Atheist Armaments

This is in response to an article written by Bruce Walker, “The Godless Delusion.”

Full disclosure: I read your article from a link on rationalresponders.com and I do disagree with a lot of your comments, but I’m not here to flame you.

I *do* agree with you that evil is the product of individual choice, but I disagree with the idea of “evil.” “Evil” is a label that we appropriate to an incident, act, person, etc. after the fact, in retrospect, and is entirely relative. Ex: Is it evil to kill someone? How about in war? If you’re defending your family? I will agree that there are some acts (such as rape) that are pretty much indefensible — there aren’t any situations where rape would be conscionable, for example. The attribution of “evil” to any act does not necessarily require the existence of God OR Devil/Satan. I understand that it’s your specific perception of reality, and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that.

The term “religious people” is meaningless. All people - especially militant anti-theists - are religious.

Can you qualify that statement that anti-theists are “especially” religious? By definition, I would contend that those that do not believe in God are the furthest from religiosity as possible. Could you briefly explain this a little more?

You also mention:
- Pre-colombian Aztecs (who were polytheists, ergo religious)
- Imperial Japan (Shinto, with a little Buddhism mixed in, which is arguably an atheistic religion)
- Nazis (who were a weird mix of German Lutheran and Catholicism, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Religion )
- Communist Russia / China
- Muslim Extremists (obviously religious)

Granted, I gather that your definition of “good-religion” is Judeo-Christian faiths whereas “bad-religion” is anything else.
But what about the black marks on the history of Christianity? The Crusades? Spanish Inquisition? Salem Witch Trials? I would also wager that Hitler, who said in Mein Kampf that he was “doing God’s work” was acting under the assumption that he was acting righteously. I personally think he was a crackpot, but then again I also think Falwell and Robertson are too. Just food for thought, also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism covers specific things such as the anti-abortion bombings, gay-bashing, KKK, etc. I think that the very idea that Christianity is, in reality, somehow elevated morally above other religions (Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, etc.) requires some serious rose-tinted glasses. I don’t have specific figures handy to do comparisons, but when the number of deaths are large enough to warrant statistical rounding, then is the quantity of people really all that relevant? (i.e. if you kill 10,000 people in a gas chamber, and I kill 7,500 in a gas chamber, am I really all that much better than you?)

And then we get into the science thing. I am presuming, and please correct me if I am wrong here, that when you say “new god, Science” you are referring to the viewpoint that Science is somehow worshipped in lieu of Christianity (or others)? This notion has always confused me — I guess I don’t understand how one would worship Science. (not being sarcastic here — totally serious) Aside from maybe majoring in Biology in college or attending a symposium, I don’t see how it would be done.

[James Clark] Maxwell did indeed do some really groundbreaking work in the field of Electromagnetism (on par with Newton and Einstein, according to his wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell ), establishing the speed of light. But it’s incorrect to declare that science “debunks” itself. Pseudo-science is debunked. Science improves on previous theories by discarding old theories and replacing them with more accurate / more specific revisionings. Consider your example of Maxwell — his original electromagnetic theory required the existence of a “lumineferous aether” [source: ibid]. When Maxwell’s work later led Einstein to establish the Theory of Special Relativity, the lumineferous aether was no longer necessary to reconcile it with other findings / theories. Maxwell wasn’t “debunked”, because the majority of his original work was left intact. Same as Newton, who’s notions of static gravitational attraction were improved by work of physicists centuries later with laws of universal gravitation.

I think you may have a slight misunderstanding (or at least a misrepresentation) of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. The “Uncertainty Principle” states (and I’m heavily paraphrasing here) that, with respect to subatomic systems, all quantum particles have a predictable and statistical distribution. (The “Electron Cloud Theory”, for example). Essentially, they were saying “we can only know the probable position of a moving particle, therefore by extension, we can only know its probable destination; we can never know with absolute certainty where it will go.” [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle#History_and_interpretations ]. The “Uncertainty Principle” is probably a bit poorly named, as it implies that it’s somehow a negative characteristic.

On either count, speed of light or uncertainty, I don’t see how either mandates an explanation of “God creating an absolute bar to human knowledge.” For a long time, people, scientists even, didn’t believe human flight was possible — or boats made of substance more dense than water (the “Ironclad”, which Napoleon really disapproved of), or even more fitting: the speed of sound. Mach 1 was perceived as an absolute bar for land or airspeed — an impenetrable barrier which no person can exceed — and yet now we have not only broken that barrier on both land and air, but have exceeded it by multiples in the air! How can anyone say with certainty that faster than light travel or subatomic observation are completely impossible? If science does anything, it constantly surprises itself by pushing new boundaries.

On a side note, and I understand that you were merely using this as a segue into your closing, but I disagree that the “Greatest emotional problem is boredom.” I would venture apathy is probably a little more prolific in today’s society — but I would attribute either to an “emotional problem.” And religosity definitely does not exclude one from a life of crime, or perversion, or violence. Need I point further than the Catholic Priest trials? Or the various scandals amongst very influential church leaders? Ted Haggard?

Finally, I disagree with your notion that it is impossible to imagine anything good without the presupposition of God. I am a devout atheist / naturalist / anti-theists / whatever the label in the zeit-geist is right now — I don’t believe in God beyond that it is an interesting myth like past myths of Gods/Goddesses. I have a very fulfilling and happy life; I deal with the same stresses and life-issues that my neighbors, family, and friends all deal with; I just deal with them in a different way. None of the things mentioned in the article specifically require a God to exist, nor are any of them really all that great at mandating the existence of a God in the first place. Arguing that these things are somehow evidence of God’s existence is just an argument that’s ignoring all other possibilities.