game in the world.

I hope you think that last isn't too harsh. For a kinder, gentler debunking read Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation, where he makes a case for tolerance and disbelief.

As for family reactions, I'm in Canada and it's considered to be my business. Some of my relatives believe fervently and some don't believe at all. It's live and let live, eh?

Posted by: skepticali | September 4, 2010 12:00 PM

Morality does not need to be delivered to you from a book or a pulpit or a guy in robes. You care for yourself, your family, your friends and your neighbors because they matter to you and you empathize with them. You extend this behavior beyond this circle of intimates to those with whom you have no personal contact. I see this as fundamental to human behavior, and not reliant on written rules.

As for leaving religion - it happened over decades for me, so there was only occasional gnashing of teeth. My Dad was probably agnostic - he never went to church except as part of the rituals - weddings and funerals. My Mom went to church semi-regularly and claimed to be religious, but didn't talk about it until after retirement. My brothers and sisters are a mixed bag, two appear to be agnostic, one is demonstrably religious. The religious one has done at least one horribly immoral thing in her life, and I ascribe her religiosity to be be in response to this immoral act. Makes it pretty easy to ignore.

Posted by: hitblade | September 4, 2010 12:13 PM

I can only answer question 1.

I don't know why that's so hard to imagine, but if one read up on evolution, one would realize that different animals have evolved different moral codes. Humans need "more moreality" than other animals because we need to function in a society.
About "concrete guidance", if Jesus himself told you to avenge his death by killing a jewish family, that he would help you escape any punishment and guilt, would you do it? If god gives you moral laws, do you follow them or do you question them when they seem wrong? If the latter is true, then you don't need a guide, you can figure it out yourself.

Posted by: meg378ttd | September 4, 2010 12:15 PM

Regarding question 1, there's something I haven't seen addressed here. We all occasionally do things we're not proud of. Things we might consider to be "wrong".

I think religion has a truly sick component where it makes you feel worse than it should about these mistakes (by making perfectly natural things be "sins", but also by making every sin equally bad; also, if you are Catholic, by making thoughts sinful), but it then has a built-in mechanism to let go of the guilt too fast (involving God's forgiveness - I used to be a Catholic, so that's what confession would be about). As an atheist, when you do something that feels wrong, there's no reprieve. You know how it felt, you know it was wrong, and you will try really hard to not do it again.

As for where this feeling comes from: as everyone has said, empathy, and above all introspection. Being aware of what you do is the best way to live ethically.

Posted by: No One | September 4, 2010 12:16 PM

Allow me to paraphrase;

"I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance."

One might have easily written this if one had been born in India.

Get it?

Posted by: Crudely Wrott , Drinking Solo Since Death's Back On The Wagon | September 4, 2010 12:18 PM

Hello, ES, and welcome back. I recall you from some time ago. I remember thinking that you had a pretty good head on your shoulders and that you were more teachable than your moniker might indicate. Seems I was on to something.

One) Reading through the answers others have given above and thinking about my own experiences got me to paring down my own sense of morality. In a highly distilled form I act morally because it is pleasurable to do so. It brings me immediate and ongoing happiness. Additionally, I observe that others display varying degrees of pleasure when they and I deal morally with one another. So, by acting in a moral fashion which engenders reciprocity, the quality of life in terms of enjoyment is enhanced in a growing circle. How can you beat that?

Two) I wasn't raised in a religious household but I was disciplined for immoral behavior. Sometimes harshly. One thing my parents always said when I told a lie or did something spiteful or took something that didn't belong to me was, "You know better than that!" Looking back I see that as a seed they planted that grew into my accepting responsibility for my self and that that knowledge and ability was inherent in me.

I will, however, have to deal with the growing religiosity of my adult daughters. I'll be moving to where they are one of these days and it promises to be, well, interesting. Fortunately our relationship as parent and children has turned out wonderfully and it is not likely that there will be regrettable confrontations. In fact, I think it will be fun; I taught my girls how to observe and confirm evidence and a bit about how to debate and defend a point of view. And they do love their Daddy so much -- that lucky, happy man.

I am glad to hear of your quest. May you benefit and grow as you go along. My best wishes go with you.

PS It just occurred to me that you should get in touch with our Dear Walton. Methinks you two have much in common and probably much to discuss.

Posted by: skeptical_hippo | September 4, 2010 12:21 PM

1. Morality is independent of religion. It goes back to Plato's question, "Is something good because god commands it, or does god command something because it is good?" I see others have discussed this at length, so I'll leave it at that.

2. I was raised fundamentalist. My spouse is agnostic, so no problems there. I have not told the rest of family... not so much because I fear the response, but because my mother is not in great health and I know she would worry herself sick at the thought of me "burning in hell" for all eternity. I do volunteer work on Sunday mornings, so it's easy to use that as a reason for not attending church. My deconversion process was very slow (years), so I didn't have any problems with losing friends. I had drifted away from my fundamentalist friends long before.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/cemAX6cih9TgU2BOcZGfj1yv.Ps-#8fef5 | September 4, 2010 12:22 PM

Evolution Skeptic

I wonder if you know how refreshing it is to read someone like you who is actually questioning belief and not falling back onto talking points.

As for morality, that is learned behavior, just as following a religion is. For the most part, the Golden Rule applies to all, even us atheists.
I once took a morality quiz that had three scenarios somewhat like this:

1. You come upon a baby struggling to breathe in a puddle. Your brand-new slacks will be ruined if you stop to help. What do you do?

2. A runaway train is approaching, a family of five is stuck on the tracks in a car. You can switch the train to another track, but a man is stuck there in his car. What do you do?

3. Five people are in a hospital in dire need of transplanted organs to survive. A healthy man is in the waiting room. Should you harvest that man's organs to save the other five, knowing it would kill him?

The interesting thing is that the religious and atheists alike answered the same way. Of course you save the baby, slacks be damned. Almost everyone chooses the scenario where one life is sacrificed to save five lives, yet in the hospital, almost no one chooses to harvest a well man's organs to save five others (and I *do not* want to meet those who answered yes!).
The lesson here is that morality helps us function as a society regardless of what we believe.

As for the family, I was baptized Roman Catholic and raised Lutheran when the priest told my mother we would all burn in hell since my father, an unpracticing Methodist, wouldn't convert. That is hardly an epiphany.
I haven't told anyone but a close sibling that I'm an atheist, because it doesn't matter in day-to-day life. I will tell them if the subject comes up, which hasn't happened in the past 10 years of family gatherings. Perhaps I'll report on that when it happens.

Good luck in your endeavors.

-- Slaughter

Posted by: lavieordinaire | September 4, 2010 12:24 PM

For 1) My motivation to live a moral, upstanding life is empathy and the realisation that it's not all about me or a specific life goal.

I was raised as a Christian in the peculiar way the British do that kind of thing. All fairly low-key at home and school, but with the occasional Catholicism-tinged school club and weekly Baptist service followed by Sunday School. The Sunday stuff stopped when we moved to the next town and most of the congregation didn't want to talk to us anymore because of the change in postcode*.

Some of my more evangelical friends supplied reading materials and invitations to clubs nearby, but all the stories and testimonials were supposed to be taken at face value, no more questions asked. After a while we stopped discussing it and reverted to dissecting the recent developments in various Australian soap operas. I paid my own religion no more attention and carried on living. I found the right person to settle down with, checked they were up for that kind of thing as well and got married in a civil ceremony.

For 2) What do I do know, considering many of my friends and relatives have beliefs? I negotiate the annual and celebratory religious things with caution. I'll pet-sit for the Christmas Eve carol service, and family accept that. At religious weddings I'll be a body in the right place, but not sing or pray as it would be a lie. I've kept mostly quiet in the post-wedding discussions, but did express polite disappointment about the way non-church unions were described as "less committed"**.

In short, I guess I'm very lucky in that I was only mildly religious to start with and choose to move in mixed circles. Moving out of a stricter background will be harder but there is so much more of the world to see. And this is the only chance you get.

*Ah, village life. Some of those life lessons are real keepers.
**Less polite - fuck that shit.

Posted by: Ben Goren | September 4, 2010 12:28 PM

EvolutionSkeptic, as to your first question, you seem to still be laboring under the delusion that the Bible is somehow a “good book.” It not only isn’t, it’s about as horrific an example of snuff porn as I’ve ever come across. Read Numbers 31 for one particularly blatant example, but that sort of thing goes on non-stop throughout the whole thing. Even Jesus gets into the game, what with commanding that all who are against him be slaughtered at his feet; bringing not peace but a sword; setting families against each other; Hellfire and brimstone; and more.

So, once we’ve dismissed the Bible as depravedly evil, where do you find your moral compass?

Well, I argue that morality is really a strategy (in the sense used by game theory), and that the more optimal the strategy the more gooder the morality.

Think of all the archetypal bad things people wonder that atheists don’t do because they don’t believe in one pantheon or another: murder, rape, theft, whatever. Will you really be better off yourself if you engage in those activities?

Let’s take a simple one to examine: theft. Sure, you might get some short-term gains by taking what you want from others. In our society, you face a high risk of losing not only your short-term gains but much more when you’re caught, fined, imprisoned, lose your job, and have a devil of a time getting a new job for a long time afterwards (perhaps even the rest of your life). Not much of a gain, is there?

In a society where theft isn’t punished, you still lose, because you now have to defend against everybody who’s trying to steal from you. And, when you try to steal, it’s not just a matter of taking what you want, but fighting for it — with all the risks that fighting entails.

You’ll find that everything except that which is generally termed, “legislated morality,” can be similarly analyzed. And who’s to say that something is bad if done by consenting adults without harm to third parties? You may not like the fact that people do [whatever], but what right do you have to prevent them from doing it? And those people certainly don’t like the fact that you do [something else], but do you really want them to prevent you from doing it for no other reason?

And the simple reason such things “feel” worng is because we have a highly evolved unconscious sense of the math of game theory. This should not be surprising: we also have a highly evolved unconscious sense of the math of ballistics, since our survival has long depended on throwing things (including ourselves) around.

Just as you don’t have to put much thought into how to throw or catch something, you “just do it,” you don’t have to put much thought into knowing if something is moral or not; you “just feel it.”

Remember that we are social beings, and game theory is the math of social interactions.

If you want a simple moral code that should last you a long time, may I suggest?

I. Do not do unto others as they do not wish to be done unto.

(The First Rule may be broken only to the minimum
degree necessary to otherwise preserve it.)

II. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to
them likewise.

III. An it harm none, do what thou will.

The rules must be applied in that order. For example, following
the second rule is not permissible in circumstances which require
violating the first rule (except as provided for by the Exception).

For a more concrete example, consider you come upon a scene where somebody is being raped. Your instinct tells you that you should rescue the victim, and your instinct is exactly correct. The first rule says that you may not restrain the rapist, but the rapist himself is violating the first rule; therefore, the exception permits you to violate it yourself as necessary. The second rule tells you that, if you would want somebody to rescue you if you were being raped, then you should rescue rape victims when necessary.

Of course, the exception has its own limit. If you can rescue the victim without harming the rapist, that is the proper course of action. But if you’re a little old lady with a gun, your only moral option might well be to kill the rapist, that being the minimal effective course of action at your disposal.

That should keep you busy for a while, I think….

Cheers,

b&

Posted by: Andrew Hall | September 4, 2010 12:31 PM

I wrote a post about the logistics of "coming out"
; http://laughinginpurgatory.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-advice-do-you-have-for-atheist.html

I'm raising 2 kids (5 and 8) as Atheists and the main lesson that they are learning about morality is to be compassionate.

Good luck.

Posted by: Stephen Stralka | September 4, 2010 12:32 PM

On question #1, I'd suggest doing some reading on the divine command theory of ethics, and moral philosophy in general. This is actually kind of a pet peeve of mine. We've got this entire tradition of moral philosophy going back at least as far as Socrates that has nothing to do with divine will, all kinds of discussion of the divine command theory, and yet Christians keep repeating it as if the only reason anyone has ever thought of to act morally is that God said so.

Posted by: Hairhead | September 4, 2010 12:33 PM

What's the matter with all of you, really?

Haven't you heard that atheists are all angry, bitter, vicious, abusive, sarcastic scumbags who hate religious people with a passion and never, ever pass up the chance to call them ugly names and deride them? That we lack all empathy, hate God, and actually fear His judgment and wish to drag the believers down with us because we are afraid that we will be alone with our misery and torture in the afterlife? That atheists are all part of a hivemind, who all think exactly alike, and enforce their Rules for Unbelief on everyone, particularly the Pharyngulites, who unthinkingly bow before their master PZ Myers, whom they treat like a God?

Where is the abuse? Where is the secular sanctimony? Why haven't you all made fun of EvolutionSkeptic's life and his struggles? Why haven't you tried to reduce him to tears by denigrating every aspect of his life, and in particular his open and questioning attitude, which everyone knows that Atheists do not have?

Pharyngulites, you have disappointed me, your Atheist Pope, by welcoming EvolutionSkeptic's questions with thoughtful, well-considered answers. You have angered me, Pharyngulites by not denouncing his previous life of religious faith. You have troubled me, Pharyngulites, by giving solace and sharing your own personal, sometimes ongoing struggles. You have offended me, Pharyngultes, by offering this religious apostate personal comfort and hell-bound links which will expose him to different philosophical views which may lead him away from the One True Atheist Faith and its prophet, PZ Myers, May He Eat Babies Forever!

Oh Woe! How can we possible convert the world's population and march them down to the eternity of Hell, which we absolutely do believe in, even though it does not make any sense whatsoever, if we do not abuse them physically and emotionally and demand immediate and total obesiance to several thousand pages of carefully codified, contradictory, and confusing Pronunciamentos of Atheist Faith?

Really. Soft, gentle, thoughtful, personal responses to a human being going through a crisis of faith? Pah! You are not True Atheists.

Posted by: Katharine | September 4, 2010 12:34 PM

1) My ethical bases are very complex, but part of it is sort of a 'what's going to produce the best outcome for the largest number of people, and the best outcome may not necessarily be for the largest number of people', and part of it is the necessity for what I like to call the big three - intelligence, wisdom, and compassion. Sometimes my ethics necessitate that I be an asshole. Sometimes they don't. But evolutionarily, if you look at the various animal behavior studies surrounding it, certain ethical behaviors predate humans. It makes sense to be nice.

Ironically, I actually consider the idea of having to believe that some imaginary entity polices your behavior to be an indication of severely underdeveloped and inferior ethics, and an intrinsically anti-human notion as well. One should do good for internally-motivated reasons, not because of a fear of punishment - and though I think most humans are idiots, I do not think most of them have the intention to do evil (see Hanlon's Razor).

2) I am one of two atheists I am aware of in my family, the other being my uncle. My parents are both socially liberal; one of them is a cafeteria christian and the other is a quaker-leaning sort, and we all get along quite swimmingly.

I think it is a good idea to jar the crap out of anyone's preconceptions of atheists; if they know that someone they trust and respect is an atheist, their impressions of them will improve. Case in point: my family has some friends who are devout cat-lickers; out of all of those people's contacts, I am the only person they know of that I'm aware of who is an atheist, and they respect me immensely.

Posted by: vancityskeptic.com | September 4, 2010 12:42 PM

1) I'll keep it short and simple, even though it may be hard to comprehend at the same time:

I have no idea what leads me to lead a moral life. I just... do. It isn't really that I have some overt feeling of "doing good to other human beings" -- because I don't. I'll be the first person to admit that I am -not- an altruist. And it also isn't based on any "golden rule" type mentality of doing to others as I would like them to do to me, because I personally don't give a crap what people do to me, as I'm more than happy to ignore them.

So my answer is simply that I don't know why I live a decent life. I have by nature a somewhat dickish personality, but I definitely don't treat people poorly, I don't commit any crimes (and am in fact very opposed to the breaking of most laws, even if people don't like them), and I tend to help others when they ask or when I feel "moved" to do so.

Why?

*shrugs*

I just do. Obviously it is perhaps innate in most people, but not all (serial killers, for instance).

2) I lost all of my friends. Every last one of them. That shows you what happens when you surround yourself with a specific, narrow group of people though. If you only surround yourself with Christians, and then you renounce Christianity, what do you -expect- to happen?

I lucked out on my family though. They were Agnostic to begin with. I actually adopted religion later in life (stupid move and a long story) and stuck with it for years despite my family being non-religious. I always maintain that they tried to raise me right, but I fucked it up later. Such a shame that I wasted so many good years on religion.

But had my family been religious, I probably would have alienated them as well I suppose. Would that have changed my mind?

Not at all. Because this is -my- life, and I'm going to live it. People that aren't ready to support me can take a hike.

Posted by: Bodach | September 4, 2010 12:45 PM

C'mon, you guys, where's the stridency? the dickishness?
Alright, I'll try: EvolutionSkeptic, you're, um, you seem to be on target with your questioning and your approach. You might have to change your screen name, though. Ha! (that's as dickish as I get)

Posted by: Cannabinaceae | September 4, 2010 12:46 PM

On morality: Just as with nearly every trait, morality is a quantitative trait. It is the outcome of interactions of hundreds, if not thousands, of genes and developmental contingencies during the formation of a person's nervous system. There will be a small number of individuals at either end of the distribution, either sociopathic or altruistic, but most people will be somewhere in between.

What I'm saying here is that morality has nothing to do with concrete guidance, it arises from (metaphorically) the same kind of process that determines the patterns of freckles on a person's skin. It's innate. That little voice inside your head is your own brain talking to itself, not some spirit. Religion isn't going to change some sociopath's mental wiring. To the extent the wiring can be changed by intervention (counseling, punishment) or maturation, it's all about changing actual wiring, not blessing by some supernatural entity.

On leaving religion: Church was always boring to me. Always. As a child, before I knew what terrorism was, I used to hope, as I sat in the pew surrounded by the boring music, the boring platitudes, the meaningless rituals, I would hope that "terrorists" would blow a hole in the wall and "rescue" me. As a child, I trusted my elders, and they said this stuff was true, and it was depressing because that meant that truth was a boring waste of time.

I knew that my immediate family would be mortified if I outed myself as a nonbeliever (and, in fact, I briefly went through the motions of embracing fundamentalism out of an attempt to believe) but I prefer to maintain civil relations, so I just quietly stopped going to church as soon as I left home. Since then I've only gone when pressured - again, who wants to stir up controversy in a family situation where nobody is actually getting hurt? I'm never asked about religion, and I never volunteer anything, and I have a great family. I don't want to break anybody's heart.

Posted by: CanadianChick | September 4, 2010 12:48 PM

Hi ES, and you rock for asking and answering all these questions instead of ignoring them.

#1 has been answered quite thoroughly already - all I can think to add is personally, nothing really changed in how I approached "moralistic" decision making. Even then I don't think I considered religion or the bible to be moral arbiters. REALLY liberal church background fir me though - ordaining women since 1930, ordaining "out" gays since the 80s.

#2. You may lose family and friends. I didn't, but I was a weak theist in a weak theistic family. My best friend to this day is a guy I met at a church youth dance in 1984. Obviously I didn't lose him - it's such a nonissue with him, his fiancée didn't know.

If you do lose friends, they weren't REALLY friends, were they? And really, same with family. If you miss out on fellowship, try a UU church or a Skeptics In The Pub meetup. They're very different from each other, but both can be fulfilling!

Good luck, and keep coming around!

Posted by: Revolver | September 4, 2010 12:52 PM

I recently lead a service at my Wisconsin Unitarian Universalist Fellowship exactly on this subject. As a humanistic atheist, it's no question whether we can be good without god, but as a great resource, I would recommend "Good Without God," by the humanist chaplain at Harvard, Greg Epstein. He talks about both the biological and sociological factors behind ethical behavior...definitely suggest it for both atheists and curious Christans alike!

Posted by: jnholst | September 4, 2010 12:54 PM

This may seem unbelievably simplistic, but here goes.

I don't think of my actions as being "moral" or "immoral". I just try "to do the right thing". I try not to hurt people although, on occasion, I have. But, my intention is to be kind to everyone and this takes a little bit of work. I realized early on that I didn't need a book of rules to convince me that this was the right way to live. My motivation is that is FEELS GOOD. I'm good to people, then, people are good to me (usually).

For me, it's like driving a car. No one has to convince me to stay in my lane or stop when the car ahead of me stops. I JUST KNOW IT WILL MAKE MY LIFE BETTER IF I DO. And, if I don't, it's gonna cost me (in more ways than one).

I was raised Catholic. My siblings are still active in the faith (so they say). I was "shunned" for a time (after writing LOL on my forehead in ashes on Easter Sunday and posting it on facebook for MY SON ONLY. We share our atheism. A family member saw it on my son's wall and spread the word about my future in hell). Yes, it was childish and maybe it went against my statement above about being nice. But, it was oh so much fun. Anyway, needless to say I'm the black sheep of the family. And, it really doesn't bother me.

Posted by: ThirdMonkey | September 4, 2010 12:58 PM

Wonderful!! You will soon find that the universe is so much more vast and beautiful when your eyes are truly open.
To answer your questions I’m going to start with the second since it answers the first.
I was raised Lutheran, baptized and confirmed. I spent every Sunday morning in church until I was about 17. My mother is still dedicated, my father and brother are less so but they are still deists. My grandmother is full-on catholic. I have friends who are mormons and evangelicals. How do I reconcile my atheism with their beliefs? Simple. Put your relationships with your family and friends higher than any stupid religious nonsense.
As your faith becomes a less important aspect of your life you will begin to see what is really important and your friends and family are truly one of the most important things you have. So despite whatever differences in belief just realize that it is irrelevant to the importance of your relationships.
Oh, and I just never talk religion with my grandmother.
The first question, how do I find the motivation to act “morally”? Once you put your relationships with your friends and family first you will realize their importance to you and you to them and you will do everything you can not to jeopardize those relationships. By acting selfishly or foolishly (immorally) you risk losing those people upon whom you most rely. Nothing is worth that.
Next, establish goals for yourself which don’t just benefit you but also those around you. Do you want a family of your own? Do you want to have a high paying job and a house and a nice car? Do you want to get a degree and contribute to the body of knowledge? In order to do these things you must live within the bounds of “moral” behavior, live honestly, and be kind to others. The fact is that very few people are capable of achieving much of anything within society without the help of others and the best way to get their help is to help them back. Even if it’s as simple as being nice and appreciative. You wouldn’t believe what you can do by simply being a little more appreciative to others.
Finally, be conscious of your decisions and of their impact. For every decisions make the cost-benefit analysis. Will doing this help me strengthen my support network or weaken it. And after making the decision be self examining. Ask yourself why did you do that thing? Did it help or hurt? And make the changes within yourself so that you will make the better decision next time. And when you screw up have the strength to admit your mistakes and make amends.
That’s it really. That’s basically how I’ve lived my adult life and it’s working out pretty well.

Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right | September 4, 2010 1:02 PM

EvolutionSkeptic,
To "Do as You Would be Done by" and "Be Done by as You Did" I would like to add one of my personal favorites, "Leave it the way you'd like to find it." I know that's just a consequence of the first rule, but it's a good sign to post in workplace kitchens.

For reading, I recommend John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" and "The Subjugation of Women." Paper copies are better so you can carry them around, scribble, etc.

Posted by: otrame | September 4, 2010 1:04 PM

One more take.

Morality: Remember how your parents had to keep telling you that the world was not fair? As children we keep thinking it should be. A feeling for fairness may be an instinct that supports the social life that we all depend on (whether some want to admit it or not). Combine that sense of fairness with empathy and you have the basis for morality.

Religions want you to care more about the rules than you do about the people. That is, in fact, immoral.

Family: I was raised by my atheist father and my vaguely Christian mother. I read the Bible (well, I couldn't quite get through Revelations... what was that guy smoking?) and decided it was all nonsense. I was 16. My family was accepting. These days most of them (including my mother) are atheists. My nephew's girlfriend came out as an atheist to us, the first time she'd ever admitted it out loud. She isn't ready to tell her family yet. It can be very difficult.

You have a choice. Live a lie or tell the truth when asked, and live with the possible (usually temporary) loss of fellowship with some of your friends and family. If you are rejected, take the high road, tell them you do not reject them and then get on with your life. If they are worth your concern they will come around.

There are some genuine truths in the Bible. The most important one is "The truth will set you free".

Posted by: ereador | September 4, 2010 1:07 PM

Excellent questions!

For the first one: I try to guide (with reason) the faculties inherent in my humanity toward ends that I reason will probably be beneficial. I respect the humanity of others, and acknowledge that their ideas of what might be beneficial are going to differ in some respects from mine. I acknowledge our inherent sociality and the need for us to work together for mutual benefit. I challenge authority, and demand evidence. I learned my values from my parents, reasoning, and experience in the world.

As for the second question, since I grew up in a non-religious, non-woo home environment, the friction I encountered was from admitting to obviously religious (mostly christian) people that I was not in their camp. When I was young and felt the need to fit in, this was often difficult. It took me a considerable number of years of experience to get to where I am now -- without fear of others' opinions, and with a measured aggressiveness when it comes to handling ideas I see as useless, non-beneficial, or harmful. It has not always been an easy road, but that's life.

Best of luck ;) with your research!

Posted by: Cepheid Variable | September 4, 2010 1:11 PM

I feel that I became a much more moral person after I rejected religion and belief in God. Of course, I was raised in a very conservative Catholic household, and conservative Catholicism is not conducive to moral behavior at all.

I was raised to believe that homosexuality was wrong, having sex outside of marriage was bad, abortion was murder, and that God created the Earth. I remember, to my everlasting shame, sitting in a high school science classroom and fuming as the teacher taught evolution. I was as ignorant and judgemental as could be.

Then I headed off to college, and was spanked with the spatula of reality on a daily basis. There were gay students all over the place; they were out and proud and no different than me at all. (I came from a very small, very white, very churchy town, so exposure to diversity was just about nil.)As it turned out, sex wasn't gross at all. Perfectly fine people lived together without being married. The church had told me a lot of lies. I was pissed off, to say the least.

I was taking a series of classes in political philosophy and one day we were discussing Machiavelli, perhaps it was one of the Discourses. Basically, the lesson boiled down to the idea that religion was a fantastic scam for those in power to run on the peons. It was a sweet way to keep the bootheel on the neck of the ruled and have them like it. I don't know why, but that was the particular straw that broke the camel's back. I wasn't even going to bother finding a more liberal, socially just church; it wouldn't matter. It was all a lie.

I take people as individuals now, instead of reacting to them on the basis of what group they belong to. I have a much healthier view of sex. I am a proud feminist. I have left magical thinking largely in the dust. I feel free to pursue knowledge of all kinds without worrying that it will taint my "soul." I am politically active and advocate for equality. I am not the greatest person in the world, that's for damn sure, but I've come a long way from that small-minded bigot of yesteryear.

Sorry for the ramble! Also disclaimer : I do not mean to imply that everyone becomes a better person through atheism or that religious individuals cannot be fine people. This was strictly a personal anecdote!

Posted by: Dorkman | September 4, 2010 1:12 PM

To the first question, I'll ask another question: do you believe that slavery is morally correct? How about stoning disobedient children? Human sacrifice?

You've probably heard these arguments before and are ready with "But that was the OLD Testament!" but that's besides the point. The point is that you know that these things are morally repugnant. Despite the fact that the God of the Bible thinks they're perfectly alright, or even that he once did, you reject the notion that these things are or have ever been right. If you believed God was always the source of morality, your response wouldn't be "Well, that's different, because..." It would simply be "Yeah, so?" You pick and choose.

If God were the source of your morality, this would be unnecessary. Everything he ever said or did would be self-evidently right and correct. The fact that you have to hand wave and say "Well, that doesn't count" indicates that you know what right and wrong is, and you refuse to accept the actions or dictates of God at face valley when they violate YOUR sense of morality.

Taking God out of the equation doesn't eliminate this inherent sense of what's right and good; what it eliminates is the cognitive dissonance of knowing one thing to be right, but trying to force yourself to believe something else because God said so and he has a gun to your head, spiritually speaking.

As for the second question, I don't really have much answer for that because I was probably the most religious person in my circle of friends and family. When I lost my faith, I think by and large they were relieved.

Posted by: Katharine | September 4, 2010 1:16 PM

That's not the best explanation of it, but it's what I can churn out on a lazy Saturday when my articulation is wanting because of tiredness.

Also, I have no problem with pissing folks off, no matter how close they are to me, because my connection with people is in significant part based on how rational I perceive them to be. You turn out to believe something weird, I am not going to have a problem pissing you off unless I need something from you such as money or other leverage, and my impression of you will change.

Posted by: Don1 | September 4, 2010 1:21 PM

Hi, ES,

Others have given very good answers to your questions and I have little new to add, but that won't stop me.

As a species we would probably never have survived long enough to develop complex social structures unless we had evolved a sense of what is 'moral'. Stealing from and killing other members of our group is a lousy survival trait. A lot of work has been done on reciprocal altruism in other species, even bats seem to have a sense of what constitutes 'fair play'.

And biblical morality mostly consists of the obvious (Don't steal), the morally irrelevant (Don't make graven images) or divine validation of tribal rules which make no sense at all in the world we live in (Why not wear garments of mixed fabric?).

So, as others have said, I behave morally (in that I try to treat others well) because I have no inclination to cause others harm (unless I am given a damn good reason) and because I like the consequences of being nice to people. People smile when they greet you, lend you their hedge trimmers and invite you to barbies. Works for me.

I was raised as a methodist (even read the lesson from the pulpit a few times and attended Sunday Schoool into my mid-teens) but when I realised at about 14 or 15 that the whole think made no sense and wasn't necessary anyway there was no problem. My Sunday School teacher ( a geology prof and damn good bloke) still invited me on archaeological digs and respected my position. My parents weren't particulary religious except out of convention and were fine with it.However, that was in the UK and I do appreciate that in the USA things can be rather different.

Posted by: Zeno | September 4, 2010 1:23 PM

My family tends to be extremely religious and secure (and smug) in its adherence to "the one true religion" (which in our case is Catholicism). The small group of lapsed members ranges from me (thorough nonbeliever) to casually sort of Christian (like the nephew who -- thank God! -- got married in a nondenominational Christian church, which was disappointing to most family members but so much better than a civil service or living in sin). Since the devout Catholics in the family (Mom & Dad and my sibs) regard religion as a settled matter, it's not open for symmetric discussion. As possessors of absolute truth, they think the only question is when will I see the light (again). It's no fun arguing pointlessly with family members, so the better part of valor is keeping conversations superficial and visits short.

And (I confess) offering the occasional question, "Glenn Beck? He's a Mormon, right? Why listen to a man who's going to hell for his heresies?"

End of conversation!

[Sorry this isn't more helpful. The price of peace in my family relations has been to make religion a demilitarized zone.]

Posted by: JackC | September 4, 2010 1:28 PM

Welcome back, EvolutionSkeptic! I resisted the urge recently to post a question again wondering how you were and if anyone had seen your posts recently. Wish I had now!

I haven't read much in this thread yet so I won't say much other than I was raised in a Presbyterian church and eventually attended a much more "personal" church headed by a friend of the family. I had begun to question things at about 13 and with this particular group, I attended a Bible Study which really kicked things into high gear.

Following that, I began to question faith (was about 15) at the same time that I was confirmed in the church, given a Bible and read it - twice. That sealed the deal.

I hope I am not repeating too many above, since I am about to go back and read this entire thread, but what I came to understand is that if we assume the Bible to have been "the best they could do" at the time, we can easily understand that they could not know that the niceties of society could be of our own doing - it MUST have come from elsewhere. They really could know no differently.

Today, we have a wider understanding. Today, we can both understand humans themselves can understand how to behave morally without recourse to outside influence, as well as understand why those thousands of years ago would be unable to do so. We can, personally and individually, regenerate the Golden Rule by simply understanding how we ourselves relate to others.

Friends I may have lost from my conversion have been generally insignificant. I still have many religious friends as well and we generally get on well, though I do not hide my thoughts when it is appropriate. If one looses friends because of whether one bows to a particular figure, then those friends are going to be lost over something at some time and are no real loss.

That's it - I am going to go back and read a lot now. I don't like to post without reading first since I already know the substantial amount of what I may say has already been said!

JC

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | September 4, 2010 1:30 PM

dpattersonmonroe:

It's an emotional response on my part, I'm not a philosopher.

That's just fine, too. You don't need to remove that experience and place it in an ivory tower, so to speak. That's one hella realization and it can hit with major force. It can also provoke a wide variety of emotions, including sadness and regret for some people; although that tends to pass fairly quickly.

Actually knowing this life is your one and only brings you fully alive; at least that was my experience, and I had god burned right out of me at the ripe old age of 9 years old. ;)

Posted by: makyui | September 4, 2010 1:34 PM

EvolutionSceptic:

But I thought he seemed very measured in his comments. Confident and straight-forward, but measured and calm. I wonder where this "strident" notion comes from. Have these people actually read his books or listened to him speak?

Dawkins tends to be a little more blunt when it comes to his feelings about religion, but yeah, you'd be surprised how many people just decide that Dawkins is a belligerent asshole without even bothering to read or listen to what he says.

I have friends who've decided he's a hateful ass simply because he has a single book titled 'The God Delusion', for instance.

Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie | September 4, 2010 1:46 PM

1. The biblical texts were written by other human beings. There is nothing special about them and everything good or moral in the Bible can be found earlier, better considered, and less mingled with immorality in Greek & Chinese philosophy. Moreover, you yourself have the same access to that morality as Plato or Confucius (or modern moral philosophers). It comes with being human (unless there's a congenital defect or defective socialisation as with psychopaths). You have an inherent scale to help you determine what is moral and immoral. In most cases, you won't even need to think consciously about it (you know that torturing children is wrong without deliberating about it). When a problem is not so clear-cut, use your reason to figure out what maximises well-being and minimises harm to the best degree. Talk about it with other people to see if your rationale measures up. Argue your side with an open mind to find out if someone else's argument trumps your own. You don't need gods for that. Especially the Christian god who is one of the most immoral, evil concepts ever dreamed up in the minds of men.

2. I grew up in a secular family. I was encouraged to explore whatever interested me, including religion. I was baptised Catholic as an infant and confirmed because I happened to be attending a Catholic school in sixth grade, but I was pretty much a non-religious pantheist from the age of six or so (before that I didn't have any belief concerning religion). I never believed in Christianity because I didn't think (the) God (I believed in) would be mean to other animals and treat humans as some sort of superior being. Thankfully, I was never indoctrinated into the whole "original sin" crap.

I'm a bit of a romantic and loved the idea of ritual and liturgy and such, so in my late teens and twenties my non-religious/philosophical pantheism was transformed for a time into practising neo-Pagan pantheism. For a year or two at the beginning of that phase my mother was terrified I'd get into Satanism or the occult or something and fall in with some bad people, but eventually she realised I hadn't changed and my friends were okay.

In uni, I studied religion and Christianity specifically from a scholarly point of view. I have a Master's in Mediaeval Studies, so I learned the history of Christianity, Christian theology, mediaeval philosophy, art history and Christian iconography etc. The few times the subject of religion came up over the years (I too am Canadian, and people seen to consider it impolite to ask about something deemed one's private business), I'd say (& still do) that I know too much about Christianity to believe in it.

I've always had friends of different backgrounds (Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, (European Neo) Pagan, Aboriginal, Secular Humanist), so that really hasn't ever been an issue for me.

Nowadays, I call myself an agnostic (I've only been asked a few times over the past five years or so--once by my mother) because some days I'm a rationalist atheist and other days I'm still a romantic pantheist.

No one's really answered your question about going to church. When you're a non-believer, going to church is a lot like playing make-believe. You know that the whole thing is a human construct, but you can choose to go and play along to the extent that is comfortable for you to do so. It's like any other role-playing game (cf. the Society for Creative Anachronism or a Civil War re-enactment group), or pretending like Santa exists and is going to come and deliver toys on Christmas Eve. You can join in for the social benefits. This raises two big issues though:
1. Would you feel dishonest? Is that a problem or not? Would that be mitigated if you were honest with your family and/or fellow congregants? Would being honest entail becoming the object of focused proselytising?
2. Would you feel like you're being disrespectful? This might be a little more tricky. Of course, if you're honest and you're welcomed or invited to join in, then this is moot.
In any case, it seems a bit odd that you would push yourself to participate in something that you feel you no longer belong to. There are lots of ways to get social fulfilment, and you can treat your deconversion like a relocation. You can still maintain friendships from your former church, but you'll probably lose the more tenuous, acquaintance-like friends. Find groups that centre on hobbies and interests rather than religion (which is kind of like a hobby really).

Posted by: Rincewind'smuse | September 4, 2010 1:48 PM

1. Once I accepted the fact that morality and ethical behavior never came from the bible in the first place, it became much easier. Most of your sense of right and wrong is innate, the rest I believe is molded by the society in which you were raised. Ever notice how as societies progress over time certain "moral certainties" like the treatment of your slaves and abstaining from shellfish just don't seem to have the same center stage for that given society? We pick and choose what's relevent for our society which should make you wonder about the bible and its suitability as a reference in the first place.Live as though you live within a perfect society, i.e.,look to what your behavior should be in such a society;then cut yourself a little slack once in a while realizing that theist or atheist, no one has ever gotten it perfectly right. The motivation is to live in a better society on the day you die than it was on the day you were born.
2.I find it has affected my relationships.I don't feel any different about my wife, mother etc., and those two people love and accept me for who I am.Extended family.....meh.My perception of them is the same but now I'm the focus of their attempts to save my immortal soul. Tolerance is the key word here(on your part). They really think there's something to save so it's a logical position from their perspective and unlees they really cross the line in terms of disrespecting my right to my position, I don't usually have much to say, but once you get out of that mindset it's amazing to see that they can operate from such a position of arrogance.Self determination becomes an abstract casualty in their fight with the devil for your soul.Realize it's ultimately a battle within themselves with an insecurity that must not be named; he might be right.

Posted by: Angie80 | September 4, 2010 1:49 PM

I don't usually comment, but thought I'd chime in here. I haven't believed in God since I was about 12 or 13, I don't remember exactly. I grew up Catholic, but we NEVER went to church and pretty much were not religious, except that I did do the first communion thing. I told my mom I didn't believe in God when I was 12 or 13, and she was pretty much unfazed.

But, I ended up marrying a Christian. He doesn't believe in evolution, which we have argued about in the past. I really think he would believe in it if he would sit down and actually learn an unbiased version, not just what he was taught growing up.

His family (parents) are very fundamental Christians. They are fine with my being an atheist, or as fine as they can be. I get along with them great, they take the stand that you can't make someone believe.

We just had a baby (he's 3 months now), and we discussed how we're going to raise him in regards to religion. I'll tell him what I believe, my husband will him what he believes, and my son will make up his own mind anyway!

So, I do have family that are Christian, while I'm an atheist, and it's been fine. I think a lot depends on the people involved. I think it would be fine to accompany family to church once in a while, but I wouldn't pretend you believe if you don't. They will just have to accept that people can change their views.

Posted by: Buster08 | September 4, 2010 1:52 PM

theoretcialbullshit put out this great video on morality. Well thought out and presented. I found it a great help, you might also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWNW-NXEudk

Posted by: abb3w | September 4, 2010 1:53 PM

EvolutionSkeptic: I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

As a pre-requisite, it seems worth giving a background frame of reference, expressing common ideas in the uncommon context I do, so that you can better grasp the uncommon conclusions when incorporating uncommon ideas.

First, "Ethics" and "Morality" have to do with choices. If there IS no choice, there's no question of ethics. Second, ethics usually implies an ordering relationship; A better/greater than B, B worse/less than C, and perhaps A being incomparable to C. In mathematical terms, the combination of a set and an ordering relationship on it gives a Poset (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poset).

The question, then, is what defines the ordering relationship. This ties to Hume's IS-OUGHT question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem). Questions of IS simply tell you what the choices are; however, the existence of the choices themselves do not say anything about what kind of order you're putting them in: moral, or alphabetical. So, you need to give a definition of what determines the order; for most religions, the basic priorless philosophical premise used boils down to "you OUGHT to do what God says, and OUGHTN'T do what God says to not do".

However, religion may not only be taken at philosophical face value, but empirically examined as an anthropological phenomenon; so can individual ethical assessment. Thus, one can consider these commonalities, and come to alternative foundational premises that lead to much the same sense of OUGHT ordering.

Haidt has identified (doi:10.1007/s11211-007-0034-z) five moral flavors (loosely speaking) that humans use in varying degree. These are FAIR, HARM, AUTHORITY, INGROUP, and PURITY. Based on the work of Henrich, I think AUTHORITY ought properly be split into the nuances of DOMINANCE versus PRESTIGE; based on an otherwise largely unrelated economics paper (http://tinyurl.com/28d4n7t), I suspect FAIR ought be decomposed into EQUITABLE (to each alike) and RECIPROCAL (to each based on behavior); and based on contemplating my navel, I suspect HARM ought be considered a composition of FAIR with the more self-centered PAIN, and that CURIOSITY may be additional flavor.

More to the point, these all appear (from my skew vantage) to have common root: loosely, resulting as consequence of preference for something at least somewhat similar to you being around in the (arbitrary limit) future. I decline to get into the hairy math at this time, nor how this itself is expectable as a preference.

But, to boil all this down: the authority of the Bible is not the only possible IS-OUGHT bridge, and there are alternatives that reach much the same conclusions about many things -- even if we disagree on some points, such as the coverage of Evolution vs "Intelligent Design" in Biology class.

Mine is mathematical; this makes me a weirdo, but not necessarily wrong.

EvolutionSkeptic: For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

You presume that all of us are "out of the closet". Many don't tell, because many do lose connections to friends/family when "coming out".

Even when lacking in theological significance, however, church attendance retains some social significance. So, I go when visiting relatives because I don't see the point of making a big fuss about my disbelief.

Furthermore, I also use an idiosyncratic reconciliation internally. The Bible doesn't particularly distinguish Faith, Belief, and Hope. I don't take God on Faith or Belief; but the idea of a just, kind, loving God? I don't have a problem with Hoping for it. I just don't let that Hope blind me in my choices. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church would probably not approve; however, I can Hope that God would be more understanding.

Thereofr

Posted by: llewelly | September 4, 2010 1:57 PM

EvolutionSkeptic

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible?

Posted by: nickkanellos | September 4, 2010 1:58 PM

Regarding question 1, I recommend chapter 12, "Nice Guys Finish First" in The Selfish Gene. It explains why most of us are moral, and why some of us are not. It also explains how morality is hardwired into us, and why we are immoral once in a while.

I think many people can't accept the fact that morality is internal. That it's an evolved trait that promotes success. They need it to be divinely sanctioned to be valid or legitimate. They need it to be a "duty" that's assigned to us from a higher authority who knows better. They need to know that it's part of a larger moral framework. I don't think they realize, like others have said in this thread, that they are still picking and choosing what aspects of the framework they'll adhere to. And that the moral framework changes over time as its adherents change. The moral Zeitgeist as Richard Dawkins calls it. The Bible sanctions the ownership of slaves, yet I doubt you own any, or would countenance others owning any.

I think the hardest part in moving away from religion is abandoning the idea that "there's gotta be more." That there is no immaterial essence beyond what we can measure. That all of our emotions are the products of electrical signals in our brains. That love, hate, fear, etc. are simply the emergent properties of the interactions of those electrical signals. I have two children and a wife that I love dearly. I am moved to tears when I see my children peacefully sleeping at night, or when I see the joy on their faces as they are playing with their new kitten. I can't help wanting to reach out and hug them as they walk past. I also know (roughly) that I feel that way as a result of the neural pathways that have formed in my brain. But I don't care. I feel what I feel, and I don't need divine sanction to feel it. It's as real as a gets and no less legitimate than if it were the product of a god or gods. Whether you believe in a god or gods or not, you'll still experience the same feelings. They will not be less real or legitimate.

Regarding how I left religion. I actually left rather early. I grew up in an ethnic household where the local community was centered around the church. The funny thing is that it didn't even occur to me that not believing in God was an option. I simply beleived because all those around me did. But I still thought it was an odd thing to believe that such a being as God existed. Until one day, I was watching "All in the Family" on TV. And the character Mike (Archie's son on law) said "Arch, I don't believe in God". My jaw dropped and I said "Huh, you mean that's even an option?!?" After I thought about it for a while I announced that I didn't really believe in God. Luckily for me my father was a closet atheist. He was a cultural Christian, more than an actual believer. So my parents didn't really push the matter.

Posted by: MoreSciencePlease | September 4, 2010 2:05 PM

Part 2:
My conversion developed through the high school years as I realized that science provided much better answers to interesting and important questions than did religion. One event that cemented the conversion was when I and several friends read The Book of Mormon. This entertained us for many months. We concluded that if an enterprising charlatan could make up an entire religion in a very short period of time (1830) by tweaking a body of beliefs existing around at that time, then it 's entirely possible and likely that those "original body of beliefs" were cobbled together by similarly ambitious charlatans tweaking the beliefs around in their lifetimes.
To add to your developing perspective on leaving religion behind, I'd recommend reading about The Book of Mormon and Scientology, and using this perspective in discussions with family and friends who might be worried about your moving over to the dark side.

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 4, 2010 2:12 PM

Wow, 114 responses so far. I read them all, and I don't think my eyes are glazing over yet. Whew.

OK, I think I'm following what you guys are saying. The Euthypro dilemma was interesting and seems to be a sort of theme running through what I read here. Like, if God were to say raping children (to use a rather extreme example) was a good thing to do, would I and other Christians begin doing that -- Catholic priests notwhitstanding, of course? I'm sure I wouldn't, which I guess answers my question about morality to a certain extent. I'd assume the vast majority of sane Christians would answer the same way. Perhaps the moral rules of the Bible are vestiges of earlier civilization, and we'd have them regardless. This is sort of a difficult concept for me to get my head around, but I'm trying.

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved? Dawkins and Coyne may have addressed this, but it was a lot of reading. I may either not remember it or didn't understand it the first time. I think I get the idea of how, say, bipedalism evolved. But empathy seems like a more difficult concept for me to grasp within the context of evolutionary change.

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him. Yes, I do get this is basically Pascal's Wager, but it admittedly gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time getting around it.

Again, thanks so much for the thoughtful replies. I'm unworthy of the attention, but it's a great help. I even appreciate some of the less, um, ... let's say "less gentle" responses. It takes all kinds sometimes. I don't expect to be treated with kid gloves. I know you guys are generally very knowledgeable. I can take what you say and consider it without worrying too much about how you say it. I like passionate people. :)

Posted by: Rincewind'smuse | September 4, 2010 2:13 PM

@ 124,

So, to be concise, the Bible is, literally, on the par of a morality-Rorschach test. That is, what people take out of the bible is to confirm their beliefs about how to treat others and not as a source of how to treat others.

Posted by: Katharine | September 4, 2010 2:20 PM

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved? Dawkins and Coyne may have addressed this, but it was a lot of reading. I may either not remember it or didn't understand it the first time. I think I get the idea of how, say, bipedalism evolved. But empathy seems like a more difficult concept for me to grasp within the context of evolutionary change.

Look for articles on ethical behavior in chimpanzees and dogs - especially with regard to fairness. Lots of very cool articles on that that may answer some of your questions. Ethical behavior in essence is a necessity for a correctly-functioning society, because a society of sociopaths would quickly no longer be one.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | September 4, 2010 2:23 PM

EvolutionSkeptic:

Perhaps the moral rules of the Bible are vestiges of earlier civilization, and we'd have them regardless. This is sort of a difficult concept for me to get my head around, but I'm trying.

Once you do enough reading and research, you'll find the bible was a latecomer in morality business and didn't do so well on that front anyway. As you're only to #114 so far, it will be a bit until you get to this...you might want to have a wander through Skeptic's Annotated Bible: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

You'll see, easily, why so many of us dismiss the bible as any authoritative rule book, and the base immoralities leap right out, along with the incredible amount of inconsistencies.

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way.

Take it slow, continue to talk with people, continue to read and most important, continue to think. Don't forget to breathe. You'll be fine.

The intense, deep fear instilled by religion can be difficult to shed; it's generally not an overnight process. It is important to realize that it is fear that makes you want to hide your head eternaldisneyland. Living a life without that fear is exhilarating.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawklcdwi99zhD_yQAXfqRl02RKcWGkXhnlc | September 4, 2010 2:23 PM

I feel a lot of empathy for the questioner as I was in the same boat myself once.

The family issue is a big one. I'd advise being honest but walking softly here. You probably don't need to make an announcement as they'll inevitably ask questions that force the issue such as "why aren't you going to church?" answer these honestly but try to keep conversation from turning into a screaming match.

The most important thing in "coming out" to your family is to let them know that their relationship with you isn't going to change. They'll also be concerned about you becoming "bad" and some of them will probably try to get you to change your mind. It's probably best to be as calm and reassuring as possible. And most importantly don't try to win an argument over the validity of religion with them.

In the end your behaviour is your best argument. If you continue to behave like a loving, caring person that will do a lot to reassure them that you're ok. Avoid heated arguments at all cost as that will cause them anxiety no matter how rational your arguments.

One of my second cousins is a Catholic priest and he's never brought the subject of my athiesm or religion up (perhaps he gets enough of that at work) and we get along fine.

My mother still considers me Catholic and is adamant that I'm going to heaven. To her Catholic is something that's done to you (baptism and confirmation) not an ideology. She also reckons I'm a good boy and I'll go into heaven. I for my part don't argue with her, she knows how I feel about the matter and I don't feel the need to win the debate with her. As a result it's a complete non issue between us.

Posted by: David B | September 4, 2010 2:24 PM

I'd like to add to my last comment, EvolutionSkeptic, if you read this.

You may wonder why some people here and on other Secular fora are stridently anti-religion. I can only speak for myself, but I am of the opinion that many of my peers would share some or all of the same feelings that I have.

One reason is that atheists, and particularly the more militant ones, seeking something to value, value truth.

Another that many of us have in the past been deep believers in one religious belief system or other, which they have come to believe false, and, out of fellow feeling for their fellow people, wish to help them to avoid the traps into which they themselves were led into, or fell.

And another is that many of those of us who have spent time reading and commenting on blogs like this one, or been members of secular discussion boards for some time, have been politicised from seeing the harm religion can and does do, whether the death cults of Heaven's Gate, Jonestown, the 9-11 bombers, the harm done to kids by sometimes killing them in exorcisms, or with-holding medical care in favour of prayor, and from reading the harrowing accounts of being cut off from their families by the more fundamental cults, Christian and otherwise.

I, and I think many of my peers, while acknowledging that not everything that comes from religion is bad, think religion has not been a net benefit to the world, is false, and often does terrible harm. And hence standing up against it, each in our own small way, is a ooood thing to do.
B
David

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | September 4, 2010 2:27 PM

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him. Yes, I do get this is basically Pascal's Wager, but it admittedly gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time getting around it.

I'm not sure how to get past that-- you'll prolly just naturally drift towards a godless position (since you're already working on it already).

Basically, you don't know if there will be eternal punishment for your "sin" of rejecting god/Jesus. So why worry about it? How can you guarantee to yourself that you're good enough to get into heaven, anyway? You obviously don't follow all of the rules that have been handed down.

There are thousands of religions in the world. How do you know that yours is the right one? Because a pastor told you so? Because your holy book told you so? I certainly hope you're not losing sleep at night because you might have picked the wrong faith to believe.

Not to sound too Zen, but just let go. Don't let yourself stress over it-- there's no evidence for a soul or an afterlife. This is the only shot you've got, so make the most of it without beating yourself up.

Posted by: Iain Walker | September 4, 2010 2:29 PM

but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I think that part of the problem is that you're thinking of morality in overly legalistic terms, as something consisting of rules that are imposed from the top down. I think most of us here would reject that as being (a) an inadequate and misleading understanding of how morality works, and (b) an assumption which is quite unnecessary in order for morality to work.

If instead you look at morality in terms of membership of a moral community, such that your rights and duties are expressions of your relationships with other members of that community, then it looks a lot different. It's participatory, reciprocal and egalitarian. It's something that you do as a human being, not something that is imposed on you.

If part of your worry is that this view of morality seems to lack an objective grounding, then ask yourself: Why do the commandments of an outside authority provide any kind of objective grounding? How does a rule that is handed down from on high have any more validity than one that develops organically from the bottom-up?

I could probably recommend a dozen books on the relationship between religion and morality, but one I've recently come across is Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics by Richard Holloway. It's a defense of both the necessity and desirability of understanding morality in secular, non-religious terms, written by (of all people) a theologian and former Bishop of Edinburgh. It's not just non-believers who think that morality doesn't necessarily require God.

For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

I suspect that my own experience is going to be so far removed from your own that relating it will be less than helpful. Still, on the off-chance ...

I come from a moderate religious background (Presbyterian Church of Ireland, not to be confused with Paisley's fundamentalist Free Presbyterians), but it never really captured my imagination. I kind of believed in God in the same way I believed in Santa. I was an atheist by the time I was nine, once I was old enough to learn the difference between Things People Found Out and Things People Make Up (a fascination with dinosaurs played a large part in this - Procompsognathus triassicus was simply more credible than Jesus and his magic tricks).

My parents were tolerably cool about it - there was never any serious indoctrination, although they did decide that nine was far too early an age to decide whether I really believed in God or not, and so I had to continue going to church and Sunday school anyway (in mitigation for the blatant and hypocritical one-sidedness of this reasoning, there was no restriction on me seeking out opposing views for myself).

Coming out to my friends was a different affair - it was in school, during one of those classes that wasn't about anything in particular, but which was meant to encourage participation. Apropos of whatever the topic was, I stuck my hand up and announced that I did not believe in God, and was rewarded by the boy in front of me turning round with an expression of joyful relief on his face at the discovery that he wasn't alone. Turned out there was about four or five of us non-believers out of a class of thirty. The only negative fallout was that there was one boy who wouldn't hang out with me at lunch-time for the next couple of days. No-one else really cared one way or the other.

(So one point may be worth making - if you're worried about expressing doubts or disbelief in front of friends, family or community, bear in mind that you may not be as alone as you think. Other people you know may be harbouring the same doubts as you, and the same worries about acceptance as you. Now while by the sound of it coming out as a doubter or a skeptic would be a lot harder for you than it ever was for me, it may be that in doing so you will give some hope or encouragement to others in the same boat.)

Anyway, my family are still Christians, and we agree to disagree on the subject of religion. It doesn't make me think any less of them, and I don't think my atheism makes them think any less of me. It helps that they're political and theological moderates - despite the obligatory church attendance until I was fourteen, ultimately they're far bigger on freedom on conscience than they are on ideological conformity.

As for church going ... Hmm. Since I never experienced anything you might call "fellowship" during my enforced participation (just mounting irritation and crippling, crippling boredom), I was glad to give it up. These days I attend church services only for marriages, baptisms and funerals, and I do so solely for the sake of the friends who invite me (or the friends that I've lost).

However, by the sound of it, church attendance and the sense of community it brings does mean something to you. In which case, I'd say that there's no particular hypocrisy in attending church for the social aspects, the community and the ritual, even if you have doubts about the literal truth of the actual words and stories being employed. If the symbolism of it all still resonates with you, then I can see how attendance without belief might still be fulfilling at a human level. The UK's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees describes himself as a "non-believing Anglican" who attends services for the music and the sense of community, so you'd be in good company.

The question is really whether your religious community would accept your continued participation on your own terms, rather than theirs. And I can't really offer any advice on that.

Anyway, good luck, however things work out for you.

Posted by: Rincewind'smuse | September 4, 2010 2:35 PM

There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him.

Posted by: meyvnheart | September 4, 2010 2:36 PM

1. I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I know you didn't say the words, "objective moral standards," but that seems to often be implied in questions like this, and just to clarify, as a nonbeliever I have no objective standards. I do, however, have some other things to consider that motivate me:

A. I have been born into and raised in a society that thrives on mutual cooperation for the purpose of attaining the greatest good. To some extent, I have been indoctrinated into aspects of my morality, such as the notions that rape, killing and stealing are bad. Because of this indoctrination as well as social pressure, I have developed strong personal feelings about these issues.

B. Pragmatism. Even outside my personal feelings on those issues, I've seen incredibly strong evidence throughout what I know of history, as well as in modern society that humanity thrives through cooperation, and cooperation cannot exist without mutually beneficial and fair rules to govern it. I like the fact that I can generally go about my business without constant fear of being killed, raped, or stolen from, and I understand that this state of affairs would not be able to exist without my own cooperation in these matters.

2. For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

For most of my life, I was actually what I'd call a "liberal fundamentalist." In other words, I believed most of the things that fundamentalists tend to believe, with the caveat that I still would've advocated separation of church and state, as well as fair treatment of homosexuals and those who disagreed with my religious convictions. I saw the way Christians treated nonbelievers as a huge problem.

That being the case, my mother and her husband are still religious fundamentalists. I've recently moved back in when them upon graduating from college, so this issue of relating with them bears a lot of relevance for me, as well. Currently, I am in the closet about my beliefs with regard to my family.

I do not regularly attend church services, but I am not entirely opposed to going once in a blue moon, nor would I be opposed to attending any religious service. I'm still very knowledgeable about the Bible and pretty knowledgeable about theology, and on some occasions will use that knowledge to legitimize my "cover," so to speak.

I'm out to the vast majority of my friends. They tend to be neutral to the subject, with one or two exceptions. I don't make an issue of it, if I can avoid it, but if the subject comes up I don't shy away from stating my opinion, or explaining my position.

Back to my family, my current plan is to do my best to hide my lack of belief until I've moved back out, which should be soon, though I don't think I'd be willing to directly lie about it. After that, if anyone finds out, they find out; so be it. I don't intend to ever make any dramatic statements about it, but if anyone asks me, I'll tell her the truth.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | September 4, 2010 2:43 PM

@ ES,

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him.

It's not that we don't have enough information to know for sure, it's that we don't have any information on which to base a positive decision. That lack of evidence demands either faith, (belief despite the abscence of evidence,) or atheism.

Take this as the talk from privilege as I have never gone through the situation that you are facing. If the god you grew up with was worthy of continued worship you wouldn't be having this crisis. If your immortal soul really hangs in the balance on the question of belief then it is a cruel god indeed who is demanding your attention.

Again, thanks so much for the thoughtful replies. I'm unworthy of the attention, but it's a great help.

Posted by: ezra.resnick | September 4, 2010 2:47 PM

I would sum up the morality issue with these three points:
If your only motivation for doing good deeds and not doing bad deeds is because you think God wants you to, that's not morality, it's just blind obedience. Once you admit that there are actually good reasons to help others, refrain from theft and murder, etc., then God is irrelevant.
Much of the moral guidance to be found in scripture is downright diabolical, and even religious people ignore a lot of it: slavery is permitted, homosexuals and adulterers are to be executed, along with blasphemers, heretics, witches, etc. So we clearly do not get our morality from scripture -- we decide what is moral in the Bible.
There is not actually any evidence that religious people tend to behave more morally than the non-religious -- in fact, the evidence seems to point the other way. The percentages of religious people in counties like Sweden, Denmark, Japan, France, UK, Canada and Australia are low, and yet these are among the healthiest societies on Earth according to UN measures like per capita income, violent crime rates, education, equality, etc. On the other hand, there is no shortage of religious people who perform immoral acts in the name of God, from murdering abortion doctors to preaching the sinfulness of condom use in AIDS-ravaged Africa.I've written more on this subject here and here.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/L_gXzcoxjp7CVNPf107nBrOc6Q--#15fa2 | September 4, 2010 2:51 PM

I'll answer the "why be moral" one.

Personally, I am convinced that there is no good reason to care more about myself than about anyone else. If it is natural to care about oneself first and foremost, that's just a mistake of one's brain. We are all equal.

Posted by: jaranath | September 4, 2010 2:53 PM

Hi EvolutionSkeptic. Thanks for asking! It feels good to share these things with someone. I think it bears noting, however, that you'll never find certainty here. I reject the concepts of God and the supernatural because I find there to be no viable evidence...but I will never be able to tell you with absolute certainty that they don't exist. We might be able to find that the concept of a Prime Mover to set the universe in motion is unnecessary, as I think Hawking recently is arguing, but we can't say there isn't one. But then, I can't prove your childhood imaginary friend wasn't real, either--and neither can you, even if you knew darn well you made him up. Technically, he could still have coincidentally, really existed, in his own peculiarly invisible, undetectable, non-interacting way. But since a universe with nonexistent imaginary friends or gods is virtually indistinguishable from one WITH them, I go with the simpler hypothesis. To your questions:

1. You're right...there is no concrete guidance. I don't always know what the right choice is...maybe sometimes there isn't one. Certainly, there are many shades of gray. And yes, sometimes I wish my choices were clearer, more black-and-white. This philosophy isn't always easy or comfortable.

But that doesn't mean my choices aren't often pretty damn clear, and that I don't have some guide to my actions. In its most basic form, my guide comes from within: I do what I want. A lot of Christian moralists gasp and swoon at the concept; what keeps me from raping, pillaging and eating babies?!?! Basically, the fact that I don't WANT to rape, pillage or eat babies. I'm regularly astonished that most religious moralists don't seem to see the obvious implication that such a question carries: That they actually want to do those evil things, and would but for God. As PZ says, I have empathy for people, I care for them, I hate seeing people suffer and have no desire to inflict suffering.

Ah, but don't I WANT, occasionally, to steal that tempting bundle of cash left out somewhere no one would see? Perhaps. And hey, since I usually don't deal in absolutes, maybe on some rare occasion I really would take it, like if I had a starving family at home. But there's still a catch: I can't be certain that action won't bring negative consequences. I may think no one's watching, but that's no guarantee, and the consequences--however unlikely--could be severe. And if I get into the habit of stealing unwatched bundles of cash, my odds of being caught go up.

So I don't steal those bundles because I honestly don't want to. I may be tempted, but I know that there are risks, and I don't want to gamble. Religious moralists have a tendency of stopping their definition of "want" at the initial temptation, but that's dishonest. What we want comes from a lot of different motivating factors and stimuli, and you can't disregard some for convenience's sake.

But still, those are all issues of immediate action and consequence. I suspect you'd also like something a bit more global, a bit more long-term. Then consider this: What kind of world would you like to live in? What kind of world would you like to raise your children in? One where people do steal, rape, murder, etc., when they think they can get away with it? One where retaliatory violence is accepted and commonplace? Or one where people don't do these things? I behave "morally" because I prefer the latter. For instance, I want a world where minorities aren't oppressed, even though I'm generally in the majority, because someday I or someone I love might be in the minority (of course, religiously I am in the minority in the US). I also, frankly, just don't WANT to oppress minorities in most instances. And in those cases where I might--for instance, where I might honestly want to lock Fred Phelps up for being an utter waste of flesh--I don't do it because I don't want that to become the standard, accepted practice of how we deal with people we just really don't like. Phelps has to do something far more material than scream emotionally hurtful things at inappropriate places to warrant his incarceration.

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide what's moral. Authoritarianism is a cop-out. You can certainly consider others' opinions, and you might even rightly consider some people "authorities" on any given topic, including morality. But you do that by evaluating their qualifications and their opinions thus far, and you never consider them an absolute authority. The same is true for religion: Whether you chose your faith or were raised in it, whether the evidence you evaluated (or decided not to evaluate) was material or emotional, ultimately the decision to believe it comes from YOU.

2. For me, it's been difficult. I am still in the closet with most of my friends and family. Recent circumstances have revealed my atheism to my best friend, and while there was a painful facet to it, our relationship hasn't suffered...that's why we're best friends, after all. Other circumstances led me to also reveal it to a parent; that did not go well. The parent is managing it well enough, but they are not happy, and they begged me to not reveal it to my other parent. For various reasons (especially how desperately they begged), I agreed. But it definitely leaves me conflicted and uncomfortable. In fact, until that development, despite being an atheist I never felt any direct, personal reason to hate religion. But now I do. Religion has come between me and those I love, and for no other reason than the absolutist, self-serving claims it makes: If I don't believe, then I'm going to hell, and my loved ones won't see me there. It's extortion. Religion makes desperate threats in an effort to get me to toe the line; either I fear doubting the faith since the punishment is hell, or I fear leaving the faith since my loved ones will suffer at the thought of me going to hell. And it's largely working, since I'm still mostly closeted. I haven't lost friends or family yet, but Religion is definitely holding them hostage.

Note that this isn't confined to atheism. Anyone changing faiths can experience similar emotions and social issues. Look at the conversions from Islam to Christianity that the Religious Right loves to trumpet as examples of how evil Islam is. Or look at what it's like for Mormons who leave the faith, even those who go to some other flavor of Christianity. The severity of the reactions depends on your personal familial environment and the local cultural dominance of the faith, but it's often terrible. Thankfully, as I'm sure you've read here, it can also work out quite well. Many people at work now know I'm an atheist, and though most are religious, the broad support has been astonishing, even from people who strongly disagree with my lack of belief.

As for how I "practice" religion, well, I've never been outwardly devout, so no one is bothered by my general lack of interest in going to church. But I do still attend some services if I can't conveniently back out, and there are even some services I can somewhat enjoy, even if only from an artistic and cultural sense. Dawkins often says he's still a cultural Christian, enjoying church traditions and fellowship.

I know we're all piling on the stories and opinions and advice...still, I hope it all helps. If nothing else, I hope it helps you cut through the BS so commonly spread in the public mind about atheism to see the real, diverse, human ways we try to live our lives. Even if you still end up disagreeing with us, I hope you'll learn we aren't the monsters or villains or selfish fools that so many people want you to think we are. We're just real people, trying to get along the best we can, like everyone else.

Posted by: meprimate | September 4, 2010 2:55 PM

What a wonderful post from a clear and active mind!

"What is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible?" Certainly not insulting.

Here’s a thought experiment that might or might not be useful. Try asking yourself whether if you became convinced God does not exist and concluded, therefore, there are no rules, you would then more often give in to our occasional urges to misbehave, e.g. steal, lie, etc?

A large majority of people do not follow these socially disruptive temptations whether or not they believe in God or are religious at all. I believe that the idea we are dependent on religion to know how to behave is simply wrong. Speaking very broadly, we seem to live with pretty much the same moral rules whether or not we are religious although some religious groups
like to think otherwise.

Posted by: Sastra | September 4, 2010 2:57 PM

EvolutionSkeptic #137 wrote:

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved?

The abstract concept or idea of empathy is intangible, but empathy itself isn't: in concrete terms, it's a way of feeling and behaving.

Evolution tells us that things are what they are because they got that way from something unlike it -- and then it goes into the how and why. When you think about it, a lot of religious "explanations" aren't really explanations at all. It's just restating the principle of "like comes from like" over and over.

The supernatural explanation for where we get empathy is that we get it from an Empathy Source. This Empathy Source is made of Empathy Force and it acts through Empathy Power using Empathy Energy derived from Empathy Intention, which is, of course, Pure Essence of Empathy itself. Or, maybe that should be switched around a bit. Put it in any order you want.

An evolutionary explanation has to show its work. That's why it's harder to do, and harder to understand.

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so?

Look at it this way. If you are wrong, then you are wrong for the right reasons.

Ethically speaking, that is better than being right for the wrong ones. Any God worth anything would have to recognize that.

Posted by: makyui | September 4, 2010 3:01 PM

EvolutionSkeptic:

If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved?

This is thought to be one of the side effects of evolving as social animals. It's much easier to get along with your social group, and more benefit is gleaned from it, if you have empathy.

Wolves and dogs have empathy (and dogs have more empathy towards humans than wolves do), bonobos have empathy...

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so?

Even as a Christian, there are an infinite number of ways that you could be wrong, since there are an infinite number of "what if" possibilities for supernatural entities. Katherine's Ebola Manticore is a good example. :)

Atheism and agnosticism aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Everyone is agnostic when it comes to supernatural stuff, because there's no way of knowing anything about things that we can't examine.

Atheism just means that you don't believe. It doesn't necessarily mean that you know for a fact that gods don't exist. Some atheists do believe that no gods exist, but it's not necessary in order to be an atheist.

Posted by: Midnight Rambler | September 4, 2010 3:02 PM

EvolutionSkeptic:

But I thought he seemed very measured in his comments. Confident and straight-forward, but measured and calm. I wonder where this "strident" notion comes from. Have these people actually read his books or listened to him speak?

Posted by: Rincewind'smuse | September 4, 2010 3:07 PM

And can I just say how wonderfully undickish PZ's post and all 160+ ensuing comments have been? I love you guys.

Posted by: a.human.ape | September 4, 2010 3:11 PM

For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

You were brainwashed, but you decided to grow up, educate yourself, and face facts. Congratulations. You had what it takes to recover from the mental child abuse you endured. Unlike most Christians, you're not an idiot.

If you have a mother as god-soaked as my mother was, I suggest you should be very gentle when you tell her that you're not going to waste the rest of your life living in a bullshit fantasy world. Remember that Christianity is a mental illness, and if you're not careful the people who have this usually-incurable disease can become even more deranged if they find out they were not able to successfully brainwash their own children.

Just be grateful you're not from a Muslim family, because you would be risking your life if they found out you threw out their terrorist organization.

-- Human Ape

Posted by: Prometheus | September 4, 2010 3:14 PM

"If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved? Dawkins and Coyne may have addressed this, but it was a lot of reading... But empathy seems like a more difficult concept for me to grasp within the context of evolutionary change."
Things that help that help your tribe to survive help you to survive (and have potential mates) which increases your reproductive fitness and your immediate kin will also pass on your genes. So anything for the greater good of your family or friends is evolutionarily selected for. So altruism evolved in the context of people you recognize as "one of you" - we see that the only way we can get people to be brutal to another is to get them to consider another human as inhuman.

I can see the intangibility things is bothering you - intangible things are system of tangible things. If you just look at the parts of a system (say a gear of a machine) it doesn't seem to have the properties you need (like turning), but the arrangement operates as a coherent concept. Similarly we can have ideas like "free markets" and sports games and love triangles and empathy without coming up with transparent blue soul-stuff needed to hold it all together.

"And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way."

I had the same problem when I first lost my faith. I responded by delving into the God Debate in attempts to save my own - the actual result was instead to solidify my atheism. But how would one go about supposing one was wrong? What does that even mean? The best approach I can think of is to be very open and direct about your opinions on God - if you are inadvertently speaking a load of bull someone will call you on it and you will know what to research - on the other hand, if you are exactly right people will appreciate the insight into something they themselves may have spent a lot of time in confusion about.

Is it possible to obey a command to believe something? I don't think so. You can say something that someone else wants you to, but they cannot make you believe it. Contrary to what you might hear, fear of hellfire cannot make you a believe for whom hellfire would no fear.

There is also an infinite number of unlikely punishments to fear. Consider Zod who punishes you for things God would reward you for and rewards you for things Gould would punish. You don't want to be wrong with Zod do you? All these unlikely Gods cancel each other out and the only thing that sticks out are actions that you genuinely have a reason to do without appealing to God. That is, all those nice secular morality concepts we talked about.

Hopefully that convinces you that skeptic groups are pretty good about explaining their positions to outsiders and the appreciate the fresh breath of air that comes with someone genuinely interested in learning something new. See if you can find a physically-located skeptic group as well. Universities usually have one as well as major cities. Check meetup.com and look for bases of national organizations like Center for Inquiry, who might also know what other groups are in your area.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/L_gXzcoxjp7CVNPf107nBrOc6Q--#15fa2 | September 4, 2010 3:25 PM

Also, my favourite response to Pascal's Wager is: how do we know there isn't an angry god who will doom you to hell if you DO believe?

There's just as much evidence going that way.

Posted by: Hank Fox | September 4, 2010 3:32 PM

EvolutionSkeptic, one more thing: If you read the responses here, you'll find them generous, gentle and even funny.

This is far different from the acidic tone that outsiders might expect. (And man, if comments had a pH, at times here it would be close to 1.)

The difference is this: That you came in with an honest question, and approached with an open-minded, non-condescending one.

Today's kindness is what most everybody here is REALLY like. It's a true reflection of people who are intelligent, curious, independent-minded realists.

Posted by: Thorne | September 4, 2010 3:44 PM

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him.

This is the true hatefulness of religion. They WANT you to believe that this god of theirs will reject you for your disbelief. If fear is your only motivator, how can you accept that belief as genuine and good? The first step, then, is to realize that a truly moral God would not reject someone solely because of a lack of belief! Once you realize, and are comfortable, with that position, you can more readily understand that gods most likely do not exist, but that even if they did they would be irrelevant.

Posted by: Zugswang | September 4, 2010 3:48 PM

My answer to question #1:

The rules of God, as they appear in the bible (or really in any religious text, tradition, etc), have always been in a state of change. Throughout history, different denominations of Christianity have chosen to place various emphases on the many guidelines, rules, etc. (following some rigidly, and completely ignoring others) as they appear in the bible, and as are dictated to them by those they recognize as religious officials, whether that be a pope, pastor, monk, etc. Additionally, the bible doesn’t have direct answers to many things, and in fact, philosophers throughout time have attempted to answer many of the questions that the bible doesn’t directly address. The first that comes to mind is Marsilio Ficino's treatise on the immortality of the soul. This natural immortality of the soul was only adopted as dogma by the Catholic Church sometime in the early 1500’s, and continues today in many Christian traditions. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that the so-called laws of God are really laws made by man, and man created the idea of god as an incentive for others to follow those laws.

God isn't the only authority figure in your life. The truth is, we always have authority figures that, to some extent, shape the way we see the world around us – some we don’t necessarily choose, like our parents and the community in which we are raised (speaking more generally), to people we naturally gravitate towards, such as teachers, peers, and role models. As we grow up, we look to these figures for guidance, either consciously or unconsciously. However, there is a stage in many peoples’ lives where they no longer look to these individuals entirely, but have more independence in shaping their worldview.

I was raised Catholic, and as a younger man, I strongly believed in God and the divinity of Jesus, the pope’s divine authority, all that stuff. As I grew older, though, I began to see glaring contradictions in what was preached and what was practiced, and it was very unsettling. I began to see people who invoked the name of God as a mere excuse to justify their actions, so I left, quietly, but I still felt a sense of unease. I still thought there was a higher power, and began to aggressively study other religions and philosophies, initially being drawn to Baha’i, and eventually gravitating towards Buddhism. It was my time studying Buddhism that really showed me that a meaningful life can exist in the absence of the supernatural. My future studies of various philosophers, both religious and secular, taught me a lot. There are many virtues that every society holds highly, but more than that, I gained a knowledge that I’d lacked: I could defend my worldview and actually explain to people why this is good, this is bad, this is gray, this is black and white, beyond, “because X said it”.

Your beliefs are shaped by various guides throughout your life, as are all of our beliefs, but there’s a point in many of our lives where we begin to guide ourselves, whether we believe in God or not. I think many religious individuals do this, but many who hold beliefs that are ultimately indefensible will use the concept of God as a scapegoat to mask their own responsibility.
==================================================
My answer to question #2:

It was very difficult for me, especially because my father was a devout Catholic, and I was going to a Catholic high school at the time. During my period of uncertainty, I still attended mass, but I didn’t really pay attention any more. I just went through the motions, really. My dad never forced me to church, though he did expect me to participate in Lent, Advent, Christmas, and Easter. Every week, if I was up at 8AM, I was going to mass. If I wasn’t there, he went without me. After a while, I completely stopped going to church. I suspect he was initially disappointed, and he occasionally mocked my beliefs, believing it to be a mere juvenile phase. However, my father has always been a parent first and a Catholic second, as ANY good parent should be. He has always been supportive of me, and I think is quietly taking his own road to atheism. He’s confided in me several times that he really only goes to church anymore because he doesn’t want to upset his mother. And really, my grandmother doesn’t seem all that surprised that I’m an atheist. I think that she’s pretty much behind the whole Vatican II idea that good people can go to heaven, not just good Catholics.
The real trial was high school. I didn’t have many friends, having recently moved to Louisville, and making my disbelief known didn’t help. I was treated with hostility by students, teachers, and administrators. I was even threatened with expulsion for not being a Christian, although we had several Jewish students at the school, as well. I was given detention for not “adequately participating” in mandatory masses, I was forced to sign false paperwork identifying myself as a Christian by administrators to avoid expulsion (this school that had pulled the same stunt with a Muslim student several years before me. Even more sinister, this boy had no parents, and they made some bullshit excuse that since he didn’t have any legal guardian he couldn’t go to school there. One teacher stood up and became his legal guardian, but after 3 years, the student chose to finish his senior year at a public school because of the constant harassment).

Ultimately, the harassment I received at school only made me more certain of my beliefs. I went to school with a lot of people who were quick to quote the bible and summarily ignore the same passage by way of their actions. The school still has the audacity to send me solicitations for money, and every year, I send the same politely worded letter explaining how I was treated and that I will never send money to that school. But they still send solicitations, and I still use their pre-paid envelopes to send my reply in the hope that eventually they’ll stop sending me requests for money.

It was difficult in some respects, slightly annoying in others, but I think if someone bases their view of me solely on whether I’m a member of their church or not, those are the kind of shallow people I don’t want to be around.
The transition from belief to non-belief isn’t a walk in the park. In my case, the hardest thing to come to terms with was the desire to find some supernatural guiding principle, and the disappointment of never finding anything. It took a while before I came to even consider the idea that God was just some made up character in a very old story book, because until that point, my entire world was built around the idea that God, in some sense, existed, and it was that existence that gave life meaning. I have to say though, I feel way more comfortable with my beliefs now than I ever did during the Catholic years.

Enjoy the journey as much as you can. You will learn a lot in your endeavors, so make the most of it.

Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives | September 4, 2010 3:55 PM

So many fantastic answers! I think 1. has been adequately covered and I couldn't add much to it, so I'll just chime in on the other things.

There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him.

So don't push it. Let your feelings be. There are plenty of people who believe in every bit of science and also a God. And there are people who are Deists. And there are people who say they don't know. And there are people who are atheists. There's no reason to force yourself into a specific decision right now. I lost my faith, but it took years of bits of it slowly falling away, one by one. It was a long time before I realized there was nothing left. For me, there was never a specific moment when I said "No, I cannot believe now, I have decided." There was just losing this belief, and realizing this one was factually wrong, and that one was something I disagreed with, etc. At some point I went looking for it (as it were) and saw that there weren't any beliefs left. It was in many ways the exact opposite of my (and the conventional) conversion experience lighting bolt from the sky feeling.

As for family, many people have already discussed this too, but there isn't necessarily a reason to go and loudly declare your loss of faith to everyone you know. What you believe is a private thing, and nobody's business. It depends on how close you are to your family how much of it eventually comes out. My spouse knows, but I've chosen not to tell my family for several reasons. One was to keep them from worrying; I know that they would be afraid for my soul. The other is more practical; my spouse is a believer, and I refuse to put him in a position of having to defend me. I know how much the church pities those who are unequally yoked, and he shouldn't have to put up with that kind of treatment. I'm to the point now that I'm not overly careful to hide my opinions, but I still haven't been direct in atheism.
Also, one other tip: don't be afraid to be around former church friends. This will sound weird to anyone who hasn't been in that situation, but at first there's almost a shameful feeling, like you're doing something wrong and hiding from it. Don't. There is nothing wrong with not agreeing with their beliefs, period. It's nothing to be ashamed of. They think it is, of course, which is exactly why you shouldn't acquiesce and act like they're right when you're around them; it just encourages them to think that you'll come around eventually. I ran into my former pastor a year or so after I finally quit going to church and almost ducked around to not encounter him, then realized that made it look like I knew I was a bad person who should be at church and didn't want to get into trouble. So instead I walked right up and brightly said hello, proceeding to make normal small talk. He actually physically recoiled a bit - he had no idea how to deal with a backslider who was entirely unrepentant about it. I was surprised how fast he withered in the face of someone who was being obviously happy without church, and it was right then I realized I had nothing left to fear about the fear of God. It was a good feeling.

Posted by: iopha | September 4, 2010 4:02 PM

Perhaps the moral rules of the Bible are vestiges of earlier civilization, and we'd have them regardless. This is sort of a difficult concept for me to get my head around, but I'm trying.

Dan Dennett once wrote that it would be a far greater loss to humanity if Shakespeare had never existed than if Newton had never existed. Why? Well, Shakespeare's plays could only have been written by him: they reflected idiosyncrasies of style and history, taste and education. But the laws of motion don't reflect Newtonian idiosyncrasies—if someone else had set out to figure them out, they would have been the same. There's only one way Newtonian mechanics could work (and many, many ways to write plays).

If things like 'the golden rule' have been independently discovered and re-discovered across the ages, by different tribes, peoples, and cultures, the best explanation is that some really basic facts about morality are 'Newtonian' and not 'Shakespearean', i.e., they are available to any careful, rational thinker.

I don't mean to deny 'Shakespearean' aspects to morality. Clearly, we need to explain huge differences in moral codes across cultures and times. We can account for this in a few different ways.

For one, people just get things wrong, even despite their best efforts, for the usual reasons. For one thing, it's a huge luxury to be able and allowed to think abstractly at all, and an even greater one to have a society in which the results of careful reflection are taken seriously. There's a tendency to inertia that reflects well-taken evolutionary caution: this set of rules has worked so far, and messing with it invites doom. There are always many, many more ways to be wrong than right. This is the basic insight of conservatism; in its pathological aspect, it entails rejection of change just because it is change.

A second reason might be that there's a distinction between actually basic moral truths and 'superstructural' additions that can vary. For example, given any situation, there might be many things that are in fact good to do, not just one. If someone is in distress, it might in fact be equally good to comfort them directly or seek help; if you want to make someone happy, it might be equally good to get them a nice present or help with chores around the house. Specific situations might license one over the other, but it's certainly possible both are equally good in some circumstance. Given a common foundation, there might be many ways to implement the rules in concrete, day to day cases.

A third reason is simply that morality isn't always rational. We live in self-reflective times (because we can afford to). Martha Nussbaum has argued persuasively that our sense of 'disgust' gets tied in with morality and we come to make erroneous moral judgements as a result, for instance in condemnations of homosexuality:

I use the term "projective disgust" to characterize the disgust that many people feel when they imagine gay sex acts. What does that term mean, and to whom does it apply? The view I develop, on the basis of recent psychological research, is that projective disgust has its origin in a discomfort with one's own body and its messier animal aspects, including sexuality, and that, in a defense mechanism, disgust is then projected outward onto vulnerable groups who are characterized as hyperphysical and hypersexual. In this way, the uncomfortable people displace their discomfort onto others, who are then targeted for various forms of social discrimination.

Eliminating these kinds of biases takes careful rational deliberation; and they are not different from any other cognitive biasing factors that affect our memory or logical processing abilities. We've known for a long time that the way in which a question is framed, or the order in which questions are asked, can significantly affect how we think. Why should it be any different for moral judgements? It takes care and caution to disentangle genuine moral judgements from biased responses and the like.

That this process is ongoing is evident; it also requires certain enabling conditions, like having a society rich enough to have such pursuits at all, and stable enough to permit experimentation. A bronze-age tribe has a 'different morality' in part because the surrounding conditions were different, yes. But once again, I would point to the counterfactual scenarios: namely, that under ideal conditions, the scope of moral 'empathy' would increase to include non-tribal members, and that generally everyone wishes for ideal conditions.

This is not to say there is, in the end, only one ideal and homogeneous society. Culture is not morality. But if the good is rational, then it is more Newtonian than not (and I can defend this further if pressed by the pharyngulate hordes).

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved?

I don't see it as any more complicated that our ability to spatially locate the origin of sounds. That's a very complex computational process that in part uses the differential in time between a sound reaching our left and right ears. You are not aware of the mathematics involved, but it's happening! Likewise, 'simulating' another mind is a useful talent to have, and it might be as easy as having some mirror neurons.

The scary thought about all this reductive, materialist talk might be that, if evolution had gone differently, and for whatever reason it turned out evolutionary advantageous to rape, murder, and steal, then it would be "good" to do all these things: we've replaced the capriciousness of God making rules up with that of evolution. But surely we'd be horrified at a society of rapists and murderers! Surely they are wrong! Two responses, one poor, one better; I'll start with the poor one because it leads to the good one.

The Poor Response: Well, that's just the way it is. As it happens, we have evolutionary dispositions to cooperation, so that's what we think is good, and for societies on other planets (or whatever) with different histories, other things are good.

It's a poor response in part because dispositions don't have final say. For example, Dawkins points out that sexual dimorphism is linked to polygamy in animals. Humans are sexually dimorphic: generally, males are bigger than females. Ergo, chances are, our ancestors were polygamous. Therefore... polygamy is good? Well... no! We just can't get that ought from that is. Moreover, there's a context aspect (societies which permitted wealth stratification are likelier polygamous), there's a rational aspect (in a cooperative society, each male with more than one wife equals a male with no wife), there's a consensual aspect, and so on.

There's also the very real possibility that empathetic, cooperative, genuine 'good' just falls out naturally of certain complex social arrangements. In other words, there is no possible planet where murder is 'good', because no possible species anything at all like our own could have survived. By 'like our own' we can mean something quite wide: it could very well turn out that 'Newtonian Goodness' is a condition for any intelligent life whatsoever. (An argument might be that knowledge-acquisition is cumulative, hence cooperative; no individual agent can increase in intelligence in social isolation; indeed, one can pretty much directly correlate 'Newtonian Goodness' with increasing sophistication of knowledge and science). This is all very sketchy, but the point is, there are ways to block forms of Nasty Reductionism if one is uncomfortable with such things.

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him. Yes, I do get this is basically Pascal's Wager, but it admittedly gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time getting around it.

Pascal's Wager is interesting. Here's my take.

A few days ago I ran my 'standard' moral line on the defensibility of atheism on an internet message board: namely, that if my lack of religion is motivated by a honest appraisal of evidence, without malice aforethought, no just God would punish me for what I would admit was a mistake.

Most people have the deeply-rooted moral intuition that honest mistakes do not deserve severe, let alone eternal, punuishment. I ask them to consider the possibility of "honest atheism," that is, non-belief that is a result of careful reflection, so that error is possible, but not obviously morally problematic. Quite naturally, the theist must deny this possibility.

This was the move made by a commenter on the message board: namely, that all atheism is necessarily motivated by a prior hatred of God, so that the denial of its existence is a kind of 'false consciousness' where, 'deep down', the alleged non-believer *knows* there is a God, but chooses to deny it in public for malicious and evil reasons.

(Why bother? To lead others astray? But others can't be led astray: if they are convinced by the Malicious Atheist, then they become Malicious Atheists too, since there are no Honestly Mistaken Atheists! There cannot be Honestly Mistaken Atheists, since this would mean a just God punishes fallible, frail, epistemically limited mortals eternally for chosing the "wrong" religion, or none at all, which is in large part a question of moral luck!)

In other words, in order to stave off the cognitive dissonance engendered by the morally problematic consequences of Honestly Mistaken Atheism, the theist must make either of two, not particularly plausible moves:

(1) Affirm that it is impossible for anyone who seriously considers the evidence to come to any other position than their own;

(2) Grant that a just God would give the Honestly Mistaken a chance to repent in the afterlife, obviating the threat of Hell.

Of course, they could just say that it is good to torture someone forever because they made a mistake. But this is kind of nuts, and in any event, I wouldn't worship a torturer just because, if I didn't, he would torture me! Clearly, if I'm wrong, I will have a chance to repent, and if I don't, then God is not good, since it cannot be good to torture mortals for innocent mistakes.

Therefore, I am not motivated by Pascal's Wager. Either I will not be tortured eternally, or if I am, it is no God worthy of worship and adoration.

Posted by: GravityIsJustATheory | September 4, 2010 4:11 PM

As a more general answer to "why are people moral in the absense of god(s)", rather than the specific "where does my morality come from", consider this?

Would you want to live in a society where people were free and willing to rob, rape, murder, kill, etc?

I would say no, and neither would most people in the world. Hence just about every society in history has developed rules against such behaviour. (Or at least, not do do such things to other members of that society. Even the people like the Vikings and the Mongols had laws to prevent them raiding and pillaging their own people. I think a big part of the development of moral thought has been the gradual expansion of who is considered "us", and reducing the number of exceptions to "treat others as you would want to be treated").

Now, personally, my morality used to be based on a rather haphazard combination of Christianity (mainly standard CofE), Utilitarianism, and naiive shool-boy left-wing politics. I realized some of the flaws in and became dissolutioned with all these at roughly the same time, and had to find a replacement.

This took some time, and involved a few mistakes, including adopting a measure of right-wing libertarianism, as a result of abandoned some of the good Biblical rules, before realising that they were necessary for a fair and above all functioning society. [1]

I'd say my morality is primarily based on a combination of the Golden Rule, the notion that the same rights and rules should apply to everyone, and the better aspects of libertarianism[2] (i.e. scepticism of authority, the belief that - as much as possible - people shold be free to live their lives as they like as long as they are not harming other, but without the silly and socially destructive bits like "OMG Coercion! Tax is forced labour!)

As for the question "how did your family take it", in my case it was pretty unproblematic. My father is (or at least was, or so I thought) and atheist, and my mother is a pretty liberal Anglican. One time I was a visiting them and found a copy of Hitchen's "God is not Good" lying around, which led to a conversation with my mother in which I found out my father wasn't (or no longer was) an atheist (my mum had been quite ill, and my day had been at the local minsterpraying for her), and I admited that now I was one.
We had a bit of a discussion about what I stopped believing, and my mum seemed slightly sad I didn't believe any more, but then we got on to talking about other things, and apart from that conversation it never came up again an nothing about or relationship changed in the slightest.

[1] As an aside, I think this points to one of the big problems with religion-based morality: rules are based primarily on "what God says", rather than why they may be beneficial.

[2] I know those ideas aren't exclusive to libertariansim, but as both "liberalism" and "libertarianism" tend to have implications beyond that I'm not sure what the best way of describing them would be.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 4, 2010 4:25 PM

Why do I only ever seem to make formatting mistakes on the few occasions when I don't use preview?

Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie | September 4, 2010 4:28 PM

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him. Yes, I do get this is basically Pascal's Wager, but it admittedly gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time getting around it.

First, about the Abrahamic god, we do have enough information to dismiss his existence. Some research into the origins and history of Judaism, Christianity, and the writing and compilation of the biblical texts will illustrate this quite clearly. Also, you already know that the people who wrote the myths and histories contained in the bible had no special access to true data--if they had, they wouldn't have gotten the whole creation thing wrong (that's just for starters). With our current scientific and historical knowledge, we can safely dismiss the existence of all "mythical" gods (e.g. Zeus, Yahweh, Kali, Raven). So we are left with the "philosophical" gods (e.g. Plato's One, the Logos, the Watchmaker of Deism, the Divine Universe of Pantheism etc.). Now the question becomes how do we know, if any of those gods exist, what he/she/it would want from us, if anything at all? If there is a judgement to be made (to what purpose one could only speculate), what are the criteria to be? There is no way to know. There is no book of scripture, no program downloaded into our brains, no blinking message in the stars, no direct telepathic link. So, there's no point worrying about it, fearing that you'll get it wrong. Just live your life the way you feel is worthy of yourself. That's the only judge that really counts. If some other judgement comes later, that's going to happen anyway. (But again, don't give the imaginary Christian god another moment of consideration!)

Again, thanks so much for the thoughtful replies. I'm unworthy of the attention, but it's a great help.

Who could be more worthy than you?

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnWmw4PfBZPGEqpRfOQ_Lrust7vUQGbOAA | September 4, 2010 4:33 PM

1. I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I'm always surprised that religious people assume that because we don't believe in god that there's no reason to be moral and live within the societal rules. We want the world to be a good place, and we have no desire to go around hurting people. I try to be good to people, I don't go around violating other people's rights or property. It's not in my nature to be hurtful. I don't need a supernatural entity holding eternal punishment over my head to force me to do what's right. Even without religion we learn fairly early what society expects of us, and we try to live accordingly. I wasn't raised to believe, so I had a head start on it. I was raised to be nonjudgmental, to consider all people on the same level without regard to race, and to be open minded when it came to religion. I investigated almost all religions when I was younger, and by the time I was 30 I realized that I wanted to remain culturally Jewish, but to be a Humanist.

Posted by: Joe Bloe | September 4, 2010 4:46 PM

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible?

What is moral and upstanding about a god who orders death for adultery, death for disobedient children, death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath? Anyone who spends any part of their life accepting that crap has no right to claim the high moral ground.

Ah, but that was OT law. Jesus changed all that in the NT...

No he bloody didn't. He said he came not to bring peace but the sword. He said his followers must hate their own family. He told his disciples to arm themselves with swords - and Peter used his sword to cut off a man's ear.

Who killed Ananias and Sapphira when they decided not to give all of their money to the church? (hint: it wasn't an atheist)

And in Mark 16:16 (KJV) Jesus shows a distinct lack of morality when he says we should believe or be damned!

Some half-baked Christian reads all of those stories, accepts them, agrees with them - and then wants to know how an atheist could be motivated to "live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible". Just a tad pretentious...

You should be asking yourself how you could have been been motivated to live a moral, upstanding life WITH the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible.

Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right | September 4, 2010 5:10 PM

A couple of things:

* The invasive, genocidal history of the Israelites did not happen. Recent archaeological evidence shows that their culture developed where they lived. The native pastoralists then made up a glorious history of God-guided conquest to legitimize their claim to the land.

* Social primates beg and give, trade grooming, enjoy each other's company. They have alliances, where two or three friends will support each other and thus remain at the top of the social rankings. They love their children or parents and can die of grief. They are smart enough to trick each other by hiding food, pretending to have food while moving away from the real food, or giving false alarms to create a diversion. In laboratory experiments, monkeys get indignant if another monkey gets a bigger reward for the same task and will go "on strike." With that kind of repertoire it's relatively easy to see the roots of empathy and justice as well as cheating and politics.

* If there is no heaven and no divine punishment, it's even more important to personally make amends to those we've wronged, to admit it and repair the damage. That is more demanding than just asking a celestial judge to forgive us.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 4, 2010 5:20 PM

Two hundred plus posts in less than seven hours. Not bad. And the truly just snarky posts are in the single digits. That is all.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | September 4, 2010 5:24 PM

ES, something to consider:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.

Attributed to Marcus Aurelius.

The god of the bible has a hell of a lot to answer for in my estimation. When I die, if all that nonsense did turn out to be true, boy, would I ever have questions for the entity known as god. Lots of questions. Probably a whole lot of choice words, too. I certainly wouldn't want to spend time with it/him/her/whatever, let alone fall on my knees.

Posted by: vincit omnia veritas | September 4, 2010 5:38 PM

1) I think that's been covered.
2) As a gay atheist, I have found coming out as an atheist to be much easier, but very similar to coming out as gay. Although, it really depends on the attitudes of your community and loved ones. Either way, I believe it is *always* better to live honestly and openly.

If you lose family/friends along the way, so be it. If they reject you for something as superficial as your religious beliefs, or your sexuality, they were not worth loving, or being loved by in the first place. It is better to move on and develop new relationships with people who accept you for who are. Do not ever believe that you have to deceive people about who you are in order to be loved. It's not true, and it will turn you into a lonely, psychologically damaged shell of a person.

Posted by: Kyle N | September 4, 2010 5:43 PM

- For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? I was born into a Mormon household, first of three children. We were all raised such that, if we didn't want to go to church, we'd better be sick as dogs bordering on death or risk punishment of the here-and-now kind, not necessarily the hereafter kind. I had no choice but to get baptized when I was 8 years old. I was told nothing beforehand about what was involved in temple ritual. I did it only to help my Dad out after my Mom died. Last month of this year, I filed to have my records removed from the Church. on 27 August, the removal was official. I have told my father nothing about this. Then again, in addition to being an atheist, I'm a female-to-male transsexual and interested in dating men, so, technically, gay. I don't talk to my father at all as a result of all this. I would love to be able to, however; he and I formed a strong connection after my mother's death and that is something I really and truly wish I could have back. But because he's bought all the memes and hatred his conservative, Southern, Mormon beliefs dish out, I can't even talk to my Dad. I "reconcile" my lack-of-faith with the fact that I can't talk to my only living parent. This is the way it's got to be, even though it tears me up.

- How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Fortunately, I live alone and support myself. I have no authority figures to answer to anymore about my non-attendance in church. I would like to find a community in which to fellowship, but I don't have a lot of options right now. My suggestion is, if you are a minor or are still dependent on your family for support in any way, knowing that these are hard times, just suck it up. Keep going to church. Once you're out on your own, you get to make your own rules and if that means sleeping in on Sunday or getting up early and attending services, then you get to make that decision for yourself.

- Did you lose friends/family in your process of change? Read my reply to the first question. I count not talking to my Dad a very big loss. My father isn't involved in my life, even though I want him to be in some ways. At least my mother is dead; I don't risk offending her or feeling the wrath of her judgment for being who I am. She's no longer here to do that to me. My Dad is. Likewise, I have many conservative and religious family members and family friends on the East Coast (I live in Seattle) that have expressed a desire to reconnect with me through Facebook and email, but I dare not. Even if I did find someone in that group who could accept my transgender status, my homosexuality and my atheism, there's no guarantee that this knowledge won't get out to other family members who will make it a point to let me know, via harrassment, what they think and where I'll be going after I die.

For me, at least, the path of atheism is not the easiest, but it's been the most honest. I can rest easier knowing I'm not making up excuses for the bad behavior of some entity in the sky who's supposedly perfect. (I mean, how effed up would he have to be to make someone like me?)

Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third | September 4, 2010 5:50 PM

So many other folks here have answered your queries far better then I could ever hope to do but that said here we go...
As an atheist the morality question I deal with pretty much as has been suggested already...
I have a secondary failsafe though.

I look in the mirror every morning...if it does not upset me to gaze upon my countenance then I suggest that my personal morality is intact...and has been for at least for the last 24 hours ;-)

So if you look in a mirror and find holding your own gaze is not a problem...you are living as well and as moral as you can.

Second question is difficult...
Honesty is recommended but that must be your call and in your own words.
You are in the best situation to asses the likely fallout.
And it is yours to choose the actual timing of any declaration or statement.
Don't be rushed...but do not procrastinate either.
And be proud of your final decision on this matter, it is your life not your parents, friends or relatives...you are important to yourself for you will have to live with yourself for the rest of your life.

I was very lucky in that I have never ever felt the need, or indeed had the social pressure to have such a need for religion of any description.

My close family were not that way inclined either.
And my schools were not overly insistent on the faith side.
It was a choice open to everyone and those that followed a faith were following by only the insistence of their parents...and they were few.
But I can only admire and applaud those that find the religious view, that has been the bedrock of their existence for so long, has far more questions then answers.
They are the brave and courageous ones, I fully accept it must be very difficult...but ultimately not impossible!

I quite like Desiderata

But each to their own!

Posted by: itsgood2bchildfree | September 4, 2010 5:58 PM

This is always a question involving a double standard: teabaggers feel free to protest as much as they want when the president is black and Democrat. Where were they when the president was white and Republican, who was leading the United States into disaster in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and the housing bubble?

"EvolutionSkeptic" will NEVER accept rational answers to his questions, no matter how well reasoned and backed up with facts the answers are. He is pre-emptively prejudiced against atheists. I can tell him "it's good to be good, because it's good for everybody" until I'm blue in the face, and it won't change his mind, because he has unconditionally embraced the totalitarian nature of his religion, the "obey or suffer in hell" edict from his imaginary god. Atheists are morally flawed as people because they don't worship my god.

"EvolutionSkeptic" can't accept a reasonable answer because it upsets his hard-won faith, much like party members in 1984 must convince themselves that 2+2=5 because Big Brother says so, under pain of re-education and eventually death (along the way losing your self-identity, so you can't self-identify as a martyr.)

The double standard is that "EvolutionSkeptic" chooses not to take the hot poker of skepticism to his own beliefs that he freely does to atheists'. He has the backing of the multi-billion dollar union of religion and politics in the United States (just research how the LDS church fought to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry in California), so he can feel comfortable that he is in the majority. He feels we are obligated to nursemaid him through the process, just so in the end he'll tell us all our efforts were in vain because of his "faith", thereby feeling that he has won some sort of victory.

I won't get into specifics into why I'm an atheist. No matter how many arguments I make, "EvolutionSkeptic" is not prepared to change his mind if the evidence allows, and that's why I won't argue.

Posted by: reeddlh | September 4, 2010 6:00 PM

Since I followed my own rule of not commenting until I had read all comments in a thread, I don't have much to add, except this: I really believe that now is a good time to be going through this process.

Thanks to the Gnu Atheist movement, there is a place to go to to ask the questions you are asking. There is more support and information than you can possibly avail yourself of, even if you conducted your quest full time. I started this process more than 50 years ago, and it was a very lonely process indeed.

Now, I am really having more fun being an atheist than I thought possible. To top it off, a few weeks ago I was staying with my 91 and 92 yo parents while my sister took a week off, and I had a long conversation with my father, who now tells me he is an atheist, and that he remembers the time in high school that I was feverishly reading the bible. He says he knew where that would lead me, and he remembers noticing when the time came that I considered myself godless, even though I didn't start making noise about it until I was in college. My mother is still sort of a believer, but mostly in her own versions of how things "ought" to be.

That whole conversation made both of us laugh. I'm old, and he is even older, and the sharing of this old stuff was fun.

Posted by: Porco Dio | September 4, 2010 6:01 PM

1) god/jesus/bible do not have much to say about morality... in fact, they are positively immoral by 21st century standards...

a 5 year old could concoct a more generous and applicable version of the ten commandments... aesop and the brothers grimm have as much to say as the bible on the issue of morality...

and these are just fairy tales.... just like the bible... one big fairy tale... and the bible is actually more of a horror story than a fairy tale...

the world has advances alot since aesop, grimm and the bible so why not move forward with it?

read the works of modern philosophers and/or the smart people among us that can distil their work into an understandable format with new and interesting arguments and examples...

the bible is not needed for morality and anyone who thinks it is is an insult to the creator (tongue firmly planted in cheek there)

Posted by: Dahan | September 4, 2010 6:11 PM

Many people have given answers to the first question, so I'll only address the second on.

I come from a very religious family and have many religious friends. Many people in my family are very disappointed in me and some just bury their heads in the sand and tell me or others that I'm not REALLY an atheist. Lol!

I've still been accepted though. Disappointed or not, my family believes in sticking together.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | September 4, 2010 6:19 PM

I wasn't raised Christian (attended liberal protestant scripture classes in school but that was it), so I've never really had to lose that Christian perspective then build it back up. So I'm not sure of I can be of any help, but here it goes...

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

Really it should be a no-brainer. Almost all of us are wired with a moral engine, studies have shown that even babies can exhibit this. Between this and an intellectual understanding of consequences (if you have a fear of an out-group for example but they are part of the society you live in, being hostile to them isn't really in your own self-interests), it's really not hard to live something of a moral life. Many of the things that are ascribed to particular cultures or dogmas really are human universals codified.

The inverse question is that is losing those beliefs tantamount to losing your sense of morality? Are you going to treat your family and friends any differently? Are you going to change how you interact in social settings and how you treat others? In other words, was your only motivation to do "good" was because your religion commanded you to? If not, then you already have within you the answer to this question.

Posted by: Sid | September 4, 2010 6:32 PM

On the off chance you actually do read through 200+ reasons to be good, here is my take.

1. I understand the concern that if "goodness" is not built on something immediately external and concrete, it may evaporate, and we could fall into a selfish distopia. However, THE VERY FACT THAT YOU AND NEARLY EVERYONE ELSE COMING OUT OF FAITH ASKS THIS QUESTION GIVES THE LIE TO THE CONCNERN BEHIND IT. If a god was the only motivation for your morality, this question would not concern you. We evolved as social creatures with an innate "biological leash"; a moral sense that is apparent in small children, mostly independent of culture and upbringing. Traces of this sense can even be found in other animals.

So to be trite, virtue is its own reward. This truth is self evident and does not need a mechanism behind it to be valid. However, knowing how this moral sense came to be is interesting and informs how we can bring out the best in ourselves. Evolutionary mechanisms provide a very satisfying and useful explaination, which I won't go into here for the sake of space.

I'd also recomend Sam Harris's talk at TED about the moral landscape. (Sorry, I don't have a link at the moment, but a google video or youtube search will bring it up. It is a very popular presentation.)

2. My mom's a hippie xtian and my dad is an atheist. I'm the token outspoken atheist and have several good christain friends. It makes for very interesting conversations.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | September 4, 2010 6:42 PM

@itsgood2bchildfree,
That was helpful. Learn to read or get back under the bridge.

If you had half the intellectual honesty that Evolution Skeptic has exhibited in their posts you would be ashamed to have even written that mess. The fact that you posted that inflamatory, inaccurate screed guarantees that you are either sickly delusional or deliberately inciteful.

Posted by: GfA | September 4, 2010 6:46 PM

1) Is easy. Just let go. You might feel you are hanging from a tree branch 100 ft in the air, but your toes are 1 inch from the ground.

2) Will be far trickier. Try 1) for a few months, then try hinting your doubt to your best friends. It will be a good way of testing if they are really friends, or not!

Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | September 4, 2010 6:54 PM

itsgood2bchildfree @ 213;

I see no basis for your assumption that EvolutionSkeptic is not acting in good faith. All indications are that he or she is here asking for an explanation of the concepts behind non-theistic morality as he or she undergos the very difficult process of honestly re-evaluating beliefs have been earnestly held for years. It is no easy thing to abandon the comfort of the seeming certainty offered by religion in order to rationally reassess your life.

Frankly, jumping down EvolutionSkeptic's throat for asking entirely legitimate questions in order to sate your apparent need to vent your indignation in neither helpful nor reasonable. If you have no intention of making a constructive contribution to this discussion, then may I suggest that you take your accusatory rantings elsewhere?

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | September 4, 2010 6:59 PM

Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged. You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become? ~Terry Pratchett Atheist author of some note

Posted by: Deen | September 4, 2010 7:13 PM

@EvolutionSkeptic in #137:

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so?

Now suppose for a second you are wrong, and a loving forgiving God does exist. Will he really punish you for this? Would it really be fair to be punished for this? Especially for eternity? If God would punish you for simply following your conscience as best as you could, he's not worth your devotion. He'd not be much of a moral guide either. And if he wouldn't punish you, then Pascal's Wager becomes moot.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | September 4, 2010 7:17 PM

As an aside, well done EvolutionSkeptic (I do remember when you came on here) for following it up and looking into the topic more deeply.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/sM_Gcix31tU34ZhN5ibQPE8k9iNp#04998 | September 4, 2010 7:36 PM

The essence of being human:
A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed (Archbishop Desmond Tutu - 1999)

Surprisingly I stumbled upon this concept a few years ago while searching for a new operating system for my old PC. Turns out the concept fit my existing personal views and morals perfectly. I was raised xtian and sent to sunday school every week and vacation bible school every summer until I was "confirmed" at age 13. At that point my mother let church attendance be my choice. Except for weddings and funerals, I have never stepped foot in a church since. I don't think I really ever believed.
Apparently I was a skeptic at an early age. My mother related this story to me after I explained my atheism to her (I was in my thirties at the time). She said, when I was 4 or 5, I fell and skinned my knee running across a church parking lot. She picked me up and explained that God would make everything better. I said, "Oh right, I guess he made me fall too?".

Cheers and I sincerely hope you can maintain the relationships you value the most once your "secret" is out.

By the way, Ubuntu is also the name of the most awesome open-source operating system around.

Jschmeau

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/sM_Gcix31tU34ZhN5ibQPE8k9iNp#04998 | September 4, 2010 7:40 PM

Damn, my link failed! Here it is.
The essence of being human

Jschmeau

Posted by: john.marley | September 4, 2010 7:42 PM

1. I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

Easy - "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" for a start. I admit to being a bit vindictive so "Tit for Tat" sometimes, too.

2. For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

I told them that if they have a problem, it's theirs, not mine. But I don't push the issue unless they bring it up, or do something I can't ignore.

Yes, I have lost friends and have family who will not speak to me over it.

Posted by: JediBear | September 4, 2010 7:52 PM

@#237, Ubuntu is Linux for Windows users, and as such manages neither the usability of Windows nor the power of a proper Linux distro. Friends don't let friends use Ubuntu.

Posted by: jon.richt | September 4, 2010 8:00 PM

Hi EvolutionSkeptic,

I'm not a former Christian, so I can only answer your first question. However, I have a comment that I hope you'll find helpful:

1) I live a moral life because it benefits me (on many levels) to do so. The first way involves Empathy; Like most people, I know what it's like to suffer injustice, and so I hope to minimize its effects in my life by avoiding doing injustice to others. A second way involves legality; immorality can run me afoul of the law enforcement community in some cases, and this is a good reason to follow the rules. A third way involves "productivity" - mine and that of my friends family & associates. I could lie or cheat if it benefits me, but I've found that such behavior often comes back to bite you in the arse somehow. When I get bitten, this often impacts the people I care about; if cheating somehow leads me to getting arrested, I need friends to bail me out of jail (for example). Rather than be a burden to those I care about, I strive be self-sufficient, and to have a low footprint on the life of people around me in general.

My comment: the theory of evolution says nothing about whether Gods exist. The only thing it contradicts is Creationism, the latter of which most Christians take to be allegorical rather than literal. With these things in mind, if you should somehow "convert", remember that the dogma you'll reject in the process is wholly human (not divine)

Posted by: Gordy | September 4, 2010 8:15 PM

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

If it helps, in this instance supernatural gidance is a bit like Dumbo's magic feather. You might think you need it, because you've always had it and someone told you that you needed it. Not having it might be a scary thought... But, just as Dumbo found he could fly without his magic feather, you'll find you can be good without God! Good luck :)

Posted by: Gordy | September 4, 2010 8:30 PM

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved?

Posted by: nomen-nescio.myopenid.com | September 4, 2010 8:40 PM

dozens of other people have probably answered the exact same way before, but...

my motivation for living ethically --- and for deciding what "ethically" means --- is, effectively, other people. without them there'd be no reason to, after all. the last human on earth needs no ethics; what for? i'm not that person, however, and i hold myself to standards of ethics because i am a social creature and want to live in a society of human beings.

not just because i have to live in such a society, but because i want to. that might be the difference between me and a high-functioning sociopath. if so, i am happy for it.

the "without concrete guidance" part is hard, i will admit. what of it? life is hard --- noone ever said it would be easy, not at least unless someone's been lying to you.

can't answer #2, because i was brought up apatheist. always thought church was boring and pointless.

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | September 4, 2010 8:50 PM

Jschmeau and Jedibear, would you two mind acting like adults here? This is not an appropriate thread for your idiotic OS pissing war. There is a person, EvolutionSkeptic who will be reading all these comments. So shut up, eh?

Posted by: SteveM | September 4, 2010 8:53 PM

re 246:

I'm not exactly an atheist, but I'm not not an atheist, either. Agnostic, I guess, is the best way to describe me.

No it isn't. Agnostic is not the "I haven't decided what to believe" position. That is called apathy. Agnosticism is a definite philosophy in its own right, it is not the gray area between belief (theism) and non-belief (atheism).

Anyway, thanks for sharing your story. Maybe participation here will start you thinking a little more actively about the role of theism in your life (or lack of a role) and get you out of the "I don't know" state.

Posted by: RickK | September 4, 2010 8:56 PM

EvolutionSkeptic - it's important to note that stone age tribes have codes of morality - tribes that have never been exposed to any version of the God of the Bible.

A tribe of ~100 people can communicate its moral code to new members, and can "self-police" everybody's activity, rewarding good behavior and shunning or gossiping about those who behave badly. Everybody knows everything about everybody - there are never any strangers.

When your tribe gets bigger - thousands or millions of people - then you need to write the rules down, build a police force, and deal with the fact that people can be strangers to other people. How then do you police moral behavior? Well, one way is to make up an invisible, always-watching policeman who will deal out divine punishment to anyone who strays from his laws.

But all you're ever doing is enforcing morals that were created by human society as a result of human evolution and human interaction. There's nothing divine about the moral code.

The challenge is to create a way to communicate and enforce society's moral rules without interjecting imaginary policemen. It is a hard challenge, but there MUST be a better way than inventing an omnipresent invisible judge.

Bonobo apes are vastly social and intelligent, have very complex societies, and manage to be very peaceful (as compared to the bellicose chimpanzees). The secret of the bonobos seems to be to have a LOT of sex, of all varieties. Maybe that's a better answer for humans as well. It certainly would make Sunday services more interesting.

Posted by: Enkidu | September 4, 2010 9:25 PM

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

Posted by: misterfright | September 4, 2010 9:42 PM

My first time posting here, and I only read some, but not all of the comments, so my views might have been explained better by someone before me.

Whenever I hear someone ask how I live a moral life without guidance from a magic sky person, or many other matters with religion, I think of Santa Claus.

If EvolutionSkeptic were a child (and hey, maybe they are quite young, I don't know,) what if we put their first question asking about Santa. He is this omnipotent figure that if you're good promises a reward. Maybe not in all cases, he is used by an authority figure to make them do what they want.

Thinking this way, I imagine EvolutionSkeptic saying, "...the more I read there and here... the more I worry that my faith [in Santa] may be in danger."

So what if your belief is in danger if that belief is in something that doesn't make sense.

And guess what, I'm moral (at least I like to think I am) because I empathize with other people and want other people treated nicely. And maybe I'm more moral than a religious person, because I'm being nice without any expectation of a reward when I'm dead (I certainly don't think that and am not taking any high ground, just putting the idea out there.)

Also, there were nice people before there was someone (supposedly) sauntering about that people claimed was the offspring of a deity. And there are mean people that do believe in that sort of thing that still perform heinous acts, and sometimes even say it's for that deity. So there's no reason to think someone needs outside influence to not be a jerk, or the converse that if you do have that influence that you won't be a jerk.

As far as going from Christian to atheist, I was raised Catholic and figured that stuff was silly at a young age. You're basically under the rule of your parents' thumb at a young age to go to church, but there is the Confirmation (don't remember if it was called that) where you for once make the decision to continue to believe on your own. You sit down with your parents and pastor or whatever and they ask you point-blank if you want to continue believing. And I said no.

They made some arguments that you couldn't get married under the church, or get buried by the church if you don't continue to believe how they want, but I wasn't swayed by their coercion. If I didn't believe, it didn't matter if I was married or buried by something I didn't believe.

For the most part, they didn't say anything about me not continuing to worship with them, certainly not to my younger siblings. They respected my decision, and I respected them even more right back for that.

But really, if friends or family cast you out for something like that and don't accept you, then they aren't really worth worrying about.

And for the person commenting against Ubuntu, screw you. I'm a computer scientist most at home at the command line, but use Ubuntu since it's an easy distro to deal with. And shouldn't someone advocating an open operating system be glad that there's a distro that is easy for the masses to accept, or do you only want something to complain and feel superior about?

Posted by: Reality Enforcer | September 4, 2010 9:59 PM

Sometimes it good to hear that there are still people who think. Thank you, EvolutionSkeptic.

Posted by: SeeDubya | September 4, 2010 10:47 PM

I'm not sure how old you are, ES, and in all likelihood this is too specific but if you come to the conclusion that atheism is your position, the way I went about letting my family know was to tell my mother - who I was very close to - as gently as I could. Perhaps some of you have seen the video of the mother who freaks out when her son tells her he's an atheist and she yells at him, calls him a fool, and threatens that he'll no longer get presents for Christmas. That's pretty much what happened with me (some twenty-five years ago) but rather than get defensive and angry like the kid in the video did I said, "That's ok. But can I please still join you for Christmas dinner?" I think it showed that I hadn't come to my atheism for childish reasons and that my overarching concern was whether or not I'd still be part of the family. I think my mother's respect for me actually increased as a result. Perhaps you could use it as a template for a dialog more specific to your situation. Anyway, good luck whichever road you take.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/zUYdyjpjvucpRybcNYH1neaI0YndfFXY#2dae9 | September 4, 2010 11:24 PM

As someone who, as an adult, went from a very devout Roman Catholic, to an atheist Buddhist in a very short time frame, I don't see morality as an issue, so much as a straw-man thrown up by the priestly class. Some of the most shamefully evil acts that have occurred on this planted stem from people getting their morality from "revealed wisdom" instead of thinking about it rationally. Part of what made the Holocaust possible was Martin Luther's anti-semitism. Here at home, we can look to the Salem witch trials as another time great evil was practiced in the name of religion because people put superstition over compassion and logic.

If morality comes from God, then whether something is good or evil is entirely up to God's will, and is subject to change on a whim. Killing a man so you can sleep with his wife is wrong, unless you are David, then it's all right. Rape is wrong, unless you are lot, then you can hand your daughters over to be raped, and it is a righteous act, as is later committing incest with them. Huh? So, if God can not define morality on a whim and make sense, then there is no need to resort to a deity to know right from wrong.

I can't speak for others, but I can tell you how I see it. Life is easier when you are trusted, and you get and retain trust by being honest. I don't want to be beaten or killed at random, so no random violence. I want to feel safe when I go out, so I drink, act, and drive responsibly. I don't want to live in a garbage dump or sewer, so I act accordingly. In fact, I want to live in a growing, active, and dynamic community, so I give time, effort, and money to build that community. Tell me what my morals are missing without a deity?

As for family and community, those are two separate subjects. My family is mostly moderate Catholics, and I don't really have a need to tell them I'm an Atheist. Some of the family are regular church goers, others only go for Christmas and Easter. My friends have been mostly secular or pagan, with a few liberal Christians and Jews thrown in, so I've gotten more questions from them because of my moderate Buddhist practice than my lack of belief in any deities. I found that the sense of community I used to get from my church was quickly replaced just be getting involved in my local community. I find it very fulfilling to help others and promote art and culture in my city.

Posted by: John Morales | September 5, 2010 12:13 AM

Michael @268, your tone and stance are... bemusing.

Worth a listen, I guess.

Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official | September 5, 2010 12:28 AM

Oh dear. What an awful, confused mish-mash of endorsements from woolly thinkers. I'm sorry, but if that's the effect your book has, Mr. Dowd, then no thank you. No one needs "original sin" "re-expressed." What they need is to jettison it. It's an evil, anti-human bit of doctrine, and it's not worth saving.

Is this—shoe-horning Christian silliness into scientific terminology as a palliative for the scared-to-shake-it-off set—what a reader can expect from your book?

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | September 5, 2010 1:34 AM

I like Michael Dowd's new podcast. I'd never heard of the concept of Big History before, now I want to learn more.

Posted by: LetsHaveAnAdventure | September 5, 2010 1:39 AM

EvolutionSkeptic! It's been great reading about your struggle/journey/whateveryouwanttocallit, and it's refreshing to see you trying so hard to think through the important issues. I only wish more people were as curious and as willing to change their minds as you are.

No one has yet recommended Julia Sweeney's brilliant one woman show "Letting go of god", though one person referenced it. For some purposes, all the philosophy in the world doesn't do the job of a good story, and this one is a good place to look for a lot of the issues you're dealing with.

Here's CD #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qixXRkCNrtE
And CD #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xep60KSrBSQ&feature=related

If you have the time, it's well worth a listen :)

Posted by: Chikkipop | September 5, 2010 1:51 AM

I've always been fascinated at the way people have struggled with this. Of all the issues one has to deal with in life, I have never had the slightest difficulty regarding religion. (Wish other issues had been so easy!)

Even when I was young, I was the "atheist mongoose", called to engage the religious cobras, whether among friends or family members. I debated my teacher and the entire class about the existence of a god when I was 12. I never behaved as the underdog, or accepted the role of outcast; if anyone disagreed with me, I assumed they were the ones with the problem. My cousins in Texas told me not to get their wacko right-wing father angry; he would ask me to attend church with my aunt when I came down to visit, and I was to just bear with it. They watched in astonishment, never having seen this scary, authoritarian figure chopped down to size. I loved being a Yankee kid in that old southern culture where big daddy was not to be trifled with!

As an adult I was in a large jury pool, asked to affirm under god that we'd do our duties; I said "No", and the officer notified the judge, whereupon all eyes (lawyers, defendant, potential jurors, etc.) turned to me. This is where everyone wants to stay quiet and not call attention to themselves; what a waste of an opportunity!

Judge asked why I said no and I replied that I didn't swear to imaginary beings. She asked if I'd promise to do my duty and I said yes. That was all there was to it, but I'd have taken it wherever they wanted to go.

Yeah, I know; bully for me, and all that. But I think we overestimate the problem and underestimate ourselves, and I'm giving these examples as a way of saying that anyone can do it, with the right mindset. Ultimately I have lost no more friends than the average person, gained respect from adversaries, and influenced the thinking of a number of people. I have long believed we need to model effectively, that our personal style and confidence is more effective than rational discourse alone, and that staying in the closet never helps the cause of earning respect for our selves or our viewpoint.

Sometimes the problem is a mismeasurement of the problem. Just kick some ass & have a good time; they'll get over it.

One last comment about the husband who said (from #22): "there needs to be a judge, a standard, and if there isn't one than anything goes."

There are many judges, many standards, and a number of things that can "go"; this is what you'd expect, and this is what you see. Be active, speak up, and may the best ideas win. There is no other way.

Think I'll go over to HuffPo now and kick some Shmuley butt. Hey! Some people play darts for fun.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | September 5, 2010 1:52 AM

People have talked about us having empathy, seemingly inherently. If this is true, where would this come from? Could something as seemingly intangible as empathy have evolved?

Posted by: viggen | September 5, 2010 2:03 AM

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I know this has probably been answered a hundred times at least by now, but I figured I would add my own spin.

I think it's really easy to understand how it can work. No one human being represents all the skills necessary to live, especially in our complicated technological world. It is therefore in every person's best interest to be on the good side of their fellow human being. If you sleep with your neighbor's wife or kill one of his family members, he may not be so interested in fixing your plumbing or selling you food. If you lie to him about something important and he finds out about it, he'll remember it and treat you accordingly to preserve his own interests later. Someone might be able to lie or cheat for advantage in the short term, but people don't forget when someone wrongs them. Being moral has a direct benefit to long term survival in a social creature.

I think it's a sign of profound selfishness that people can't recognize the worth of people they don't know who possess unique skill sets. Religion is not needed to have this revelation, just a basic, pragmatic notion of self-preservation and an understanding of one's own frighteningly small limits. Maybe it isn't inspiring and altruistic, but it is the truth.

My opinion is that Atheists and Agnostics who have truly spent time weighing their world have a more acute understanding of self limitation because we are more aware of how small, frail and unimportant people actually are and are more likely to understand the meaning of "strength in numbers."

The only unique thing religion does for anybody is to build a world where nothing is ever uncertain. Having a "rule book" like the Bible just makes it so that adherents never have to understand why an ethic or moral is important even though understanding why is the most important part. The reason becomes "it's important because the Bible says so," rather than "it's important because we need to be able to cooperate with one another."

Posted by: Rixaeton | September 5, 2010 2:17 AM

1. Morality. My sense of morality and ethics are probably as a result of my upbringing from childhood, and is best described as based on the Golden Rule and Silver Rule, and an in-built sense of fairness. I come from a close, caring family. The values that were imprinted in me and my sister and brother were ones of charity and kindness, as well as honesty and ethics. If you grow up in a moderate Christian household, you will have probably experienced a similar thing. These things are not from a god, but from your parents. Your parents may have been influenced by their religious teachings, but the imprinting does not have a Christian monopoly. My wife was brought up with Buddhism, and even though we had completely different upbringings in time and continents, we share the same sense of morality and empathy.

2. Telling someone you love or care about that you disagree with them can be difficult, but it really depends on how important it is to maintain a friend or family relation. Sort of DADT. My parents are disappointed that I am an atheist, but they accept that I came to this position by my own reasoning and free choice. If you decide that the evidence for maintaining an atheist position is strong enough, and someone does call you out on it, my advice is one of the things you can point out is that part of the Christian doctrine is to have free will, and the only way to have free will is to exercise it, and that includes the freedom to make choices that others may not agree with. Any coercion to believe what you do not believe is not free will. Besides, if you decide that you are an atheist and still act in a way that would be described as “Christian Morality” then what will it matter?

Perhaps the moral rules of the Bible are vestiges of earlier civilization, and we'd have them regardless. This is sort of a difficult concept for me to get my head around, but I'm trying.

The phrasing of this statement appears to be based on an assumption. There is no evidence that a god, or gods, exist so the assumption must be there instead. The existence of a supernatural being that is outside the bounds of the rules of the universe is an assumed concept. As a fundamental assumed concept, it is colouring your thinking, and directing your logic and concepts, which is what makes it difficult to get your head around the concept that morality came before god. It can be hard to lose our assumptions, but it is necessary to realise that it is an assumption so critical thinking can be applied.

And I still worry about being wrong, if I were to move toward the atheist/agnostic position. Is there a way to get past that, if I needed to do so? I mean, I don't think we have enough information to know for sure, and the stakes seem rather high to go the other way. There's a certain feeling of safety in sticking with belief in God that I don't get when I consider not believing in him. Yes, I do get this is basically Pascal's Wager, but it admittedly gets stuck in my head and I have a hard time getting around it.

Again, this looks like reasoning that comes from an assumption. I have had the same thing really. I have been an atheist since I was a kid, having read of Taoist philosophy through trying to understand The Art of War when I was 12, and realising that gods were unnecessary. However I did not actually lose my belief in god until I was 2007. I am reasonably certain that during all of that time I have not considered god to be real, but the moment that the belief left me was one of the most uplifting experiences I can have ever felt. It was like an enormous weight was removed from my mind. Since I was brought up in a Christian household, I was exposed to the fear that Christianity uses to coerce belief, and that fear was ingrained into by psyche. It was ingrained so deep I didn’t consciously realise that it was there, and that it was colouring my thoughts and actions in certain ways. So the fear of the existence of god was always with me, until 21 April, 2007, while I was on my way to work. I was just walking down the street, when, for no reason, the thought popped into my head, “You know, it is silly to fear something that you know does not exist.” And I instantly lost all fear of god, and denying god, and it was the most extraordinary feeling to suddenly be so free, like being released from slavery or from prison. Curiously, I also lost a lot of irrational fears that went with it. Things like fear of ghosts and fear of the dark; I knew ghosts don’t exist, but I still had a fear of them. Noises in the dark no longer alarm me, and I no longer imagine spirits in them.

My advice: Realise what you believe is an Assumption, and anytime you have to use the “A” word, you have to challenge it. This assumption is built quite deep into our language. Even the definition of Atheism as “The rejection of belief in God or gods” is couched in terms of the assumption of existence of god; God exists, but I choose not to believe in him. For me this is where a lot of the problem lies in explaining to the Faithful that I am not even rejecting god, as the concept of a god does not even exist to be rejected.

Posted by: dillman.alan | September 5, 2010 2:25 AM

hem, "it was 2007". Ever noticed how you don't see a mistake until a fraction of a second after hitting the Submit button?

I was going to say you are pretty sharp in your dotage.

Posted by: rippingrich | September 5, 2010 3:13 AM

Really it is as simple as this, you do what you need to do to survive.

I don't think of living my life in terms of moral standards. I live my life in terms of providing me with personal contentment. What consists of this contentment for me is living a life of peace, in harmony with whats around me. This is what I have chosen to be important for me. I do what is necessary for me to achieve this goal, for me to survive the way I want to. Because of this I just don't do things that are counter to achieving this goal. I don't go kill people because it is counter to my goal. However, if it was necessary I would. I don't steal because it is counter to my goals. I help my neighbor because it is in line with my goals. It helps to bring into my world the the life of peace and personal contentment and harmony I want. Why would I want that? Because life is a lot less of a hassle that way.

Many religious people think that personal contentment comes from god. The truth is you create the world you live in.
Think of all the the the things you would ask god for, If all of a sudden you knew there was no god would you want those things any less? If you all of a sudden realized that all those things you had prayed for are only possible if you make them that way, would that make you not care about them any more?

If there was no god, besides dedicating the time you now waste on god into other areas of your life, what would you change in your life?
Would you all of a sudden think that killing or raping is a good idea? Would those things all of a sudden seem like things want to bring into your life? Is your life really so phony that if there was no moral law you would all of a sudden be a raging pedophile, a murderer, a thief?

Moral law is an illusion and you need to give your self credit for who you are, for the life you have created.

I can't really help with the second question. The family and friends that did not accept me regardless of the choices I have made, I told them to just fuck off. They were not the type of people I wanted in my life.

Posted by: abb3w | September 5, 2010 3:21 AM

Given that the average reply is running a bit over 2kB, I wonder if PZ is going to discover a new breaking point in the blogging software.

Posted by: Flapjack | September 5, 2010 5:29 AM

Question 1 has already been well covered... golden rule/ Bible isn't the moral authority you were told it is (check out old Testament).
Question 2. Although my parents weren't strict Christians, my mum is a cultural christian and even now goes to church on sundays. For most of my family it's not a huge issue.
I am gay and I'm out to my friends and my mum (actually by comparison outing yourself as an atheist is a walk in the park) but my mum didn't want me to tell the rest of the family due to my dad's stroke some years previous.
I agree that with some members of the family regarding religion DADT seems to be the only way, though this does get annoying around Xmas time when my born again aunt comes to visit.
My aunt will come round and start blathering on about "Those bloody 'omosexuuuls, always on the TV" or asking when I last went to church, and I have to bite my lip to keep the peace as I can't think of a way to retort without making her head explode! Just the thought of bringing up my 'Muslim boyfriend' in that context would be a case of 'light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance'.
Three things set me down the path to atheism... first my atheist ceramics teacher at Secondary school who when asked if she was afraid of death being the end, patiently eplained that any neurones which might register awareness of death would die with me. You can't be afraid of what you can't experience as it's happening anyhow.
Secondly, I encountered a born again christian through a mutual friend at college as I was dipping my toe in agnosticism. The guy had been a satanist the week before, but had just had a 'road to Damascus' style conversion after watching some unspecified sci-fi movie. He claimed he had incontrovertable evidence of the existance of god so I thought I might as well hear him out. Big mistake.
In order to do this he insisted on going back to my place . His opening gambit was he claimed to have a photo of Noah's ark when it actually happened. At this point I knew I'd invited a potentially dangerous whackjob back to my room. Then he insisted on sticking his hand on my knee and speaking in tongues "the language of the angels" for half an hour. I thought I'd better humour him as by that point it was lapsing into a hostage situation. He spoke incoherent gobbledegook for half an hour. He asked if I felt anything. Guessing [hoping] he didn't mean his hand on my knee I came up with some pseudospiritual bullshit I imagined he'd want to hear about being "filled with light and like my soul had been cleansed".
I thought "well that should satify him and he'll piss off now". No such luck.
He then insisted I went downstairs and repeated everything I'd just told him to all my student flatmates (who were wetting themselves laughing at my expense) whilst he stood behind me.
Far from being satisfied he stuck around for the rest of the week on the doorstep in spite of repeated requests from all of us to leave, hoping to convert more souls. We sent him to the local homeless hostel but they had to evict him for telling a girl who'd had an abortion she was going to roast in hell. Eventually some nuns took pity and gave him enough cash to get the hell out of our lives.
I figured if this was the best advocate god could send me, he obviously either didn't exist or didn't really give a shit whether I believed or not.
With friends like those, who needs enemies.
The third thing was an encounter with Dawkins at Cheltenham literature festival, and the rest is history. [apologies for the long post]

Posted by: Harmless Eccentric | September 5, 2010 6:34 AM

...and now I've actually read the whole thread, and want to respond to one more thing ES asked.

What if I'm wrong?

Yes, I do still get that impulse from time to time. The things we learn as small children get pretty deeply ingrained in us. I get it less often now than I did at the beginning.

When I feel that way, I ask myself, "Since the last time I felt this way, have I gotten any new information or evidence that would support the existence of god?" The answer is always 'No,' so I take a deep breath, remind myself that I'm hearing the voice of my parents, not of god, and move on with my day.

My other way of dealing with those moments is a sort of antidote to Pascal's wager. If God exists, and is the forgiving, loving, merciful God that I once believed in, then he will understand that I did the best I could with the brain he gave me and the information he gave me access to, and he will forgive my error. If God exists, and is the exclusionary, violent, randomly hateful deity described in the bible, then he'd probably find some reason to damn me for failing to perform correctly on one of the thousands of tiny behavior rules anyway, and it doesn't matter, because you just can't appease a god like that.

But, I remind myself, everything I can learn or observe most strongly supports the theory that god doesn't exist, so I can let the whole thing go and just take pleasure in my life.

Posted by: christophe-thill.myopenid.com | September 5, 2010 7:38 AM

A comment on this specifically:

I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I don't really know how the Bible is a "concrete guidance" for someone who wants to live a moral life. Not only because it condones many things that seem immoral to a modern mind. But also because it contains many contradictions.

"Thou shalt not kill", it says somewhere. "This and that is an abomination and their blood shall be upon them", it says somewhere else. There are references to wars (conducted with Yahweh's blessing), implying that it's ok to kill enemy soldiers. Not only that, but Yahweh gives a specific list of the different categories of people (and even animals) that must be slaughtered when an enemy city is conquered.

And let's not forget poor ol'Abraham, ordered to murder his son. It so happened that it was just a test, but the test could very well have been carried a bit farther. Like what happens to poor ol'Job.

So, killing is absolutely forbidden, except when it's not. How's that for concrete guidance?

I think that the Bible, and all "sacred" texts in general, is nothing but a giant Rorschach test. Its contradictions, obscurities and absurdities are a support through which everyone can project their own mind. Good people will find reasons for doing good in it. Mass murderers, dictators and psychopaths, by selecting the right passages, will also find reasons for doing what they do.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 5, 2010 7:56 AM

Oh and thanks for the nice introduction Josh!! I'm actually beginning to wonder if I'm in the right place here. I thought I was among peers.

Oh yes, take your attitude and shove it.

Posted by: RockyHarper | September 5, 2010 8:18 AM

EvolutionSkeptic,
I haven't seen it mentioned here yet but there is an excellent book (2005) called "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails". If you still have a few Christian chains holding you back this book can help you break free. It contains many essays from modern day Christian apologist who have become decons. The forward is by Dan Barker with chapters by Robert M. Price (PZ's lost brother), Richard Carrier, who wrote the book "Sense and Goodness Without God" and other scholars. Check out webpage http://sites.google.com/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/contributors.

Posted by: MaryLynne | September 5, 2010 8:40 AM

I clicked on comments hoping that people were being gracious and not snarky - I'm so glad most are taking ES seriously.

What I have to add about morality: in addition to what others have said, I have one more piece to my moral code. We live in a crowded society, and for this to function and the members to get their needs met we need to be considerate of each other. If I can take an action that benefits others more than it costs me, I do it, and I don't do things that inconvience others for some smaller benefit to myself.

I hold a door for someone with full hands, I pause in my car so someone can switch lanes. If I'm in the wrong lane and I'm going to miss my turn, I go around the block and don't stop or cut over if it will slow traffic, but I will if no one is there or I can do it without slowing traffic. If an able-bodied person dropped something I usually won't go five steps out of my to pick it up for them unless they were having trouble - that would cost me more than it would benefit them.

I once saw an old lady going down the middle of the street with her walker in the rain - I immediately pulled the van over somewhere safe and ran back to get her out of the street and safety home. It was a much bigger inconvenience to me than five steps out of my way, but a much bigger payoff to another person of not getting killed.

I don't know exactly how my brain does the cost/benefit analysis, but this has been a very useful moral filter. It is usually very clear to me what is the right thing to do and I see lots of opportunities to be a benefit to others with little cost to myself.

The only other thing that changed in my moral sense when I lost faith was losing guilt over things that are not wrong. Eating meat on Fridays in lent, not praying enough, not praying right, not trusting God; having normal human emotions, like feeling guilty for being angry that something bad happened instead of trusting God's will, etc. It's much healthier now. Guilt happens when I've broken my word or my actions have hurt another, and I'm driven to make amends instead of confession.

Good luck! I was a devout, youth-group leading teen with every intention of being a nun, believing every bit of it, until I asked a question. I don't know now what that first question was, but since I didn't accept "It's God's will" or "It's a mystery" as answers it was just about inevitable to lose faith. It was tough - I was desperate to hang on to some shred of faith, but the more you think the harder it is to justify. ES, it does get a lot easier. Hang in there!
ML

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 5, 2010 9:27 AM

Went out with some friends last night, so that's why I didn't comment most of the evening. Just now caught back up with all the comments (yes, I read them all).

Thanks so much for all the comments, guys. It's been tremendously helpful. I'm humbled by the fact that so many seem willing to offer their stories, knowledge and advice, and I'm hoping some other people in my position -- I'm sure they must be out there -- can see this thread and be helped by it as well.

There are some common threads running through a lot of the answers, as I understand it: 1) The Bible is just basically piggy-backing on previously and currently existing community standards for morality and behavior; 2) The very fact that I care for other people shows my moral compass is there without reading the Bible; 3) Looking at the behavior of atheists is a good example that they clearly have this moral direction; 4) Empathy can evolve because it's a helpful variation, just like any other mutation that allows an individual and populations to increase their fitness within their environment (Do I sound like a biologist yet? :))

I think I'm going to take the advice of several of you and not try to force things too much. I think I was getting caught up in desperately wanting to have an answer to cling to, but I think that's what got me too deep into religion and dogma in the first place. I think it's a good suggestion to just sort of let it come to me and let things sink in. It doesn't have to be something where I see something and just "Eureka!" I'm an atheist/agnostic/whatever.

Thanks again to all of you, especially to Dr. Myers for providing this post and this forum for the discussion. It has been very enlightening. I'll continue to check in, so feel free to add more responses if you have them.

Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third | September 5, 2010 9:59 AM

#298

I've also determined that most of the church going crowd are pretty ambivalent about the veracity of their myths.

That about mirrors my thoughts regarding xian belief, especially in the larger community.

Although I have no definitive data on that conclusion.
Let me explain the point maybe...

It is not a spiritual memé type belief in supernatural gobblygook as such but more a social comfort/trap, a double edged sword of faith.

I am fairly sure that a significant percentage of folks that are part of a larger xian community actually do not believe quite as deeply as they profess they do in front of their peers.

In fact is would be ironic if not actually true that quite a few of these communities are actually inhabited by a hefty proportion of personal atheists that are to terrified to speak up because that is not the way this 'pestilence' is traditionally handled.
Atheism has never been fully understood by the church authorities.
It seems that they certainly lose a supporter in their insanity, but the reason for that they do not seem to care about unduly, the main problem being that it is bad for image more then anything else because it would appear their deity is not the all powerful all singing all dancing sky fairy they claim it to be.
Otherwise no one should be able to walk away.
Retribution seems to be mainly earthbound as well, another nail in the coffin of belief in punishment from above.

Maybe the protocol has something to do with the possibility that they or their family will be either ostracised or singled out for the gossip and 'special treatment' that xians so delight in.
The damage to family name and businesses could be catastrophic I would imagine.
And very few 'troubled theists' wish to hurt their family, even unintentionally, in such a manner because they love their family quite naturally.

I ant given community of xian fundamentalist/enthusiastic jeebus fans, there might even only be a handful of actual faithful in their midst, but their effect is to spread the toxic fumes far and wide and seemingly convince the membership that 'everyone' believes the memé and not to do so risks hell damnation etc etc.
The more enthusiastic the xian ranting, the more obvious it becomes that person just is seeking inclusion and acceptance in the 'hive mind'.
And presumably seeking 'brownie points' either from the minister or more likely from their god of checks and balance sheets in behaviour.
Someone has a guilty conscience and is trying to expunge the stain of, whatever, by being
over zealous in xianity and maybe no one would question their motives, or dare suggest other reason!

It kindda generates a catch 22 situation generally because they would be mad to believe in the madness (logic dictates it is barking) but not to pretend to believe in it is even madder, and society ends up in a self perpetuating 'jeebus is my sunbeam' loop.

It seems to be a practical coping strategy, profess xianity, be accepted, and push atheist thoughts to the back burner where they can do no harm to their social standing.

So it is not because they are liars or dishonest xians, they just seem to be in a situation where they are terrified that anyone finds out their true thoughts, up to and including even close family, it is very sad.
It is exemplified by the second question asked by the subject of this thread, it is a very real concern, and I suggest one that does terrify quite a few in the xian communities.

I also could imagine that the priests...pastors...ministers and the rest of the 'jeebus 'R' uz' inc are well aware of that undercurrent, and actively rack up the fear factor in exposure, either at best to keep a lid on the explosive potential of harm to that individual i.e protecting him/her from his/her self, or at worst to maintain the status of the church in that society.

Either way it is a manipulation, and that seems to fit well with the xian religion because that is what they do, it is what they have always done, and it is what they will always continue to do.

That is how Christianity works!

At least until members of that community actually stand up and declare that they do not wish to perpetuate the myth, that is when xianity loses the game on a personal level.
But rationality and humanity gain the point and the world tips further to a healthier frame of reference.

Posted by: CJColucci | September 5, 2010 11:19 AM

I won't repeat what has been said so many times before oneither where reasons to behave come from or personal histories. I simply want to point out that, depending on where you live and what the people you know are like, the question of belief or disbelief may just not come up. For example, after I had been married to my wife for 17 years, she casually mentioned (the context escapes me) that she didn't know any atheists. I told her that she knew at least two, a friend of ours and me. She was genuinely surprised. She knew that I didn't belong to any particular religious sect (I had married in the church to which she was sentimentally attached but does not attend on the theory that weddings are for brides), but never put two and two together. And there had never been an occasion to discuss the point.

Posted by: David S | September 5, 2010 12:20 PM

EvolutionSkeptic, it is a sad day that you got tricked into believing in atheism / losing your Faith.

You want to damn your soul and burn in hell forever because "some guy" on the internet said something you think sound cool?

For your family and friends forget this nonsense, show some respect and go to Church and ask for forgiveness.

I will pray for you.
David

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 5, 2010 12:38 PM

David-

For the record, I find it telling that the many atheists on here have been largely patient, compassionate and knowledgeable about this subject, offering me logical, coherent and thorough information.

You, on the other hand, offer nothing but an attempt to shame and frighten me.

You've done far more to help me move away from Christianity (I still consider myself a Christian, fwiw, but I'm definitely not certain) than any other "some guy on the internet" has.

Sincerely,

ES

Posted by: Iain Walker | September 5, 2010 12:58 PM

Assuming that David S is the same David S who's posted on other threads, #309 is probably meant in jest. In which case: David, don't be an arse. We're trying to be pink and fluffy on this thread.

But then again: Good illustration of Poe's Law.

Posted by: Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism. | September 5, 2010 1:23 PM

Hello Evolution Skeptic,

Leaving religion is difficult. I was raised christian in a liberal leaning christian household, and I had a rather difficult deconversion, which began when I was roughly aged 12, and to which there had been a array of relatively typical antecedents. When I was young I took Christianity very seriously, but I took science equally seriously, and by this time it had occurred to me that my Sunday school teacher and my science books weren't describing the same reality at all. I was also having personal difficulties related to an onset of depression, which I couldn't reconcile with my religious views. Intermittently I would turn to the Bible for guidance, however I found almost nothing in it which seemed applicable to me, and in all cases I was horrified by what seemed like an impersonal and angry God with very arbitrary sets of morals, and Jesus, whose message was alternately hopeful and bleak. I set out to read the Bible all the way through, however I'd had enough of the old testament by Exodus. I ended up reading Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, Matthiew, and Revelation, and by the time I was done with the latter book I had become terminally disgusted with the whole volume. At 14 I decided I would not live in fear of an unseen tyrant any longer, and broke with Christianity for good.

My parents were not immediately supportive of my decision. My mother in particular took it personally, as she considered it a rejection of the way she had chosen to raise me. At 14 I had not encountered any atheists, and considered religion itself too important to forgo completely, so initially I studied Buddhism along with a variety of western 'pagan' religions and tried to use them for moral and spiritual guidance.

My moral picture of the world, and my concepts of meaning evolved tremendously through my study of different religions. I came to realize that these are questions that religions mostly disagree on: even at the most basic level. If you are a Buddhist then you feel that eating meat is a violent crime; however, if you follow Odin you may feel that killing and dying horribly in battle are moral behavior. I eventually realized that I could use my own intuition to decide for myself what is moral as well as meaningful (as I had all along with my various religious meanderings), and if my intuition seemed to be misfiring based on some kind of prejudice I could cross check it with rational analysis. This is my current method of ethical discernment, since I am not well versed in formal ethics.

My atheism has been was never a point of contention with my family; it was my rejection of Christianity that burned them initially. But I think once they figured out that I was still the same person I had always been, this disappointment largely subsided. I'm generalizing, but I think that eventual acceptance is fairly typical even in most conservative religious families.

I hope my story has been in some way useful to you. Good luck with your with your period of questioning. I hope at the end of the day you will be satisfied with your answers.

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 5, 2010 1:28 PM

Oh, my apologies, David. I didn't realize. But Dania's right. You did do a very good job of mimicking a fundamentalist. I've heard them say much the same thing to others.

Posted by: Katharine | September 5, 2010 1:51 PM

From reading Michael Dowd's links, it appears on the surface that his argument rests on the old tired 'we need meaning! and purpose! and feel-good!' trope.

Lots of us manage to have these things just fine without religion, Dowd. No, I think you're either making an excuse or you're massively uninformed about how one can derive meaning without religion.

I do not feel life inherently needs a purpose or meaning. I have a purpose which I have assigned to my own life, because I have goals for myself.

I often find that those who need the purpose to come from outside themselves are too weak or lazy to have the intrinsic drive, motivation, and passion to make their own.

The purpose of my life is to do research on the brain, neurogenetics, and cognition. The meaning of life is to live it well.

It's not that hard.

Posted by: shellska | September 5, 2010 3:18 PM

Hello, EvolutionSkeptic. I am not usually one to post comments, but my friend encouraged me to do so after she read this posting (I too am a regular reader). Just yesterday afternoon she and I were discussing the concept of a secular morality and what that means. I wish I could remember where I saw this quote, but someone made the comment in reference to the Pope's response to the pedophilia scandal, that this is an instance where secular and religious moralities disagree.

Another obvious example of how secular and religious morality conflict is manifest in discrimination against the LGBT community. Basically, secular morality dictates that what consenting adults do with their genitals is of no moral concern to others, so the only way to justify such discrimination is to invoke religious reasons. It is incompatible to hold a secular worldview and to discriminate against LGBTs. I know that somewhere, someone who identifies as an atheist will object to this on the grounds that “it just ain’t natural" and appeal to scientific evidence. Of course, current scientific evidence suggests otherwise, so that evidence would have to be dredged up from an earlier era. Since science is embedded within the larger cultural realm, not so long ago, it too was permeated by religious assumptions (and perhaps still is). Scientific evidence did seem to support the view that homosexual behaviour in nature was "unnatural" because the Christian heteronormative imperative was embedded in theory. In other words, if you're a researcher who is looking for "straight" behaviour, that's what you will find, and you will, perhaps not deliberately, disregard evidence to the contrary because those findings do not accord with your theory. It was not until researchers looked for homosexual behaviour in nature that they observed it, and amply, indicating that it is indeed normal. Logically, a secular person should reject the claim that homosexual behaviour is not "normal" because there is no evidence to support this claim, only void moral claims. But a visionary secular person will question the science too, if it does not accord with observed reality. It was feminist scholars who revealed how the heteronormative imperative tainted the science.

Another point we discussed is how we define ourselves. My friend mentioned that she had a conversation with another atheist who preferred not to identify as such because he feels the term carries with it negative connotations. I argued that the term "atheist" means nothing more than the rejection of a belief in a deity or deities; it says nothing beyond that about the beliefs of the person so self-identified. Atheists can be Republicans (or Conservatives, if you're Canadian like me), libertarians, and so on; similarly, positions commonly associated with atheism such as secularism and humanism can be held by believers. It is terms like these and not “atheism,” that convey a moral and political dimension.

So there is no unifying principle that guides the morality of atheists, and we disagree amongst ourselves on many issues. But while perhaps imperfect, documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggest that there is such a thing as a secular morality, an evolving set of rules to govern ourselves, and a moral imperative to collectively take responsibility for our past mistakes and do our best to correct them. Ideally, these will be based on our best understanding of the natural world and our place within the universe (profoundly insignificant biological mortals), and the prevailing voice of reason - atheist, rational, scientific or otherwise.

I have not had the experience of leaving a faith since I identified as an atheist early in life, which is also when I learned that my parents identified as agnostics. Growing up atheist in a culture where religion is littered about in everyday life and unquestioned by most people was a strange experience in many ways, and I am grateful that I was allowed (encouraged, perhaps) to question religious claims. Just one trivial example: although my family celebrates Christmas in a secular sort of way, I was always a bit uncomfortable with nativity scenes. I'm Canadian, so my social landscape growing up was adorned with people who held a variety of beliefs. Being one myself, I wondered what other non-Christians thought of nativity scenes, and whether they were offended by them (too). There are countless other examples of things I "saw" through the eyes of an atheist that were invisible to most of my peers, so the quote about religious and secular morality being in conflict certainly resonated with me.

Once the veil of dogma is lifted and morality stripped of religion, it becomes a different thing. Morality is not written in stone for eternity; it becomes something we can negotiate to improve our social condition. We can ask empirical questions about other beings and the conditions in which they exist, and we can use that information to modify our moral behaviour accordingly to improve their mortal conditions, emancipate them from suffering, and advance their dignity.

Anyway, EvolutionSkeptic, it’s inspiring to know there are thoughtful people willing to engage in intelligent discussions and come to rational conclusions when presented with good evidence to do so. As a lifelong atheist, I’m sorry I do not have a “coming out” story to share with you. If my parents had told me they were believers when I approached them as a child, I probably would have pretended to be one too, at least through childhood. Instead, I got to live my life honestly, and I am grateful that my understanding of the world is shaped by sometimes difficult truths instead of easy lies. There have been a few awkward moments but most people tolerate, and some even appreciate, my godless views. You will learn strategies to graciously cope with those uncomfortable moments that will inevitably arise, like being asked to say grace at dinner, for example. I learned in my teens to respond with, “I’m sorry, I’m not a Christian,” when, for example, my friends’ parents’ requested this of me. This successfully confused them as to exactly what I was, and delivered with sufficient conviction, made further interrogation seem impolite (although if that occurred, I certainly did not feel compelled to lie). Anyway, congratulations on being courageous enough to question, and welcome to our world.

CMS

Posted by: EvolutionSkeptic | September 5, 2010 4:00 PM

shellska said:

Another obvious example of how secular and religious morality conflict is manifest in discrimination against the LGBT community. Basically, secular morality dictates that what consenting adults do with their genitals is of no moral concern to others, so the only way to justify such discrimination is to invoke religious reasons. It is incompatible to hold a secular worldview and to discriminate against LGBTs.

... taking the blockquote function for a spin.

shellska's quote here meant a lot to me. Some of my friends and family's opinions of homosexuality, based upon their interpretation of the Bible, has always deeply troubled me. There are few things in this world I feel more strongly about than equal rights for all, and LBGTs are by all means a part of that. I think it's abhorrent that many religious people seek to deny them the right to marry another adult whom they love, if that adult shares this desire. I've yet to hear one logical explanation for this feeling among too many, beyond "The Bible says so." That can't possibly be enough of a reason to basically deem a group of your fellow humans as less deserving of equal rights than yourself, can it?

Wait ... I think this is going right back to what a lot of you were saying about morality. Or, at least, I think it's reminding me of that. Hmmmm ...

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/sM_Gcix31tU34ZhN5ibQPE8k9iNp#04998 | September 5, 2010 4:27 PM

Ok. Upon reflection and most importantly after reading "A taxonomy of dicks". I realize I fell into the YDIW category. I sincerely apologize. I was offended (incorrectly) and reacted as such. Per 'Tis Himself, OM, I now see that a thick skin will suit me well here. I do truly wish to be part of these discussions and know that I can and want learn much from all. Specifically, I apologize to Caine. I reread my posts and replies as well as read some of your posts on other threads and realize I came off as judgmental, pious, and pompous, none of which was intended. My only excuse is lack of sleep. :-)
Please accept my sincere apology and can I take a mulligan? My first foray into the comments was a disaster.

"Changing ones mind is the best proof you still have one"

Thanks,
Jschmeau

Posted by: Katharine | September 5, 2010 4:48 PM

dxv515, you make a perfect example of precisely the type of person this thread is talking about - the ridiculous, spiteful right-wing uber-religious idiot.

If you must wallow in your own guilt, do so privately.

Posted by: articulett | September 5, 2010 5:04 PM

I don't often tell people I'm a nonbeliever, but when I do, I tend to do it in sideways sort of way-- I tell them that "I wish their was evidence for souls..."

I could never makes sense of any god-- religion always seemed embarrassing to me-- childish or old people-ish. I was raised Catholic and it caused endless angst. God's kid was killed for me? But he's God! He should be able to stop evil. Why such a cruel plan? I didn't ask for this. I didn't eat the "forbidden fruit". And didn't God know his creations would mess up since he was omniscient?! Heck, I'm not all loving, but I would stop impending suffering if I could. I wouldn't stand by and do nothing. And I wouldn't bring forth life if there was even the slightest chance that such a life could end up in hell. Never being born is surely better than eternal suffering (at the hands of a god who presumably knew how it would all turn out anyhow!) Andrea Yates' actions of killing her kids made sense with such religious beliefs-- she killed them at a young age before they could risk going to "hell". She ensured their eternity per the average Christian belief. What bigger sacrifice could a mother make? In her mind, she ensured her own damnation but she ensured all of her children's salvation! Forever!

With religion, I never knew if I was believing the right things about the right invisible beings with enough fervency. No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't get it to make sense. So I stopped thinking about it-- because I was afraid if I did, I might lose the faith that saved me from hell. (Why was the rubric for passing this pass/fail test so nebulous?)

But souls "felt" real. I wanted them to be real. I segued to New Agey type beliefs. They "resonated" with me. I sought out evidence to confirm my biases and convinced myself that I had a piece of the divine truth for a bit. But I began to realize that if there were souls then scientists would be refining and honing and testing the evidence so they (and everyone else) could learn more-- the way they have with DNA and every other snippet of reality we've discovered. The truth isn't afraid of testing or querying or probing. Moreover, I began to learn through life experience how easily I could fool myself. I got tired of doing the mental gymnastics to try to keep a belief alive. I got tired of fooling myself. I decided I'd rather admit that I didn't know something than convince myself to believe a lie.

The more I investigated the subject, the less likely it seemed that there could even be such a thing as an immaterial soul. Our consciousness is very much seated in a our very material brains. There were two documentaries made 20 years apart about this guy named Clive Wearing (google him and youtube) who lost his ability to form new memories because of a damaged hippocampus. He thinks he is always waking up from a coma. Every time he sees his kids he cries because he missed seeing them grow up-- only he didn't. And if you are that damaged by losing such a small part of your brain... then what would you be with no brain at all?! You couldn't even remember anything. If there is a soul, then why wouldn't it step in and do whatever it does when the brain is damaged? If it can't help Clive remember, then how can anyone remember anything without a brain? We need our brain's input (from sensory organs) and output (perceptions, feelings, thoughts, memories) to be conscious. And these are decided material things.

I concluded that if scientists can't know about the invisible undetectable thing called a soul (or any other invisible beings), then no-one really could. The complete lack of evidence indicates that souls are an illusion of the brain-- just like all the other supernatural entities humans have believed in.

And if there are no souls, then I don't have to worry about the various claims of those who claim to know what happens after you die. There are no gods, devils, and divine truths that must be "believed in". And as scary as it was to realize this, it was ultimately liberating.

I never had desires to do dastardly things, so the morality issue was moot. I suppose I could have guilted myself about sex related stuff, and I think I did for a while. But reading made realize that I was well within in range of normal and I don't think the Catholic church has a leg to stand on when it comes to sexual mores anyhow. I don't think any religion does. Sex is a private matter unless people want to make it public (atheist bonus: it's a relief not to imagine that god or ghosts of dead relatives are watching you), and the same goes for religious beliefs and lack thereof. You don't have to let others know where your thinking is at. It's not their business unless you want to make it their business.

I hope my late entry has added something to the discussion.

Posted by: Orson Zedd | September 5, 2010 5:18 PM

I still haven't come out to my family, though I'm under the impression some of them understand. I'll have my own place in 6 months, so then I'll probably stop being quiet about it.

Posted by: Louise | September 5, 2010 5:21 PM

Hi EvolutionSkeptic,
Have any other believers responded to you? This is an atheist site and you did address your questions to them I guess. You have gotten some very good responses and they seem to be genuine and some are quite heartbreaking too when they involve being rejected by others and having broken relationships with family members. All of us are just fellow human beings making our journey through life. We all make choices and as we become adults no one else can make them for us. Our parents can try to pass along their faith but the choice is up to each individual. I choose faith. I don’t think coercion works except to produce fear and loathing.

Of course atheists can be moral people and good, decent, loving people. Believers can be immoral and thoroughly despicable people. The facts are out there.

I went through a period of time in my life where my faith was barely there and no one would have suspected me to be a believer. I brought some consequences onto myself that finally led me to make a choice and I chose faith and haven’t regretted it. As for me the hope of heaven was not the draw (although for many I guess it is) I believe because I get real help in the here and now with my struggles from day to day. I am a better me, a better person in all my roles, neighbor, friend, wife, mother, sister, and daughter. I am not trying to earn God’s love, I subscribe to the “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” theology of grace stated by Philip Yancey. I cannot prove my God is real except to show you my life. My faith stretches me and gets me out of myself. It makes me thankful. It shows me that there is so much more that I could be doing to help others.

As you explore the history of the natural world and learn of the processes that shape it, you need not reject your faith just because you see the evidence of evolution. Many do frame it as an either or choice but it doesn’t have to be and there are a number of positions one can hold as Carlie said in comment # 187.

Good luck with your journey. In my view it is OK to doubt and to question along the way and to learn from your fellow human beings like the folks here. If the God I follow is real, He will meet you where you are at.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 5, 2010 5:30 PM

that person will most likely leave the clutches of this blog and go back to the Catholic Church as he/she should

Um no. You think way too highly of yourself.

As for the nasty comments ---it didnt take long, did it? All the more reason to curse the lot of you again! How did last week work out for the lot of you peace loving, hostage taking, bomb weilding atheists? Action indeed!

Last week was great. Thanks for asking and thanks for reminding me, I haven't taken a hostage or weilded [sic] a bomb in months.

I'll get right on that.

moron

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | September 5, 2010 5:47 PM

1. Morality is at least partially instinctual. Just think about the variations in behavior that you see amongst xians. Why does a televangelist cheat little old ladies out of their social security checks? Why does my friend practice immigration law for $12/hr in a state where it brings him nothing but grief, even though he went to a prestigious law school, can speak two languages, and is highly qualified to make substantially more money for substantially less pain?

Because they are not the same person, even though they share the same religion. If religion really gave us our morality, you wouldn't see internal variation like that. (Beware of turning to the No True Scotsman fallacy when considering this.)

2. I come from a highly conservative evangelical fundamentalist family. I graduated from Oral Roberts University, an extremely conservative evangelical fundamentalist school. I am out to all of my friends from college (several of whom have also become atheists). It causes the xians among them some sadness and concern, but then again, their continued reliance on faith causes me concern, so I'd chalk that up to caring about each other's well-being. It does not usually get in the way of our friendship. My best friend and I are not really best friends anymore due to his extreme conservatism, but we are still friends. He took my atheism the hardest.

There are people from my parents' church who have not been particularly gracious. I've gotten emails telling me that they wished they'd never let me into their homes. Frankly, that kind of ugliness does not make me too keen on reaching out to them further, so I leave it at that. My true friends are still around, and that's what matters.

My family is a bit more complex. My father, who became a minister a few years ago, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer about a year ago. He died in March. I moved back into the house (which required moving 600 miles from my home of the last decade) and stayed by Dad's side through the end. I still live here with my mother, helping replace the lost income and providing some company for her (she and Dad got together at 13; she barely remembers life without him). My brothers are both devout xians. My sister is more agnostic on the issue. My family knows I'm not religious. It was my father's sincere hope and prayer that Sister and I would return to the fold. It was very painful for me to not be able to grant him that. The best I could do was avoid talking about my lack of faith most of the time. These days, I know that my mother's hope of seeing Dad again someday is part of what keeps her going, so I still don't bring it up much. Same goes for my brothers. They all sincerely believe that I'll go to hell if I don't convert, so I don't want to stress them out with that, either.

One thing that has bothered me about not being part of the church is that I was essentially an outsider at Dad's funeral. I wasn't really allowed to memorialize him in my own way. I feel like I missed out on that. But, I've since found ways of doing so in a quieter, more personal environment. I still wish I could share that with my family, but I make do.

As far as a replacement for church social interaction goes, I did theater. Whether writing, directing, performing, or viewing, it very closely resembles being part of a church.

And, of course, there's Pharyngula.

Posted by: dxv515 | September 5, 2010 5:52 PM

@ Rawnaeris #334

Oh, and, "Clutches of this blog"? That's amusing, considering no one is forcing you to read this.

Hey honey no one is forcing any of you scientists to believe in God! No one is forcing any of you to read the bible. ha ha ha get a clue! How many words do you scientists have to spill out onto the Internet telling everyone that you don't believe in God! Does the State who pays your salary force you to notify the world that you don't believe in God. Maybe that's it! None of you scientists would get any state funded grants unless you renounced God!

@ Rev. BigDumbChimp

moron

scientist

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | September 5, 2010 5:54 PM

Never thought I'd see the day where "scientist" was used as an insult...

Posted by: Dania | September 5, 2010 6:03 PM

Owlmirror:

But what about teh Google?!?

Posted by: Sastra | September 5, 2010 6:11 PM

Louise #333 wrote:

I believe because I get real help in the here and now with my struggles from day to day. I am a better me, a better person in all my roles, neighbor, friend, wife, mother, sister, and daughter.

I've a question to ask you, because I am curious:

If God doesn't exist, and never has -- would you rather not know? In other words, are the benefits of faith so valuable -- and unobtainable in any other way -- that you'd prefer to keep your faith, regardless of its source, and regardless of its truth?

(@ Jschmeau -- glad you came back; welcome :)

Posted by: Friday the Thirteenth | September 5, 2010 6:17 PM

I'm just going to answer the questions straight on, and try not to get sidetracked...

1. There is no individual one motivating factor here. Often it's that "If I do X, Y, or Z, the possible consequences are A, B, C, C', D, E, E', and F." and then deciding which of the consequences are most preferable and moving from there. Of course, this is a VERY BASIC UNDERSTATEMENT, and you have to account for factors G, H, and I, as well as short and long term goals, as well as a basic understanding of human emotion and interaction, and taking all these factors (and more) and calculating which action will keep me in society, and alive, as well as being in an overall better situation in time period N than I am in the previous time period M.

...I probably could have said all that better somehow...but I'm not really much of a wordsmith...

2. I was raised Jewish, and REFORM Jewish at that. I can't tell you much about Christianity here, and Reform Judiasm is pretty much 5 steps away from atheism, anyway. My mom pretty much slid out of it around the same time I did, but she went to casual deism, and I went to soft atheism. We still get together with the rest of the family (Rosh Hashanah dinner is this coming Wednesday, in fact), and religion never really comes up. I also have a feeling that, considering the last few holiday gatherings, that the rest of the family is nonbelieving, too. We just don't admit it because the holidays give us an excuse to get together and stuff our faces ;P.

Posted by: dxv515 | September 5, 2010 6:23 PM

hey @ 344 have at it! comment as much as you want on my blog. I bet that you can't do it, 'cause all the pretty religious pictures of Jesus and Mary and the Saints will cause your inner demons to torment you... go ahead see what happens. makes for an interesting science experiment...

Otherwise HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, scientist

Posted by: Sastra | September 5, 2010 6:28 PM

Does M*bus have an identical cousin? Sheesh.

Posted by: Katharine | September 5, 2010 6:33 PM

dxv515, go back to kiddy-diddling or whatever it is you do, you anti-intellectual, brainless freak. I think you'd have loooooooooooved the Dark Ages.

... oh, and many of us in the scientific community probably make more and impact the world more and do more to make civilization civilization than your dumb ass.

Posted by: dxv515 | September 5, 2010 6:40 PM

@ Nerd of Redhead, OMG #342

hey red headed chick! whatta gonna do about it! Just a few words on your part typie typie away,is that all you got?. Surely redheads are more feisty than that! Science proves it! Any of you atheists/scientists care to make a visit to see the Pope in Scotland in a few weeks? Maybe protest.. ya know.. throw some eggs @ 'em ..maybe hold some signs that say nasty things .. maybe cause a few riots, maybe something more satisfying to your blood lust. The world is watching and waiting to see what the followers of PZ Myers will do next!

scientists

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | September 5, 2010 6:41 PM

In my post above I offered simple advice to some one who left the Catholic Church for PZ Myers and his ilk, that person will most likely leave the clutches of this blog and go back to the Catholic Church as he/she should.

not bloody likely.

Posted by: Katharine | September 5, 2010 6:46 PM

dxv515, you talk so much about blood lust! Methinks you doth protest too much.

Somehow I think you're probably a closeted gay too. That kind of self-denial just fucks people up.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | September 5, 2010 6:48 PM

Jschmeau,

Welcome back to the fold, my child. Your sins are forgiven by the grace of PZed. You may now partake of roast baby at the monthly barbecue and orgy.

Posted by: Katharine | September 5, 2010 6:53 PM

I clicked on that website momentarily, and apparently it's the website of some loon who wants to bring back the Holy Roman Empire.

Isn't Germany mostly Protestant these days?

Also, is this dude even German? Or even resident in the territory of the former HRE?

That is some major irredentism right there. He ought to go meet up with Jobbik or something, they'd be real happy about his attempt to bring Austria and Hungary into the fold.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 5, 2010 6:59 PM

Any of you atheists/scientists care to make a visit to see the Pope in Scotland in a few weeks?

Science proves it!

The world is watching and waiting to see what the followers of PZ Myers will do next!

PZ Myers is converting to the Catholic Faith & he is looking to distance himself from the mess he made (that would be you guys..his blind followers.) He wants me to clean up the mess and make all of you leave!

Are we sure dxv515 is not a Poe-troll?

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | September 5, 2010 7:09 PM

PZ Myers is converting to the Catholic Faith & he is looking to distance himself from the mess he made (that would be you guys..his blind followers.)

o.O

seriously though, i do think we have the catholic version of mabus here. someone who'd say that, and not as a joke, can't be sane.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage | September 5, 2010 7:16 PM

i do think we have the catholic version of mabus here.

I was thinking the same thing. It's definitely not in touch with realty.

Posted by: Michael Dowd | September 5, 2010 7:50 PM

Caine @269, I've been traveling across the country and have had very little time online the last week, which Is why I dropped out of the conversation on the last thread where we interacted.

My main goal in life is to help as many religious people as I possibly can A) value empirical evidence over ancient texts and B) be more committed to the health and wellbeing of the entire Earth community than with their own otherworldly so-called salvation after they die.

I've never claimed that anyone NEEDS my approach. But apparently some people do find my naturalizing (de-supernaturalizing) of religion valuable. I've been invited to speak to more than 1,100 different group in the last eight years and my book has sold more than 60,000 copies. Plus I get emails and letters every week from people of all ages telling me how grateful they are for helping them embrace a meaningful and inspiring view of the world science gives us.

I do GET that you find what I offer unnecessary and silly. But can't you get that other people are different from you? Clearly at least a few others have had a positive experience.

Josh @271, Naturally it's easy for you to find fault with the religious people who praise my book. I could too. But I doubt you would consider many of these Nobel laureates or these skeptics and atheists "woolly thinkers". Is it really that hard to grant that a multitude of strategies is more likely to be effective than just one?

Not everyone is like you or thinks like you. (You have religious family members or friends or co-workers, yes?) As Richard Dawkins has repeatedly said, many approaches will be needed in the coming decades to counter religious insanity. He and I have different approaches (as do PZ and I) but whether you believe it or not, we're all working toward a common end.

Posted by: Sastra | September 5, 2010 8:02 PM

Michael Dowd #371 wrote:

Is it really that hard to grant that a multitude of strategies is more likely to be effective than just one?

Welcome back, Michael.

No, I grant that. And wish you well. I believe you're sincere, and your approach may be useful.

But I still think there are problems with re-defining religion and spirituality, and it's wise to point these problems out. It's never a mistake to have voices pushing for clarity of thought and intellectual honesty -- and quite likely to be a mistake to abandon them in the name of any "cause."

Though I suspect you'll agree with that, too. :)

Posted by: Louise | September 5, 2010 9:09 PM

@Sastra #345

If God doesn't exist, and never has -- would you rather not know?

Posted by: echidna | September 5, 2010 10:06 PM

Betelgeuse,
do you mean this one?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/sunday_sacrilege_so_alone.php

Posted by: Sastra | September 5, 2010 11:49 PM

Louise #375 wrote:

Sastra, I would want to know if there was incontrovertible evidence that God does not exist. I do not think that evidence exists.

As for me, I can't imagine such an incontrovertible thing as that evidence, or what it might possibly look like. Can you? I think that once a person has "chosen" faith, their personal commitment is to having it, and keeping it. That's the choice: not God, but believing in God.

Wanting to know evidence against a belief -- and wanting to know if the belief is true -- are two different desires. The approach is different, and it starts in different places. You may have confused the second, for the first.

I wouldn't worry. You're not going to find out you're wrong. You can't -- as long as it keeps "working" for you. I don't think faith is contingent on whether or not God exists -- so supporting evidence is all there is. An intelligent follower can always 'controvert' so that everything confirms, or the failure rests with them. Never with God, or the concept of God.

But for some of us, that's not enough. It's not that we want more power, but that we don't want that much. That doesn't work for us.

Thank you for answering my question. Peace.

Posted by: Philip Legge | September 6, 2010 3:01 AM

Herewith my 2k words for this very worthy thread. Everyone else, sorry if you’ve heard bits of this before: please file under tl; dr…

Hi EvolutionSkeptic! I too remember your earlier visit to the blog, and am glad to see you’ve taken up on some of the reading suggestions that were made back then. Dawkins’ other books on evolution are definitely worth looking at too, Climbing Mount Improbable as well as The Selfish Gene. If you want a wider, more general survey of the sciences and their place in history I don’t think many books surpass the breadth of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which follows the themes of his TV series in the much greater depth available in a book (it’s very nice if you can get hold of the version with all the illustrations – the paperback versions always fall apart).

As for your questions, they seem to have been answered very very thoroughly upthread, so what with me being late on the scene as usual, I’m inclined to try to find a different reason for coming to similar conclusions raised by others! And yes, this is already a very long thread, but if I am to be totally candid I can’t answer them simply with flip answers.

I noticed your first question asking “how can you live a moral life without guidance of the rules of God” specifically cited the Bible as the source of these rules: as I’m sure you’re aware, a large proportion of the world’s population have never read the Bible, which immediately begs clarification: would there be an implication that most of the world’s population live immorally? One can’t weasel one’s way out of that by the wishy-washy suggestion that all religions say much the same thing, just with different trappings – for starters, many Christians are strict on what is “inerrant” about the Bible. Enough said.

The world’s religions differ widely on teachings and customs, so more generally then, is it religion that makes people moral? I think the conclusion must be no: the evidence from many religious traditions including Christianity suggests people often do good things in spite of the religious teachings that may contradict them; or conversely, zealous followers of religion often do immoral things in a misguided sense of following the letter of the religious instruction but ignoring its “spirit” (we can find examples all over the place without difficulty; as well, we can also find numerous cases where the “spirit” of the religious instruction is itself morally abhorrent).

I also think your preference for “concrete guidance”, or how you stated that you don’t exactly understand how moral views are formed outside of religion, is due to the fact that religion often tends to present morality as a static, sharply polarised, and rule-bound concept. But societal mores do shift, such as views on slavery, racism, feminism, and so on, which have been in flux throughout history.

As I’m sure you’re aware, a range of Christians from the dogmatic or the fundamentalist at polar extremes, through to the liberal middle-of-the-road types, would portray certain Biblical teachings as being “black and white” on the one hand, or “varying shades of gray” on the other: so is morality a simple binary system of rules, or is it nuanced by circumstances? Those who want to assert the binary of good and evil moral choices need to show their work that such a simplistic model is applicable at all places, in all times, and under all possible circumstances. If it is not, then this would remove the “safety net” of having a supposed “absolute” morality that derives from whatever god or holy text is deemed to specify it – until you consider that this god’s or that text’s morality is actually just as “relative”, morally speaking, as anything else.

Speaking for myself and morals, I was raised by my parents – both practicing Christians, middle-of-the-road Anglicans as it happens – to be good, but for the sake of goodness, not for the sake of obeisance to religious writ, and not least since there would be a colossal amount of cherry-picking involved. So I try to be good, though I’m not always; it’s not hard to work out the good reasons for being good. As a child I was dragged along to church services and mumbled my way through the ritual of prayers and recited words, was unwillingly put into Sunday School briefly before deciding I had no interest in it – and my private view, even as a child, was that I couldn’t place any trust or belief in the stories of the Bible – specifically, the supernatural parts.

It was plausible, possible perhaps, that someone wandering around Palestine at the time of Augustus Caesar could end up with a band of devoted followers… but all those stories about water turning into wine, walking on water, raising Lazarus, returning to life on the third day, ascending to heaven and voices speaking aloud from the sky? It was always ridiculous to me that people could be so gullible and credulous. This led to some flaming arguments between my mother and I by the time I was about fourteen or fifteen, and had had eight or nine years’ worth of primary and high school science to hone my scepticism and empiricism. I would begin by poking away at many of the obvious literary and logical inconsistencies of the Bible, and if pressed Mum would shrug her shoulders and admit that these didn’t bother her as her faith was strong; if the argument got rather too heated Mum would play the supposed trump card that she would be grief-stricken to be separated from me for all eternity, if I went to Hell as an atheist. (She’d swallow Pascal’s idiotic Wager hook, line, and sinker.)

At times I tried very hard to please my parents by being a believer just like them, but always at the back of my mind there was the persistent, nagging question, “how can I honestly believe this? This is ridiculous!” Nevertheless, in my teens I flirted with a sort-of Deistic belief that in the best-of-all-possible worlds, there might be a non-interventionist type of supreme being, but I wasn’t very successful at convincing myself, because in the end I realised it was largely an artefact of my own wishful and deluded thinking: at a certain age as a young child I had become aware of my own eventual death, was frightened not so much by the thought of the eternal torments of Hell (so earnestly promised by pious Christians) but by the thought of non-existent nothingness for all of time once I had died. I was investing Deism with a quasi-theistic hankering for wanting something of me to survive beyond death, even though I was normally sceptical about all sorts of idiotic, paranormal claims of resurrection, reincarnation, or “transmigration of souls” – the usual phantoms of dualistic thought. It’s very easy to delude yourself if you want fulfilment of a certain outcome.

As for “coming out” as an atheist, I’ve really only thrown wide the gates and shouted out my lack of belief in the last few years, and mainly as a result of taking on board Dawkins’ argument in The God Delusion that atheism is not a dogmatic position – a view he presents without stridency, naturally – and also recognising another of Dawkins’ points that there are forms of belief that do not deserve any respect. The US seems to be in much worse state than here in Australia, in terms of the sheer weight of numbers of those who virulently profess beliefs that do not deserve respect.

Up until then, I’d use the term agnostic rather interchangeably with atheist in terms of my lack of beliefs: I used to say things like, “As an agnostic I don’t know whether there is a god, so in practice I go about my daily life assuming there isn’t one.” (That attitude is actually de facto atheism, if not de jure to the satisfaction of etymologists.) I was for a very long while culturally loyal to the Anglican mob I’d been brought up in, and have sung in many of the better church choirs around the place, because there is quite a lot of wonderful religious music, usually dating from before the invention of the electric guitar (for example, as a favour to a friend I’m doing a concert tomorrow night at the first Presbyterian church built in Melbourne, singing music by Widor, Elgar, and Howells). With such exceptions, I no longer attend church for anything other than cultural or social reasons.

Coming out as an atheist while singing in church choirs was really no big deal, funnily enough, as most people never stop to ask you what your private beliefs are – not even on a Sunday; likewise it’s treated as a purely personal decision whether to receive communion, say, or leave words out when reciting the Nicene creed (as in the well-known case of Franz Schubert). I treat church ritual as all being merely symbolic, so I tend to simply “go through the motions” rather than stick out by flaunting my non-belief – which would be “dickish”. Am I being accomodationist? Perhaps, but only to the very particular strand of Christianity that I think merits it, culturally.

Perhaps more of an issue is that my family clearly know I am a non-believer, and so I’m not any less likely than I was twenty years ago to withhold my contrary views if they’ve uttered a religious stupidity or some other vacuous nostrum. Only a matter of a few weeks ago I somehow offended my younger brother by countering some stupid religious hokum that he’d said – I didn’t even notice at the time it was a religious viewpoint, as it had already hit my radar as being irrational. The flaming religious rows have never stopped over the years, but he’s a good enough Christian to love me despite them!

Anyway, EvolutionSkeptic, I gather that you’re in the United States, in which case “coming out” as an atheist is likely to be a bit more significant an issue for you than would be the case for a person in similar circumstances here in Australia, as we are pretty apathetic about beliefs, or the lack of them. So I’ll give you a somewhat more telling “coming out” story, which did cause me rather a lot more grief in terms of thinking ill of myself, and losing friends. As a teenager I grew up in rural Tasmania, which was very homophobic, and from the age of fifteen or so I realised I was attracted to both sexes, to greater or lesser degree, and most of my close friends at the time were the same sex – and not bad looking either, which was sometimes discomforting, at the time! I for a short time felt very unhappy about it and played into the homophobic trap of pretending I wasn’t bisexual, while also being a “dick” to those who appeared to be (in this I was led a little astray by a close friend at the time whom I’ll mention below).

Going to a university city for my BSci. some years later was very welcome, as I joined a choir (which Cath the Canberra Cook is well acquainted with!) that provided a very tolerant environment for non-heterosexuals: numerous members were openly out despite the Tasmanian laws at the time, some flamboyantly so, and by third-year of Uni I was comfortable enough with myself to be in a gay relationship and out, but was also trying to keep it somewhat low key for fear of reprisals from the madding crowd; whereas these days I really wouldn’t give a stuff.

One very close but pretty homophobic friend from my high school whom I suspect is gay and completely closet-bound, was also strictly Catholic, and probably has had to deal with considerable cognitive dissonance as a result; he’s never married or even had a girlfriend as far as I know. After Uni our friendship became very distant, and brittle: we’ve not often been in touch, though I do occasionally see him from time to time. He must have heard of my bisexuality at some point, but always avoids talking about homosexuality, now.

Other friendships didn’t experience such a chilling effect, and some people were enthusiastic and supportive when finding out, but it was often completely unpredictable who would have a problem with continuing a friendship in the light of finding out, and who would not. An entire year after I’d come out, a female friend with whom I’d gone through high school and university, and was initially supportive of me, suddenly got married. The first I heard was from not being invited to the wedding, which had already taken place. The reason was that she had equally quickly converted to Islam, and had therefore become convinced on religious grounds that my sexuality did not make me a “moral” person. When I visited her office at Uni to talk she made it perfectly clear that she wanted to have no further contact with me ever again, and thus it has been.

Of those two different reactions, I have to say that the second one hurt a lot more deeply at the time because of its unexpectedness, and I am still ambivalent about it sixteen or so years later, though with a much diluted mixture of anger, annoyance, and regret, when I bother to think about it (which isn’t very often, really). Both friendships are more or less lost, though one is now more off than on, while the other breach was a complete and almost instantaneous severance; but I’ve made made many other friendships since then, as well as occasionally losing them, and usually that’s happened for far better or important reasons than depending on the other person’s like or dislike for my personal choice of what gender-partner I privately share a bed with, or what particular variety of imaginary man living above the clouds (it always seems to be a man in these sky god religions, hmm) that I choose not to believe in.

My bottom line here is, if you do come out as an atheist to your friends then it’s likely you will find out a lot about them, particularly how willing your friends are to really be your friend, and how mature they are at dealing with the fact that you may disagree with their own (possibly deeply-held, maybe not so) religious views. There are worse things in life than losing friends of course; aside from your personal life, being marked as an atheist often seems to be negative in career terms in the United States, so I can understand people shying from being open about it: but this is a double-edged sword, since it contributes to the general negative opinion of atheists that is widely held there, in obvious contradiction of the simple fact that it is possible to be a good, just, and moral person, without religious beliefs.

Best regards, PML

Posted by: dormin5 | September 6, 2010 6:09 AM

Question 1: I agree with Myers, and Richard Dawkins on this matter (see The God Delusion and other various works). Morality does not come from any religion at all, let alone the very narrow and specific viewpoint of christianity. In fact, most of the people I know considered to have higher morals are those who are atheist/agnostic. Is morality concrete? No, but it shouldn't be because, like anything else, you should adjust your views based on what is rational.

Question 2: The best thing to do with your friends and family is to be open and honest about your views. Sit down around dinner and agree to have a long, calm, and reasonable conversation about the subject. Of course it may feel odd or uncomfortable at first but if they truly care about you they will listen. While it is true I have lost friends for my honesty towards my atheist and agnostic views, but people who are not willing to support you and have meaningful conversations on the issue with you are not worth having close to you at all. Also remember, the community of free thinkers is large and getting larger, even in America, so do some searching in your area and you will most likely find new friends to bring into your life.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/hairychris444#96384 | September 6, 2010 8:32 AM

Specially for dvx666.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | September 6, 2010 10:10 AM

Sastra, I would want to know if there was incontrovertible evidence that God does not exist. I do not think that evidence exists.

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | September 6, 2010 11:11 AM

dxv515
Sven and Owlmirror already addressed your misrepresentation of what I said, but being the author of that comment, I thought I'd chime in that you are full of shit. The question was about losing the social life attached with church. My response was about other avenues of social interaction. It wasn't difficult to understand that, and it takes a dishonest idiot to twist it the way you did.

And, for the record, I did a much more direct comparison between church and theater. I notice you didn't cite that at all. For one thing, you couldn't twist it to make it seem like a single person on a blog somewhere has proven that atheism is a religion because she likes hanging out with the folks on that blog; for another thing, the implication that church is a playacting production probably doesn't settle too well in your gut.

Oh, and your moronic stereotyping of redheaded women does you no favors in the charm department.

Posted by: grudgedk | September 6, 2010 1:39 PM

My story with number 2:
My family took it really badly. We're talking Hatfield and McCoy bad. It's been more than 25 years since I've even talked to someone on my fathers side of the family.

It's a bit of a rubbish situation to be in as a 10 year old, but you quickly realize that if the only redeeming quality you have in their eyes, is that you believe the same line of bullshit they do, they don't really care about you as a person, and it's much better to be a part of the part of the family that likes you for who you are, and what you do, rather than the part who likes you for being a conformist.

I stopped going almost immediately, we weren't really strong churchgoers anyway, although somewhat recently I went at the request of a good friend, to witness the ceremonial waterboarding of his infant son. It disgusted me to the point that I'm now violently opposed to entering a church.

Posted by: Michael Dowd | September 6, 2010 3:01 PM

'Tis Himself @300, To claim that I was "pushing" my book on EvolutionSkeptic is a rather stingy interpretation, and I don't think supported by the evidence. PZ's post is inviting the Pharyngula community (of which I am part; I read him every day and occasionally comment) to reply to EvolutionSkeptic in ways they think might be helpful. If you re-read PZ post and my comment @268, I think I was entirely in order. The only thing I forgot to mention to EvolutionSkeptic was that I am more than happy to send him my book for free if he wants it yet is pressed financially. I do this all the time. At the end of my public programs I always tell people to just take my book or a DVD (or pay whatever they can) if they want one but cannot afford it. I'd hardly call that "pushing", especially when there's lots of evidence that people like EvolutionSkeptic typically find my approach helpful in making the transition from a mythic worldview to an evidential one.

Katherine @319 and 372: Of course lots of us manage to have all the good feelings and emotional states without anything otherworldly, supernatural or woo-woo! That's precisely what I'm helping religious people who currently don't get that to also realize.

I do get that to you it appears that I'm mostly just pandering, or offering crutches. And by your naming my response "argumentum ad nobelium/populum", I can also see that it makes no difference to you that others (including others you would no doubt respect) have a far more positive assessment of what I'm doing. I will say this, however, your sense of your life's purpose (as stated in your last para) and my own are very similar. For me, "to live it well" includes trying to contribute to the future in a healthy way, as here: "Is This the Meaning of Life?"

Sastra @373, thanks for the welcome back. You are correct: I agree with your comment fully.

nigelTheBold @374, I mostly agree with you. )My two favorite courses throughout my undergraduate and graduate education were Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Science.) However, I'm betting my life that 50 years from now most people will not think "otherworldly spirits" when they hear the word "spirituality". Already there are millions who use that word to point to the inner realm of meaning and interpretation and inspiration without any reference whatsoever to anything magical, unnatural, or woo-woo. Personally, as someone who has been influenced by Wittgenstein, I'm far more comfortable with everyday (secular) language such as "integrity" and "right relationship with reality." And that's what I focus on: helping people for whom traditional language is not only useful, but central, to embrace an evidential way of thinking and, in the process, to let go of their otherworldly assumptions and beliefs.

Louise @345 and Sastra #375, (re evidence and God's so-called "existence"): Does reality exist? Does nature exist? Of course! Have human beings traditionally personified reality or nature in a multitude of ways (without consciously realizing that that's what they were doing)? You bet!

It seems to me that we who embrace an evidential (rather than a mythic) view of reality would be well served to point out to religious people that evidence from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, cross cultural study of the world's myths and religions, etc) suggest that all the world's gods and goddesses are personifications of reality or some aspect of reality (not persons) AND that we instinctually forget this (as we do with genuine projections). More, there seems to be no counter evidence - that is, there is no evidence that divine beings actually exist as persons rather than personifications.

Having said this (since virtually all conservative religious people concretize such god-concepts, and think of God as a literal person rather than a personification), I'm also immeasurably grateful for the New Atheists' attacks on traditional notions of God as childish thinking that needs to be outgrown.

Tomorrow morning I begin driving from Omaha, NE to Peoria, IL, and then to Ft. Payne, Alabama. So I'll check back in on this thread in two days.

Finally, EvolutionSkeptic (and anyone on this thread who cares to know), here's an understanding of the past and a possible future that wakes me up each morning excited to play my little role in helping to bring it about:

The Trajectory of Human History: Ever-Expanding Cooperation and Compassion""

Posted by: Moosebite | September 6, 2010 3:50 PM

ES, hope you're still reading :P...
I was just watching a bunch of youtube videos of Dawkins and P.Z. (wanted to finally see after months of reading P.Z.'s blog how he held himself in a live discussion/debate - turns out, he does pretty well. :) kudos P.Z.) and stumbled upon a show I'd not previously heard of: The Atheist Experience.

It's an interesting watch. The nature of the show, I think, attracts a lot of the worst representatives of religious faith - mostly opinion based views from people who haven't done any research on any of the topics they are trying to delve into.

But the reason I brought it up in here, is because I thought it might be relevant to you.
If you are beginning to have doubts and question your faith - and even if that's just because you want to be able to defend your beliefs and justify your choices - this show has a lot of great examples of the right/wrong questions to ask. The host, Matt Dillahunty, was a "fundamentalist southern baptist for 25 years and was gonna be a preacher before he started studying religion, and that is why (he is) an atheist now" (his own words), and so he has a lot of intelligent answers to offer to some of the more common/silly questions, as well as some more enlightened questions. Check out some videos on youtube if you like :) As I said it might just help get some of those first questions out of the way so you can get to the real 'meat'. - not that I'm suggesting your questions in this thread are without substance of course. Far from it, indeed.

Posted by: Michael Dowd | September 6, 2010 7:07 PM

Sastra @394, thank you.

Yes, I agree that Karen Armstrong and perhaps many other liberal Christian theologians still hang onto some woo. But as I alluded to above, as long as people have what I call "evidential deep-time eyes" (an evolutionary and ecological consciousness) and "a global heart and commitment", I frankly don't care what their theology or metaphysics may be. It's those who value ancient mythic texts and unnatural fantasies over what is natural and real (and those who fail to recognize that we are one planet and one species, with a common destiny) that I worry about. Those are the people I'd love to "convert", or in some way disempower.

I agree with Michael Shermer, Andrew Newberg, and others who point out that the brains of most people seem hardwired for at least a little woo. I can live with that - so long as those of us who do have "evidential deep-time eyes and a global heart and commitment" are able to steer humanity into a just and thriving future for all.

We've still got lots of work to do, it seems to me.

Regarding whether or not I'm an atheist: by most normal definitions of the term, yes, of course I am. But as I've said elsewhere:

I am neither a theist, nor an atheist; I'm an emergentist, a neo-humanist - a religious naturalist. The concepts of theism and atheism came into use long before we had an evidential understanding of how the world, in fact, came into being, and before we learned that the Universe itself is creative. Given what we now know about big history, the 14-billion-year epic of evolution, the theist-atheist dichotomy no longer makes sense to me. Both presuppose a trivial, unnatural God and a Cosmos that is not itself divinely creative. Reality is my God (my primary allegiance) and integrity is my religion. By this, I mean that what is real (as evidentially known) is my ultimate commitment and being in right relationship with reality, and assisting humanity in this process, is my calling and deepest inspiration.

Posted by: Michael Dowd | September 6, 2010 8:09 PM

EvolutionSkeptic, know that there's a radical difference between biblical Christianity and evolutionary Christianity. If you wish you can see my public debate with Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on this subject here:

Biblical Christianity Is Bankrupt

If I can be of support in some way, don't hesitate to call. My cell is 425-760-9941.

I've tread the path you're now on and I honor your courage to engage with and receive suggestions from those on this blog.

~ Michael
http://MichaelDowd.org

Posted by: Moosebite | September 7, 2010 1:11 AM

ES,
To be honest it's probably not the best thing to dive right into, thinking about it. It would be very challenging. Like I said it attracts some interesting (uninformed) people.

If anything, I was throwing it out there for a future reference... so shove it on the back-burner and give it a look when you're more up to it :)

Also as I said, it's more about the questions asked than the people asking them. A few good lessons about mistaking opinion with fact in there, too. When you listen to the people calling in, and then to Matt's answers you get a good idea of how far people will go to assert, as fact, the opinions that were forced upon them from an early age. It can be quite transparent.

Seeing as other people have asked a lot of the questions that you may ask yourself at some point, and have been made to look quite foolish (more by themselves than by Matt, he's actually quite calm and amazingly patient most of the time), I thought you might want to learn from their mistakes :)

Posted by: Phroggge | September 7, 2010 5:39 AM

My own experiences in and reasons for turning from a liberal Methodist upbringing to realizing I was an atheist at 14 (in the mid-'50's, when this was tantamount to being a filthy commie) is quite like many of those above. Reading the bible, seeing its contradictions, its obvious derivation from mythology, and its similarity to other religions made it impossible for me to accept it as a unique, holy book, the One Truth and Guide to life. Its deity was more reprehensible than admirable, and right behavior driven merely by the carrot/stick of heaven/hell didn't seem to be a true morality.

I escaped first to the Unitarians when old enough to drive, which my parents (mostly my mother) permitted because it was an acceptable alternative, then happily ignored religion until I converted to Judaism for marriage—one major mythological element less, no focus on heaven, no mention of hell, emphasis on living this life ethically and practicing tikkun olam / repairing the world—made it tolerable enough to ease back into participating in services, which I was able to do by thinking of it as dramatic readings. I've remained a member of a Reform congregation, primarily for the friendships and community, and I'm very far from the only atheistic agnostic member who's Jewish despite god; one rabbi almost shrugged it off, saying god would understand and it wouldn't bother herm—intention, ethics, deeds, example are what count.

Mother and I had the same huge argument about my lack of belief at least once a vistit for 50 years, and she'd trot out the emotional blackmail of "Well, I guess I won't get to heaven, since you didn't remain in the faith that I promised you would," which I countered by saying I wouldn't want any truck with a deity who'd punish her for my using the mind with which she believed it had endowed me. I did agree to go to church with her one time per visit, and I'm friendly with many of her friends who well know my stance. Of course I attend weddings, funerals and other such occasions, though I've never had occasion to decline to go to a christening. Fortunately, my outspoken atheism cost me no family relationships, though several have waited for me to come back to my senses and the fold; being Jewish removed some of the taint, though they regret I cheated my sons out of knowing that nice Jewish boy gone wrong. Certainly I don't "preach" atheism (except to the JW and LDS door-to-door salesmen!) but it's no secret to my friends; I'm open about it when religion is discussed, and have be able to disabuse some people of their more egregious misunderstandings of atheism.

What amazes me most about fundamentalists is that they behold the wonders and vastness of our world and the universe, which they so intensely believe their god created—and then they shrink, rather than magnify, that god; confining their king of infinite space in the nutshell of their crabbed and cramped comprehension, under the delusion that they are proclaiming his majesty, glory and omnipotence. What utter chutzpah, what absolute arrogance, to declare that they know the mind of that deity, that they alone of god's creatures properly understand his desires and demands! They have poked a pinhole between the bricks of a garden wall and deny it contains anything other than the etiolated aspidistra before their eyes.

ES, I welcome your emergence from your chrysalis of fears, and hope the excellent reasoning, suggestions and expressions of support you've been given here will help you deal with difficulties you may encounter as you warm your new wings. Spread them, and enjoy the freedom and splendor of the entire garden.

Posted by: mandikayeottaway | September 7, 2010 11:59 AM

As someone who was where you are less than two years ago, I can tell you this: It isn't easy.

But you have to ask yourself: Why are you going through this? Are you questioning your faith because you really want answers? If so, then it doesn't matter what your friends or family members think.

But, if your faith is in place to keep other people happy with who you are, then you should probably consider whether or not this is a path you want to go down. (On the flip side, if you acknowledge that's what your faith is about, like I did, then it kind of becomes the catalyst for change).

Either way, once you do some self-reflection and figure out if you want to know the truth or if you want to "fit in" you'll have a better understanding of who you are.

Posted by: gussnarp | September 7, 2010 12:41 PM

I'm sure this has been well covered, but for the sake of including many points of view, I'll just give my own answers. For # 1 there are really two questions there. What is my motivation, and how do I do it without divine guidance. My motivation is fairly selfish, to be honest. I find that society functions better when everyone follows some basic rules and I'm pretty sure that I'd get eaten alive by the more physical and violent types if everyone ignored the rules. This is basically restating the golden rule, which I'm sure has been mentioned above. In the end we have to treat others decently to have a chance of being treated decently. It goes a bit further the more social connections you have. You start to care about the well being of your friends and family too, which makes it even more beneficial to act in a decent manner. If you've got a reasonable amount of empathy you start to realize that the poor person in the ghetto has friends and family they care about too, so does the Afghan or Iraqi. When you start to see how we're all related and all similar, you find a far better motivation for moral behavior than the priest saying so.

As to my guidance, that's related to the above, but there's a bit more to it. I can find figures who are worth following for moral guidance, some of whom are even religious. But it's not divine authority that makes a good role model, but the reason behind their morals and the evidence of those morals at work.

As to question 2, I really couldn't say. I lost my faith while I was about college aged, so I was leaving high school and high school friends behind, and I was finding new friends at the same time. I am not friends with any of my religious friends from when I was religious except through facebook, and some of them frankly fill me with pity and fear. Others have changed in more hopeful ways. At least two are gay and out, which most in the religion we once shared would frown on. One is not only gay and out, but is a graduate of Liberty University. I find this amusing.

But some of my new friends are religious too, as are my in-laws. I don't generally talk about religion with my family or my in-laws. It was important that my wife be non-religious, and we talked about religion before we got too serious, but the fact that her family is Catholic is none too important. I feel no need to insult them, I got to funerals and weddings and sit through Mass, though I find it very disturbing now. I follow the rules of communion (i.e. I don't take it since I'm not Catholic). This is a little awkward because I will be the only one who remains seated. Which is funny, because I know the others have not been to confession lately and should not be taking communion either. Occasionally some of them will bring up religion with me, I think to intentionally make me uncomfortable. I change the subject. I may be publicly outspoken about religion, but I don't need to get into fights with my in-laws about it. My immediate family was never as religious as I was, they stopped going to church when I was confirmed, and when I switched over to a Baptist church they didn't particularly care. Since they started going to A.A. I think they became more religious, but we've never talked about it and it's never been an issue.

Posted by: Tiki_Idyll | September 7, 2010 1:19 PM

I'm a late-comer to this thread since I was offline all weekend, but I'll throw in my two cents.

My Atheist Testimony:

I was raised as a fundamentalist xian and was whole-hog into everything. I was also raised to trust in evidence for seeing if something was true or not. The bridge between these views was a belief that there was compelling evidence for the god of the sect of xianity I was in who was always presented to me as the god presented in the Bible -- the evidence mostly consisting of people being miraculously healed, prayers being answered, needs divinely provided for, etc. As I studied Christianity as well as other major world religions I was shocked to find out that most of them had the same "evidence" showing them to be "true".

As part of my general interest in science, I learned of the different ways that people can fool themselves, and so discounted many of the acts that people claimed as miracles as them deceiving themselves, but felt that actual miracles were happening in some places, and I still was devoted to God and xianity, though the more I learned the more aspects that people claimed as proof of the divine hand seemed dubious.

The tipping point for me was when I found I was going to be a father and thought long and hard about raising a child. If xianity (or any other religion) were true and had the signs that were claimed, there would be evidence somewhere of it, and with it being true it would be worth teaching whatever the religion said was the true path. But if it wasn't, all the hate and wrong patterns of thinking would be a horrible thing to inflict on a child. With no religion having anything that couldn't be better explained with purely natural phenomena, my belief in god fell away.

For the first bit especially there were times when I worried that I might be wrong, but with not even peripheral evidence to show that any of it was true, it passed by.

My Motivation to Live a Moral Life:

On a more conscious level, I know that what I do affects others and what they do affects me. Our collective behaviors define whether we live in a constructive world where I can send my children alone to the park or a destructive one where every day is a struggle for existence. Behaviors evolve as much as form, and a group of animals can perform more functions than solitary animals, so getting along with others and not being cast out of the society provides increased opportunities to pass on your genes.

On a lower level, I do it because I feel and love. With my family, and especially my children, the need to protect them and harm those who would harm them is more primal than I can explain, and the protection instinct spreads out beyond them to other people and their children. I have a basic urge to help those who help me and mine and drive away those who would harm me and mine. Understanding what causes it doesn't change that it's there, and there are enough likely possibilities for the cause of the drives to negate the need for supernatural sources.

My Relationships with the Religious:

I don't make a big deal of my (lack of) religious beliefs specifically. There are family members I haven't told yet, but I'm sure some of them have guessed. And some of my religious friends have guessed. But I'm no more of an atheism thumper than I was a Bible thumper. I mostly encourage people to embrace what's true, even if they don't like what it is.

I don't attend church anymore, but on the odd occasions my children request VeggieTales I'll let them watch it, and I'll let them go with their grandparents to church on occasion. I'm sure at least one of my family members thinks I'm a bad person for leaving xianity, but for the most part it doesn't affect our relationship.

Hope this was helpful, especially since this thread is a few days old now.

Cheers!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 7, 2010 1:29 PM

Did we ever figure out whether this guy was drunk or (legitimately) mentally handicapped? I'd feel bad making fun of him if he was mentally handicapped

His blog makes me want to think poe, but who knows.

Posted by: JackC | September 7, 2010 5:13 PM

My cell is XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Oh now THAT was just plain daft.

JC

Posted by: JackC | September 7, 2010 8:08 PM

jaranath - check comment #399 - still there when I looked just now.

Posted by: JackC | September 7, 2010 8:47 PM

AE - Thanks!! now I need the mind-bleach. Happily, I have several good bottles of gin handy.

Eewwww.... BLAH!

JC

Posted by: Tmax01 | September 8, 2010 7:51 AM

Moosebite @ OccamFAIL:

"But I'm the only real human and you are all incredibly complex robots..."

You're going to need evidence for that, you know. Just pointing out that it fits the data and there's no way to prove it isn't true, well, that isn't good enough.

You could also call it a SaganFAIL, I suppose.

Posted by: JBlilie | September 8, 2010 11:17 AM

These seem like some honest and excellent questions from just the sort of person we should want to engage in real discussion. (That may be a wrong impression; but let's assume whoever it is is being honest. And if they aren't, well, we can still influence bystanders.)

I truly don't mean this to be insulting, so please don't take it that way, but what is your motivation to live a moral, upstanding life without the guidance of the rules of God and the Bible? I know you guys do this, but I'm not sure I understand how it works without concrete guidance.

I agree with the shorter version of PZ's answer to #1: I behave well because it makes me happy. I like to get along with my fellow human apes and that clearly (to me) maximizes my happiness in life. I evolved to feel this way because my ancestors, going way back, were social apes who worked together to one degree or other to survive.

For those of you who were once Christians (I'm guessing there are some), how did you reconcile your atheism/agnosticism with your relationship with your Christian family/friends? How do you tell them? Do you still go to church for the fellowship but just don't pray/participate? Did you lose friends/family in your process of change?

I don't tell them. It would cause them pain and not telling causes me no pain. I attend rare in-church events such as weddings and funerals and I conform to the social norms while in those environments (I play along). (As Dr. Dawkins has said: I don't mind uttering nonsense [at times].)

I am fortunate in having no relatives who try to force me to conform further than this. If this were to occur (I can't see it happening), then I would have to be fully honest with them. (I think they realize what the score is and don't want to confront it.)

No one is required to tell the whole truth about themselves. A little information witheld to promote a more tranquil society is no issue to me. The withholding harms no one including me.

Posted by: Moosebite | September 8, 2010 3:02 PM

The withholding harms no one including me.

In keeping with what I just wrote... if it did cause harm, would you be willing to accept that part of that harmful consequence is your responsibility to deal with it? If so, wouldn't prevention be better than a cure?

A cure gets noticed a lot more than a prevention, that's for sure, so you'd get more credit for taking responsibility and making reparations for the harm you caused than you would for preventing the harm to begin with.... maybe. If you then made the decision consciously to deal with the harm after the fact, rather than before, wouldn't that be as devious as, say, finding out someone might be getting kidnapped, and not doing whatever you can to stop it so you can save them and get the glory?

You evil person, you.

Posted by: Moosebite | September 9, 2010 3:36 AM

Moosebite @422, I note that 'required' has more than one sense; you sure you've addressed the correct one?

Do you mean that the meaning of the word is dependant upon a goal?

I assumed the goal was to cause the least harm, so I figured in the context of JBlilie's post the word required was being held up to the standard: 'what is required to cause the least harm'. I derived this from the statement:

The withholding harms no one including me.

As for my prolixity, I apologise. You should know that I do not take myself too seriously. I am not trying to teach anything to anybody; just trying to enjoy myself. If I have a flamboyant writing style that you disagree with, then you're probably not going to enjoy me. This is not a loss for either of us :)

But if you feel like pointing out to me where the "foolishness" is in my prescription, I do love a good philosophical discussion :) As I said, it's not what I believe; just similar. Even if it were I'd be open to someone changing my mind :)

Posted by: Moosebite | September 9, 2010 6:59 AM

From and online dictionary

–verb (used with object) 1. to have need of; need: He requires Medical care. 2. to call on authoritatively; order or enjoin to do something: to require an agent to account for money spent. 3. to ask for authoritatively or imperatively; demand. 4. to impose need or occasion for; make necessary or indispensable: The work required infinite patience. 5. to call for or exact as obligatory; ordain: The law requires annual income-tax returns. 6. to place under an obligation or necessity: The situation requires me to take immediate action. 7. Chiefly British . to desire; wish to have: Will you require tea at four o'clock?

From what I understand, looking at these definitions and more, the word require always refers to when a condition must be fulfilled, with implication that this must occur for another condition to be fulfilled.

i.e. "I require a pencil" means that the condition of me having a pencil must be met. This implies that another condition must be met that cannot, until I obtain a pencil.

My argument above was based on the assumption that JBlilie's proposition was something like: "My withholding information is not causing harm; therefore I am not required to relinquish information to avoid harm". In this context, I think there is nothing ambiguous about the intention of using the word 'require'. If there is anything polysemous about the word 'require', I would say it only accounts for the degrees of imperative the word might imply.

If there is a definition of the word 'require' that cannot be described by my explanation, and which further undermines my previous post, please reveal it to me :)

Honestly though, there's so many more relevant things in my post that you could have picked on. (prolixity doesn't count because it's not relevant to the logic of my argument). I'm more interested in discussing the validity and/or soundness of the proposition, than the semantics. An issue of semantics implies a misunderstanding, and I doubt there is one here. The possibility of a misunderstanding doesn't undermine the logic of my arguments in their intended meanings, anyway.

I did. See the last line of my comment.

Did you? It just looks like you stated my prescription and then virtually chuckled a bit.

Posted by: John Morales | September 9, 2010 7:25 AM

Moosebite:

Honestly though, there's so many more relevant things in my post that you could have picked on.

You still don't get it. From your reference, you've addressed sense 6, but it might've well been meant in sense 4. They're quite different.

I'm more interested in discussing the validity and/or soundness of the proposition, than the semantics.

The semantics define the universe of discourse; precision is (ahem) required.

The possibility of a misunderstanding doesn't undermine the logic of my arguments in their intended meanings, anyway.

It addresses the issue of relevance.

Did you? It just looks like you stated my prescription and then virtually chuckled a bit.

Yes, I envisaged putting your prescription into practice. It is a risible conceit.

If you want more specificity, for one, your appeal to lack of epistemic certitude is quaint and unconvincing; for another, your assignation of responsibility is by no means justified — you might be responding to another.

Posted by: John Morales | September 10, 2010 7:51 AM

Moosebite, it's pretty simple. Traffic laws require me to keep to the speed limit, but I can choose not to. My biology requires me to breathe, and this is not optional.

See the difference?

If you have a rejection of my proposition which is not subjective however, I'd be much more interested in that

Ethics is an inherently subjective subject, and life is a messy place.

To say it is unconvincing is more along the lines of what I was looking for, so if you could expand on that and justify why, I would enjoy that.

I've already said: you've appealed to "being unable to know with absolute certainty" as a basis for a generalised prescription; this conveniently ignores that, for many purposes, we know with sufficient certainty.

The fact that it needs justification is not in contention. So either you want to discuss it or you don't.

What's to discuss? You consider that volunteering utterly unvarnished honesty abrogates one's personal responsibility for the act of telling. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Frankly, I get the sense that your aim is not so much to have a discussion as it is to undermine my conceit (throwing out words like "risible" go a long way to creating this opinion).

It doesn't need undermining, just noting.

Anyone who tried to put your prescription into practice would deserve the likely outcomes.