Why Be An Atheist?

 

There is an abundance of reasons for not accepting the premise that a god exists. First and foremost is the simple fact that reasonable evidence has never been presented to support the assertion that there is a god of any kind. There have been many attempts to do so and there have been many learned arguments. However, little to no evidence has been brought forth to substantiate the claim there is a god and... arguments are NOT evidence.

 

Nevertheless, the challenging question continues to be asked; ‘How can you be an atheist?’ or, perhaps less bluntly: ‘Why are you an atheist?’ The non-believer may pose this question to himself several times a day. ‘Why don’t I just accept the tenets related to the local religion?’, might well be an alternative wording of the question. 

 

Perhaps you’ve asked yourself a similar question. I don’t know that I ever openly voiced or cohesively and coherently thought the question out. Perhaps I’m more intuitive than logical in this regard, at least. Moreover, I don’t know if I’ve ever been asked the question. The stigma of being an atheist precludes many from even saying the word ‘atheist’ - as if it were a blasphemous pejorative.

 

For me, the question of the higher power persisted to simmer for a long time. Raised as a Roman Catholic, there was much I found to be absurd or immoral or ludicrous and evil in the teachings of the Church. (I’ll forgo giving a list of such things. The reader can supply a list for themselves that needn’t be as comprehensive as Martin Luther’s.)

 

Prompted by the niggling of the question of a higher power, I looked to other sources than the Bible – other viewpoints and other prophets; Edgar Cayce, Velikovsky, Gurdjieff, Eliade, Jung, Buddha, Nostradamus, Illich, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, etc.  All presented interesting hypotheses but all felt out of whack, a bit. Tales about Mu, Atlantis, crystals, and ancient wisdom had an appeal but delivered little satisfaction. 

 

My conclusion – thus far - has been that all these things, while not improbable, were little more than speculative because very little real evidence was provided. Wordy ad hoc reasoning does not make for good argument and - as mentioned before - argument is not evidence. The tales were intriguing; sometimes beautiful and awe-inspiring and overwhelming, but the luster wore off after a while; the sausage had been seen being made, as it were. 

 

Arguments, even by the saintly, seemed specious. (Again, argument is not evidence.) The pre-supposition that a god – a higher power - existed was pervasive but not persuasive. Too much was ludicrous on its face; soul travel, pyramid power, prophesy, (etc.) much else lacked credible evidence. 

 

There’s that word, again.

 

It would seem that evidence of a higher power would be all around and obvious. One might insert the ‘Look at the trees!’ apologetic here but acceptance of that simple-minded notion would require a willful ignorance of biology. Evidence of a god should be more than inferential. Shouldn’t it? For such an overwhelming claim, evidence should be stark and irrefutable. None has ever been presented, that I know of.

 

It has been claimed that god has ‘written it on your heart’. Posh! Again, one would have to think that the heart is a repository of tenets, a container wherein higher knowledge resides. I cannot accept that. The heart is a pump for blood. The brain is the place for thought, emotion, decision-making, consciousness and so on. While ‘god writing its/his instructions on your heart’ makes for an appealing metaphor, so do the diagrams of Gurdjieff and the quatrains of Nostradamus. It would seem that a Supreme Being would be more capable than Aesop was of presenting itself and a governing creed by parables.

 

And what about all the other demi-gods, semi-gods and deific personalities which speckle the ancient world? Asclepius, Simon Magus, Romulus, Siddhartha, Osiris, et.al. had the powers attributed to the Man from Nazareth. Raising the dead and healing the sick were like squirting boutonniere to these and other folk of legend and myth. They were parlor tricks; pick a card, any card! And like feats of magic, none of these averred miracles were true. None were accompanied by credible evidence.

 

Walk on water? As if…

Water to wine? That trick is on the back shelf; old hat.

Raise the dead? Come back from the dead? Get a grip!

 

The apologetic runs that ‘with god, the omnipotent, all is possible...

Oy! Again with the presupposition! 

If that is the case, then mustn’t all of the various rabbit-trails offered by the likes of Cayce, Illich and others be equally viable and factual? The Bible is real ‘cuz the Bible tells us so. Amen and Halleluiah. Praise B! Jesus is god cuz it says so in the Bible. And Cayce is a prophet cuz it says so right in the literature. And all the Sadhus – the Holy Men- of India are real and true because they say they are. 

 

Easy-peasy! 

 

All it takes is unshakeable faith and willful ignorance. Just put all doubt out of your mind and ‘Voila’, you’ve joined the ranks of the Believers and are entitled to salvation, etc. Be sure to get your entry ticket to Paradise stamped and verified. You wouldn’t want to left at the station because of an oversight. Heaven forfend!

 

Once one steps back from modern Christianity and hears about the plethora of mystery cults, children of god and the accounts of revelations, one must at least sense that the Christian faith is much the same as other myths of dying-and-rising gods and the Holy Men of Judea and Galacia have substantial similarity to those of the Punjab.

 

Was Asclepius different from Jesus, the Christ? Yes, the tales are different but the underlying message is entwined with the tales of the Nazarene. Is Herakles or Romulus different from Jesus? Yes, the tales are different; the tellers of the tales were different, as well. The social circumstances of the tale-tellers were different. They came from a different time in history; a different culture; a different society; a different people. This is at the heart of ‘syncretism’; one fable/myth/legend is adapted to another culture with a different legendarium and back-story. 

 

The tales, while different, are comparative to high degrees. There are too many parallels in the tales of Asclepius and the children of god, to ignore. There are too many similarities to cordon off one as factual and dismiss the others as fantasy.

 

Was Jesus of Nazareth special? Not so much, as it turns out. (Oh, and ‘Happy Easter’ BTW.)

 

One shouldn’t accept any claim as true until that claim is supported by sound reasoning and empirical evidence.

More on the God Conspiracy

 

‘People who think with their reptilian brains are susceptible to cults, to conspiracy theories, to rallies, to slogans, to simplistic us-or-them formulas.’ Robert Harrington

One point that has not been addressed regarding conspiracy theories about ‘god’ is the part addressing the assertion that there exists a powerful (and sinister) group which in turn upholds the conspiracy theory as fact. 

 

To address this is more problematic I that fingers need to be pointed at specific targets such as ‘The Illuminati’, the ‘Free Masons, etc. Allegations made against specific, actual groups tend to attract lawsuits. This is a morass into which this writer would rather not descend. That said, if the Roman Catholic and Apostolic church did not spring to mind when a powerful group was mentioned then perhaps the reader has been living under a rock. 

 

No offense.

To backtrack a bit, one must consider the role of gods and divinity in the formation of society. It is generally acknowledged that the first urban centers were in Mesopotamia. The cities of Babylon, Asher and Ur are renown though there must have been others in Africa and Asia which predated those; smaller cities which would have necessitated moral codes, laws, law-givers and law enforcement of some type. 

 

One cannot image a congregation of humans in a group which did not have a code of ethics and behavior. (Here, one might refer to the extensive writings on morals and morality.) Apart from the codes of behavior necessary for tribal groups to exist, more extensive and specific laws would be required to assure public safety when two or more such tribal groups cohabitated. 

 

Such laws would need to be enforced and adjudicated by some authority. Such authority would need to be unassailable. That authority might come in the form of a deity; the authority might then be conferred on the priests which ‘served’ that deity. The priesthood, not being warriors and strong-men would then require a strongman to enforce the adjudication of laws. The priesthood and the strongman would exist symbiotically with the priesthood beholden to the strongman who was, in turn, beholden to the priesthood and their connection to the deity. This would be the fundamental ‘con’ upon which civilization rests.  This relationship would lead to the concept of the divine right of kings. 

 

Leaving aside the usurpation of the priestly power by the king, it is logical to assume the necessity of such a relationship of priest and strongman for the establishment and functioning of a proto-society. Codes of behavior most surely were in place for any group larger than a tribal one to exist together and form an urban center, a nation or a state. Lawlessness is not conducive to the formation of a coherent and sustainable coalition of people as in a city. Chaos is not a good medium for cohesion; laws must be in place and those laws enforced.

 

The god, through the priesthood and the strongman, would be claimed to be the originating source of those laws. By this logic, the conspiracy is shored up; god, its priests and the strongman/chieftain are the symbiotic triumvirate which allows for nascent cities to exist and therefore allow for the establishment of civilization. Without the god, there would be no priesthood. The priesthood, then, requires its alliance with the muscle of the strongman/chieftain for protection from the less privileged and for the enforcement of the codes or laws of conduct ‘decreed’ by the god. 

 

This brings up the privileged positions of the priesthood and strongman.

 

The God Conspiracy

 

The myth of god and religions are the longest–running, most successful conspiracy theory ever.  Let’s define ‘conspiracy theory in the usual way; ‘an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable’. 

 

Crucial to this definition must be an addendum which states that proper evidence is anathema to conspiracy theorists. Evidence must now be defined as well: ‘the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.’ That’s what acceptable evidence is, now, let’s state what good, acceptable evidence is not; conjecture is not evidence. Intuition is not evidence. Wild claims and personal anecdotes are not evidence. Hearsay is not evidence. Distortions of the truth, misapplications of scientific principles, wishful thinking and lies are not evidence.

 

Anytime a ‘Believer’ claims that they have ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’ of a god, it turns out to be nothing more than ‘look at the trees’ or ‘I have a feeling’ or a rehash of an argument from the Middle-ages. If not those, then the ‘Believer’ will recite one or more of examples of poor evidence such as ‘personal anecdotes’ or ‘intuition’. None of these are evidence. Anyone waiting for the ‘Believer’ to provide decent, sufficient evidence is wasting their time.

 

None is ever forthcoming because no proper, acceptable evidence is existent. Nevertheless, the ‘True Believer’ will vehemently mouth one or more of the assertions which they feel in ‘their heart’ is sufficient evidence of ‘god’. Moreover, once the proffered twaddle is refuted as worthless by the skeptic (the non-Believer), the Believer will whinge and whine that there is no evidence that will be accepted by the skeptic. The ‘Believer’ will not accept the standard of evidence defined by the skeptic or might peevishly ask what the skeptic might accept as evidence. 

 

Quite often a ‘Believe’ will moan as to why a skeptic would be concerned about the beliefs of the ‘Believer’. A typical query might be; ‘What does it matter?’. The answer should be readily apparent; if one simply accepts nonsense and non-evidence as fact, then other nonsensical ‘beliefs’ can and will be internalized by the ‘Believer’. There is a heuristic failure which leads to further failures in cognition and critical thinking. The adherence to other conspiracy theories are a usual result of such heuristic failure though often tis particular heuristic is reserved for the god claim and religious dogma.

 

The conspiracy that there is an all-powerful deity which constructed and designed the universe and who is particularly interested in the sexual proclivities of humanity is such a failure. The failure is further compounded by the acceptance of religious authorities which hone the dictates of the pre-supposed deity and require subservience and submission to not only the deity but to the authority of the religious clerics. Not surprisingly, the religious authorities (e.g. preachers, priests, pastors, prophets, etc.) demand a steady source of funds from the ‘Believers’ to finance the life-style and ostentatious real estate of the religious authorities. 

 

If you dare, ask a flat-earther or one who buys into any of the 9-11 conspiracies, or the conspiracies swirling around the JFK assassination, or the iron grip of the Rothschilds or the infamous Area 51 to provide evidence of their claims. (I strongly advise against such inquiry.) Akin to the balderdash and deflection offered by theists, one finds a very similar use by other conspiracy junkies of non-evidence spiced with pseudo-science, the misapplications of scientific principles and outright lies and distortions of fact which indicate a heuristic failure.

 

This heuristic failure is at the core of the MAGA cult and the worship of Donald J. Trump in the USA and beyond. All evidence to the contrary of the preposterous ‘beliefs’ of flat-earthers and other conspiracy theorists are refused or discounted. Quite often, the evidence refuting the conspiracy is given credence to support the notion that a conspiracy is hiding the ‘truth’ (i.e. the claims of the conspiracy theorist.) 

 

The Pentagon is concealing the ‘truth’ of Roswell, the White House is hiding the facts of JFK’s assassination, the Central Bankers obfuscate monetary policy deemed nefarious. The Jews, the Vatican, the Teamsters, the scientists, the ‘Blacks’, the ‘Gays’, etc.; any group or faction can be cited as obstructing the clear understanding of the ‘truth’ declared by the conspiracy community.

 

It is the ‘atheist’ who is accused of being the obfuscator of ‘truth’ in the case of theism. As no decent evidence from ‘Believers’ has ever been forthcoming, the skeptic is railed against as the one who befuddles the minds of the faithful and under-cuts valid argument for the existence of a deity. This is simply demonization and often includes the assertion that the skeptic is the witting or unwitting agent or stooge of Satan, the enemy of ‘god’. Such dismissal is prevalent in the heuristic failure of conspiracy nuts.

 

The success of the god conspiracy is quite evident in history. The Christian conspiracy – based on the questionable activities and historicity of a ‘man from Galilee’ – has been dominant for 2000 years.  This dominance has been imposed by the violence of the Crusades, the slaughter of heretics (such as the Albigensians), the suppression and execution of natural philosophers such as Giordano Bruno, the murder of women indicted as witches, the abominations of the various Inquisitions, the burning of all texts deemed heretical or non-canonical (the gospel of Marcion, the Gnostic gospels, etc). The Islamic Faith is no less stained by similar violence and oppression. 

 

Yet, the ‘god’ claim predates Christianity and Islam. The Greeks and Romans had their gods and ceremonies. The Assyrians, Akkadians, Sumerians and Babylonians had their pantheon of gods. The Egyptians had their gods and notion of after-life’ So, too, the people of the Indus Valley, China, Africa, Japan, Mesoamerica, and so on all had a god or a pantheon of gods replete with ceremony and rituals of worship, often bloody and murderous. 

 

It is this prevalence, this predilection which is provided by ‘Believers’ in lieu of evidence for a god. The thinking goes that ‘If humanity has always had a deity or a selection of deities, then there must be a god’. This line of thinking is fallacious and circular. It is an appeal to nature and it is the band-wagon fallacy attempting to validate an extraordinary claim by citing the prevalence and popularity of the claim. 

 

The conspiracy theorists depend on incredulity; depend on logical fallacies and unsupported pseudo-evidence for their claim. The same tactic is used by ‘Believers’ to falsely substantiate guff, clap-trap and gobbledygook. Once you get people to believe in an invisible sky genii, you can get them to believe anything outrageous.