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Lamar Sr. High School - Houston, Tx
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Calvinist & Hobbesian,

That was a great reply to Rev. Byron's excellent piece. Very illuminating.

An excellent, thoughtful post Rev. Byron.

One minor point though; you might have noted that many believers are also believers by default. They are just as distracted as any atheist and rather than thinking about the existence of God(s) or the validity of faith they just blindly accept whatever dogma is most familiar and comforting to them.

Most of the atheists I have met became atheists because they thought seriously about their faith. That was my own experience.

Mr. Byron,
I like your idea to listen to atheists. I was a devoted xian and through intellectual pursuit I chose to stop believing. I only need to be heard when someone thinks I need to be a believer again. I'm content not believing in any god. According to Barna research non-believers were 9 % of the population in 1990 and now represent 16%. If it's because of violence then look to Northern Ireland, Palestine, Israel, Rowanda or India but atheists in America are not the problem.

Mr. Byron,
I like your idea to listen to atheists. I was a devoted xian and through intellectual pursuit I chose to stop believing. I only need to be heard when someone thinks I need to be a believer again. I'm content not believing in any god.

Mr. Byron:

I'm glad I read your post all the way through. In the last few paragraphs, I find much promise in the way you seem to welcome listening to thoughtful atheists. So please listen with an open mind when I say that I almost didn't make it to the end, as what preceded it seemed dismissive at best, insulting at worst.

I'm not an accidental atheist. Maybe that description would have applied in my twenties. From my earliest memories of thinking about such things, I found the myths of Christianity that I was raised under hard to believe. I think the mother who raised me felt the same, though she never said so openly (she even sent me to church, though she could never explain why beyond that she thought it would be "good for me". Note that she never went.) For whatever reason, it seemed I was incapable of taking theism seriously.

So, by my third decade, I had pretty much dismissed the realm of religion as irrelevant to me.
In my thirties, I became a political activist, and found myself working with many religious people of obvious value. I decided I'd perhaps dismissed religion too lightly, and took it upon myself to make a study of various religions to see what they were about, what they had to offer. Western monotheism still left me cold. I found much of value, to be sure, but I could not bring myself to personalize a universe that all my observation showed to be totally impersonal. If such a god existed, he seemed to be good at hiding above all else. In Eastern philosophies, however, I found much of the guidance and direction offered by the West, without the necessity of believing that which I could not. Though I don't hold myself out as a Taoist or Buddhist, I took into my thinking much of theirs.

Now, approaching my sixth decade of existence, I have once again begun calling myself an atheist. Partially because I'm much more sure now that that is what I am, and somewhat because I think that like "coming out" for gay people, being open helps to remove the stigma for others. Hopefully, if more people actually knew they knew an atheist, we wouldn't seem so scary.

My point is, I have spent - and still spend - a lot of time thinking about "The mystery of life; the riddle of existence; the presence of evil in our world; the meaning of love, power, joy, hope, forgiveness; the question of human origins and human destiny." Please don't dismiss all of us as "distracted". I don't think we're any more so than the lot of believers, many of whom, you must admit, give no more thought to their belief than you attribute to atheists.

Anyways, thanks for ultimately leaving your mind open. I hope you're following these responses. I find there are a lot of good and thoughtful people on both sides posting here. A few nitwits too, but what are you gonna do?

Its writers like Mr. Bryon that at least make me more understanding of how atheists are characterized by believers. For many believers, their belief is in a constant struggle with all sorts of other distractions and drifting away from religious practices and beliefs. It is thus often an important and even productive part of their rhetorical toolkit for atheism to be the road of negative things. It's almost an unthinking habit.

But thoughtful people like Bryon also know that there are people who are non-believers, not just tendencies in religious folk. And he doesn't really want to insult those people or think of them as lesser than believers. This conflict, I think is what naturally sets other less watchful religious people halfway down the path of smearing and slandering atheists before they even realize it.

I don't interpret Rev. Byron's comments as a general slam at atheists. Instead they are a slam at any people who are so blinded by "stuff" and political propaganda that they simply don't take time to think about life and the universe and things that really matter.

As an atheist activist, I have no problem sitting at a table of believers (as deluded as they might be about some things), if they treat me as an equal human being, and if we can have a discussion about things of mutual concern where we can find some common ground.

I would like for this website to pose a question to its contributors about what, if anything, we can all agree on.

Stan wrote:
"I went to the site and the only thing I found was what the rainbow is. I don't believe I stated that the rainbow wasn't real. And also I only said it should be considered. Can you explain the purpose of the rainbow (without belligerence)??"

I can't explain the "purpose" of the rainbow with or without belligerence. It doesn't have a purpose. Nothing has a purpose other than parts of living things (e.g., the purpose of a heart is to pump blood) or, in another sense, living things themselves (e.g., "I'm walking to the refrigerator; my purpose is to get a beer"). Requiring everything to have a purpose is a religious and anthropocentric view that I don't think any non-believer buys into.

Stan: "And you asked: "And who told you that chaos is the norm?" Did I state someone told me"?? I don't think so."

OK, sorry, it sounded like things I've heard before - "order out of chaos", so I didn't stop to consider that you'd come up with it entirely on your own.

Stan: "Was the universe always ordered in its current configuration throughout all time? The physical evidence would seem to be that the earth has certainly gone through changes; stars seem to form and collapse. Maintaining that chaos (disorder) and order exist(ed) together in the same thing would seem to be the product of an agenda rather than a thought out condition."

I fully agree that things go through changes, I just wouldn't characterize that as "chaos." To me it's all part of the natural order of the Universe. It brings to my mind a question for you - if change, which is constant, is chaos...where do you see order?

Finally Stan wrote: "The technique you seem to be employing in discussions seems to fit with similar techniques used in recent times in political matters."

Again, my apologies, but I don't follow you here. I'm not being facetious, I just really don't know what you're talking about.

Pam wrote:

"You really don't know what a rainbow is, or why we see it? Please go to this site for a basic education:
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/"

I went to the site and the only thing I found was what the rainbow is. I don't believe I stated that the rainbow wasn't real. And also I only said it should be considered. Can you explain the purpose of the rainbow (without belligerence)??

And you asked: "And who told you that chaos is the norm?" Did I state someone told me"?? I don't think so.

Was the universe always ordered in its current configuration throughout all time? The physical evidence would seem to be that the earth has certainly gone through changes; stars seem to form and collapse. Maintaining that chaos (disorder) and order exist(ed) together in the same thing would seem to be the product of an agenda rather than a thought out condition.

The technique you seem to be employing in discussions seems to fit with similar techniques used in recent times in political matters.

Hello, Ann O.,

It's good to be in touch with you again.

What do I consider to be evidence?

Evidence = Facts (repeat, facts) that tend to prove a proposition. Does not include hearsay and other dubious testimony.

Source: Law School 101. [Actually, 2nd year law school.]

Talk with you again soon, I hope.

I would hesitate to say that atheism is in vogue, although there does seem to be more interest in alternatives to the cosmology and moral system posited in the "holy writings" of the three major monotheistic religions. The fact that Harris and Dawkins, to name only two, are such powerful and accessible writers has something to do with this as well, but the dynamic that I would personally point to as a causal factor for a good number of budding skeptics is what we see and hear on the news each day from the Islamic world.

Since 9-11, a large number of people have investigated Islamic thought and history in an effort to explain the attacks, the suicide bombings, the denigration of women, the cruel treatment of intellectuals and dissenters, etc. etc. What many have found is a zeitgeist very similar to medievel Christianity. Some of these individuals have come to recognize that what separates the western world from the Islamic one, is largely due to advances in science and government forged in the fire of secularism, and in spite of religion. One of the primary theses in "The End of Faith," is that the liberal enlightenment values that have come to distinguish the West; respect for individual human rights, democracy, freedom of thought and speech, and so on, have been made possible by a departure from much of what is written in the Bible. You could say that a civil society is such to the degree that it is NOT dominated by religion.

Muslims are quick to remind Christians of their crusader past, and rightly so. Secularists can point to the inquisition. But these things are reified by watching Sunnis blow up Shiites and vice versa, and recognizing that Islam and Christianity share the same basic foundations. The western world has advanced beyond the Islamic one because of our relatively greater success in moving beyond a worldview based on ancient books full of ancient thoughts. Modern Islam holds up a mirror to Christians of the roots of their own belief system, discomfiting many in the west who might not have entertained such thoughts otherwise.

This On Faith conversation attracts atheists like a cotton field attracts boll weevils.

Louie: You tell us to go to the Book! Well even St. Augustine was embarrassed by the Bible, its anthromorphism, its primitivism. He became a Christian in spite of it, not because of it.

The Book will only end up telling you that God is baloney, and Christianity is wholly fictitious.

"It really doesn't seem logical that such order that is in the universe could have happened if chaos was the norm."

Actually, there is a fair mixture of order and chaos in the universe. With a sample size of 1, it's hard to assert that we are somehow outside the 'norm'.

To put it another way, there are some interesting patterns to numbers chosen for the lottery -- if you weren't aware of how the numbers were chosen, you could easily develop some fairly interesting theories on their apparent order and structure.

Rev. Byron should follow his own advise and open mindedly talk to an atheist. It is clear from all the frivolous insults he heaps upon atheists that he has not.

Atheists are not distracted, numb, lonely, confused, or sullen. It takes intellectual courage to go against what 95% of your culture believes and to think the issues through for yourself. That fearless freedom of thought is to be admired, not dismissed with insults.

"Most people are non-assertive and non-polemical agnostics. "

I would say 'many', not most -- though with proper education perhaps we can increase that number.

"Most people quietly believe and accept that they have no knowledge of whether a "God" does or does not exist."

Exactly.

That said, even absent knowledge on the existence of the divine, it is certainly possible to analyze and critique the various mythos systems in play today -- and to identify clearly those areas in which they fail to comply with any objective observation of universal laws.

Many agnostics would be entirely comfortable in a conversation of theistic versus non-theistic universal models -- those same agnostics may be much less patient being lectured on the specifics of a particular mythos [be it Christianity or any other current religion].

If atheism is in vogue it is probably because it is the latest cool way to scoff at Christianity. I read through all of these posts and found what I expected to find: that there are very few if any real atheists, but lots of people who are either furious with God or furious with religionists.
As with everything, it is critical to go to the source (the Bible) and find out what it says with an unbiased mind. Don't just listen to your religious leader or the "atheist" naysayer who is usually just really angry (and as it pertains to religionists, rightly so). Go to the Book, read the whole thing, ask pertinent questions, then decide. Anything less is intellectually dishonest.

Oh these priest, pastors and rabbis. The blind leading the blind.

To Ann O.
You wrote:
"This touches on what I see as a basic problem in Darwinian theory as explained by Dawkins. (Actually, I should say 'as explained by Dawkins according to the press'. I haven't read Dawkins, only seen him on TV.) He seems to be saying that it is a combination of *both* randomness and causal laws which result in the various species. Usually these two sorts of explanations are held to be opposed to each other, and I'm wondering how he relates them."

There is no contradiction. What I think you're talking about is mutation vs. natural selection. Mutation is entirely random, natural selection is anything but. Mutations provide the raw material on which natural selection works - the genes that are selected *from*.

You also wrote:
"Does anybody know Dawkins' arguments and can you explain them to us? (I might even buy his new book if you make it look interesting enough.)"

Explained above, but I don't think this is really an argument on Dawkins' part - more of an explanation. This is basic Darwinian theory.

I highly recommend his new book "The God Delusion", but Darwinian theory is not its main focus.

NORRIE says:

Atheists and believing Christians are like the two sides of a coin, like Tweedledum and Twedeeldee. They both make a big show of organizing their lives around a positive belief for which there is no evidence, rational or irrational.

Hi again, Norrie,

What do you consider to be evidence?

Ann O.

Atheists and believing Christians are like the two sides of a coin, like Tweedledum and Twedeeldee. They both make a big show of organizing their lives around a positive belief for which there is no evidence, rational or irrational.

Most people are non-assertive and non-polemical agnostics. Despite the number of self-professed atheists in this thread, I think they're a tiny percentage of the population. It's quite rare to find a person who will make an emphatic statement that "There is no God." Most people quietly believe and accept that they have no knowledge of whether a "God" does or does not exist.

Stan, please tell me you aren't serious!
You really don't know what a rainbow is, or why we see it?? Please go to this site for a basic education:
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/

And who told you that chaos is the norm? Gravity and other natural laws are the norm - and please don't think that because I refer to them as "laws", it means that someone "passed" them. The key word is "natural."

STAN: It really doesn't seem logical that such order that is in the universe could have happened if chaos was the norm.

Hi, Stan,

This touches on what I see as a basic problem in Darwinian theory as explained by Dawkins. (Actually, I should say 'as explained by Dawkins according to the press'. I haven't read Dawkins, only seen him on TV.) He seems to be saying that it is a combination of *both* randomness and causal laws which result in the various species. Usually these two sorts of explanations are held to be opposed to each other, and I'm wondering how he relates them.

Does anybody know Dawkins' arguments and can you explain them to us? (I might even buy his new book if you make it look interesting enough.)

Ann O.

Doug asked: "Please cite one observable or historically undeniable phenomenon that would have been impossible without God's existence?"

[Assuming the definition of God is not limited to that in the Old Testament] The rainbow should be considered. Clearly the writing of Noah, the Flood, and the rainbow were fabricated (to explain the rainbow?) but also it would seem that the rainbow is difficult to explain away as 'just happening'.

One of the hymns refers to God as doing the "design". Maybe a better concept would be "Design, Development, Test, and Evaluation", then design changes etc. But this requires a different concept of God and is outside the apparently preferred concept of either the God of the Bible or no god.

It really doesn't seem logical that such order that is in the universe could have happened if chaos was the norm.

Our society places great value in being, or at least appearing to be independent and relying on no one or no thing. It is important to be seen as carrying our own weight, making our own way. We feel a tremendous need to be Masters of our environment.

Independence is an illusionary a form of control and people like to feel like they are in control. And it is natural to want to feel like we are in control – as if we know every answer or at least subscribe to a formula capable of providing every answer.

Atheism seems to be an obvious extension of these values our society holds dear. Most religions call on us to give control to God and who but a ‘chump’ would want to give control away? Control is something to be hoarded.

Of course there are those “Missouri atheists” – they want you to ‘show me’ before they commit, but I think many of these atheists are not as extreme as the ram-rods and many are actually more agnostic than atheist.

Whether there can be a dialog between believers and the atheist depends on how rabid the atheist or believer is. I am constantly amazed at how many Christians think that if they just cram God down someone’s throat hard enough, it will somehow stick. By the same token, I am also amazed by how hard some atheists try to evangelize the faithful into their godless beliefs. Sadly, both extremists are more alike than either would like to admit.

To those atheists and believers of a more moderate temperament, dialog can achieve much. Look at the Civil Rights movement. Southern Churches nurtured it in the ‘50s and ‘60s and its most famous champion was a minister named Martin Luther King. Yet modern dogma gives much of the credit to secular politicians. The truth is both made a difference.

You don’t have to agree how the trees got there to enjoy the shade - although some people will tell you that you do.

"The mystery of life; the riddle of existence; the presence of evil in our world; the meaning of love, power, joy, hope, forgiveness; the question of human origins and human destiny. Try talking about these first with mind and ear open and then closed to the possility of the existence of God."

How often do you, Rev. Byron, consider these concepts with a mind and ear open to the possibility of the non-existence of God.

Please cite one observable or historically undeniable phenomenon that would have been impossible without God's existence?

As a long-time atheist, it is deeply gratifying to read the repeated attempts of theists to denigrate atheism in various ways in these "On Faith" postings. This confirms for me that the great flowering of atheistic thought and openness I've witnessed over the last couple of years is no illusion, and that those with vested religious interests feel threatened enough to respond.

Mr. Byron, I propose that you have no actual evidence concerning the proportion of people who have arrived at atheism through a careful examination of the evidence versus those who are "apatheists" - people who don't particularly care about gods or religious faith. In any case, aren't many theists spectacularly uniformed about the details of their supposed faith? How many "bible-believing Christians" have actually read their bible in any detail? Do you really wish us to believe that your average theist has thought more deeply about matters of faith than a typical atheist? In the many, many conversations on faith, science, and reason I have participated in, I have found exactly the opposite to be true, and I defy you to provide evidence to the contrary.

More to the point, what exactly is your point? As humans in a free society, we are under no obligation to expend any effort considering imaginary beings. If you wish to see all people forced to think about gods or at least maintain the facade of doing so, I suggest you would be more comfortable in Iran or perhaps 13th century Europe.

Concerning "The mystery of life; the riddle of existence; the presence of evil in our world; the meaning of love, power, joy, hope, forgiveness; the question of human origins and human destiny.": Scientists have done more to shed real light on these questions in the past two centuries than all the gurus, ministers, popes, imams, oracles, mystics, prophets, psychics, theocrats, and witch doctors in all of human history combined. A shallowing of faith to the point of total evaporation is what humanity actually, and desperately, needs.

I am personally an atheist not out of intellectual laziness or distraction but because the idea of God as an explanation of the universe -- especially the personified Christian trinity -- makes no sense to me whatsoever. I most certainly reject the idea that the scrolls and codices arbitrarily cobbled together into a "Bible" in some way represent the "Word of God", a word that glorifies ethnic cleansing and that is not even internally consistent.

The thing is Father, you call for dialog, but our world views, yours and mine, are completely incommensurable. There is no point in talking about some of these issues. You are free to your opinion -- even your tax break I suppose -- and I have no objection to classes on religion taught in public schools. One needs a certain amount of religious education to understand art and literature. Do please stay out of the science classes, and try to avoid any more Gallileo affairs and we will get along fine.

How can this fool simply say that atheism is caused by distractions? How does he know this? Why would one persons' belief be any less valid than another persons' belief just because they weren't superzelous about it? Sure his tone is gentle in this article, but is nothing more than condescension.

No reverend father SJ. Atheists are not formed by distraction. They are formed by outrage at the insanities of believers.

To be sure, atheists are not cuddly. How could they be? They are in a state of perpetual amazement at the folly of the millions.

There is no God and there is no Jesus Saviour. There is the womb and the tomb. Not cuddly subjects, but the truth.

When a Jesuit tells you even the truth, don't believe it.

Jerome, are you sure you're an atheists. Judging by how well the reverend claims to know atheism he must be one himself. Is there a way I can know for sure that either of you are stating what you are honestly? I guess I'll just have to have faith. Doesn't that by itself say it all? Any atheists can get him/herself a Bible, draw a crowd with a few wild claims of divine revelation, pass the plate and get something between free lunch and untold wealth. Now take the founder of modern Christianity, emperor Constantine the great. How did he make out? How much less does the pope have? How about America's pastor, Billy?

Do they really preach love, peace, motherhood and apple pie? When is the Vatican going to return the Aztec and Inca gold? Did native Americans get a sweet deal, all their gold for faith? It's not too late to rectify obvious wrongs of the past is it? Wasn't the whole idea the justification of crime and not faith in God at all? Would atheists have taken the gold in the first place?

Maybe they're devil worshippers, http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul The gold goes to the ones that lead the multitudes to hell? Is that how that works? Looks to me, one with true faith in God and atheists that calim no faith in God that gold is the object behind religion and not saving souls at all.

Reverend,
Thank you for writing such a decent piece. I expected a lecture on the failings and danger of atheism. I happily found a call to reason and mediation. I am an atheist who couldn't agree more with this:
So what is there to talk about if both theists and atheists sit down to talk?
The mystery of life; the riddle of existence; the presence of evil in our world; the meaning of love, power, joy, hope, forgiveness; the question of human origins and human destiny.

Good call.

Is atheism in vogue? Are people screaming there is not God? Absolutely not. People are saying they don't want God's representatives running their lives. That has nothing to do with whether or not there is a God and everything to do with NO FAITH in religion.

Religion is the problem that has plagued the world from the beginning. It continues to plague. Religion is the enemy of all governments. It attempts to establish the kingdom of God. Why? So the clergy can dictate how people will live their lives. God is nowhere to be found so in God's absence his vicars will do the ruling in the kingdom of God.

The word KINGDOM says it all. Even the kings of earth are not safe with religion on the prowel. Does democracy stand a snow balls chance with bishops making a vote for Kerry a sin?

Good news, Gospel truth, http://www.hoax-buster.org What is true today for religion has been true since the first con man ripped off the first man of faith. Keep the faith baby.