Bishops of Atheism

I was listening to the Michael Smerconish Program where the main guest was Dr. Richard Dawkins.  He was hawking his new book.

Dr. Dawkins is one of what I call the Bishops of Atheism, people spreading the gospel of non-god.  To him anyone who believes in God is delusional. 

He claims to follow The Golden Rule.  You try going up to your neighbor and tell him his entire belief system is warped, there is something wrong with him upstairs, and expect him to say, “Have a nice day, Joe”.  Yeah, and he's calling ME delusional.

He has no problem throwing billions of us under the bus.  Yes, I said BILLIONS of us.  A Billion Roman Catholics here ( not including at least a half BILLION combined Eastern Rite Orthodoxies plus Protestant plus Evangelical churches), a BILLION Muslims over there, a BILLION Hindus hiding in the sub-continent; that is a pretty big darn bus.  I haven’t included all those who believe in God, but are not part of a formal religion, or one of the ones enumerated here, or have rejected the concept of religion and still have faith in God.

I guess it is good we are self contained on this planet.  Maybe since we are all so delusional, it may be better for him to place himself in some sort of institution, isolated for his own protection. 

Aside from being extremely arrogant, he is wrong on his premises.

It is understood just having overwhelming numbers doesn’t make a position or proposition correct.  You need some basis from which to operate.  I know, I will use logic!

Logic is the tool that the Bishops of Atheism use.  It is their Genesis to the Fundamental Evangelicals.  You cannot assail logic; we all know logic is all powerful.  It is what can be used to eliminate the existence of God!  I think Douglas Adams had some thing go poof in an exposion of a logical bomb somewhere in the Hitchhiker Series.

Here’s a little secret I learned from 2 semesters of logic taught by a guy named Dr. Wisdom (no lie, I couldn’t make that one up) at Temple University in the 80’s.  Logic has limits.  It is called a tautology. (I misspoke here and have been corrected by Neal Jansons.  I should have said paradox.) It is a breakdown in the logical system.  You can also check a book called called Godel, Escher, Bach for a different take on this.  It is best to demonstrate.

I have 2 statements, you tell me what the result is and I will have a counter argument to you.

1 – This statement is true.

2 – The previous statement is false.

After you twist you logic around for a while you realize that logic is a tool.  Just like a hammer or a wrench.  You can’t use a flathead screwdriver on a Philips head screw; it is just not the right tool.

If you are going to call me delusional for my belief in God, whatever His or Her form would be; then you better come at me with a pretty big tool.

Sorry champ, your tool just ain’t big enough or consistent enough to move me off my belief in God.

The Bishops of Atheism are very good practitioners of Sophistry.

My point is I cannot prove the existence of God using pure logic (nor do I wish to).  But neither can you disprove the existence either.  We are at a stalemate.

Here is Pascal’s bet.  Two statements:

I believe in God.

There is a God.

Either can be true or false. 

If I believe in God and there is a God, I should be in good shape when I pass on. 

If I believe in God and there is no God, I’ll have lived a good life, but no harm, no foul when I pass on. 

If I don’t believe in God and there is no God, I’ll have a “whatever” life, it means nothing when I pass on. 

If I don’t believe in God and there is a God, I may have a slight problem when I hook up with Him/Her when I pass on. 

That is why I look at The Bishops of Atheism as very wise fools.

Comments

[VagabondSaint]

Very well done!

I am one of those who believes in God/ the Universe and refuses to be part of an organized religion. I s believing in respecting the beliefs and non-beliefs of everyone, because hey, I might be wrong, and I try not to make enemies unnecessarily.

And who attacked me most for my beliefs and called me "silly" and "deluded"? Not my Mormon friends, not my church-owning Baptist family, not the Southern Baptist University that I attended. . .no, the most attacks on my beliefs have come from atheists.

I wonder if they realize that, by attacking those who do believe, they have become as bad as the persecutorial Christians they claim to stand against?

[CollinJE]

Here is one problem I have with most religious believers of any given religion. If you ask most adherents of Religion X to disprove Religion Y, without simply saying that know Religion X is right so therefore Religion Y is wrong, they will inevitable go about discrediting that Religion with various types of arguments ranging from historical, logical, scientific, etc. Now when any non-believer applies the same scrutiny to their religion, X, they inevitable return to their beliefs requiring faith. But faith is not something they are willing to extend to other religions, rightfully so, and neither are the non-believers who will continue to encourage the conversation.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

good post, Collin, and not just because i agree with you.

In reality, if you want someone to see things your way on something important to you - you may need to see how the other person got to see things in their way. I am not talking about giving up your faith or position, but trying to walk in the other guy's shoes for a mile.

I am looking at non-believers as just another religion. when the supreme court handed down a decision about that a couple of decades ago, i looked at it funny. but the more i think about it - i think that particular group had it right.

[Weirdo]

I don't know who said it, but calling atheism a religion is like saying not stamp collecting is a hobby.

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

The "fundie atheist" argument used here was debunked years ago by Dawkins. In a nutshell, fundie muslms and also fundie xtians have engaged and will continue to engage in v!olence to further their warped religious agendas. You can't say the same about an atheist.

If the mentaI iIIness of religous fund@mentaIism did not exist, there would be no best selling books by Dawkins, Harris, et al.

Anyhoo, I recommend you stick with simpIistic riffs on atheists, and don't try to go toe to toe with the best deunkers of xtianity: ex-fundies who successfully escaped JeeesusIand. Suggest you start with Valerie Tarico right here on HP! Happy eye-opening reading! ;-)

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't wish to debunk anyone's belief in God anymore than debunking their belief in no God.
I am not going toe to toe with anybody.
I am simply stating there aren't tools that exist to determine for sure one way or the other that will satisfy the opposite side.
Calling one delusional for one's belief system and then using the Golden Rule is ironic.

[Neal Jansons]

Sure there is...empirical evidence, the best tool around for knowing what is really real. There isn't any, for any of the religions. Not a god that appears when summoned, not a cleric with powers to heal, not a single, real, evidenced claim that stands up to the same sort of investigation we use to see whether someone committed a crime. That's all any rational individual needs when presented with a claim. No deductive logic needed, just plain experience.

Someone says, "Hey, did you hear there is this thing called a god?", I examine the definition and the evidence for the claim the exact same way I would examine any other claim about the world and find there simply isn't any reason to believe.

There is a, generally disregarded, school of epistemology called Rationalism...those guys thought you could prove things about the world using just reason and logic. They thought they could figure it all out from an armchair. But those generally don't exist anymore. Most modern atheists (should they hold a position on knowledge at all) are all about Empiricism, a school of epistemology that states knowledge is justified by experience.

In short, no one needs logic to know there is no god (in the Judeo-Christian sense)...they just have to look around.

[Neal Jansons]

Also, the problem with Pascal's Wager is that it doesn't help you decide which god, it just makes a game-theoretical argument for choosing A god.

On top of that, I don't think any god worth his/her/its salt would accept a decision that was basically hedging your bets on eternity. But if your version of "perfect" includes legalistic gullibility, have fun with that.

[mike bosworth]

Not just that - Pascal's wager is most effective with decidedly unChristian propositions. Pascal wagers on the proposition that "mayyyybe people go to heaven for believing in the Judaochristian God." Consider instead the much more amusing proposition that "mayyyyybe people go to heaven for living as decadently and hedonistically as they possibly can."

If you follow the original steps of Pascal's wager, replacing *his* "mayyyyybe" with the alternative I am suggesting, you will find that his argument works even better on the alternative than it does on the original; oops.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i like it.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

my point that i was going with on the pascal bet was you have 3 "safe" outcomes out of 4.

sometimes we outsmart ourselves.

[Neal Jansons]

My problem is that we don't base beliefs on bets, and we can't "choose" to believe anything. We either believe it or don't, and they can easily test this showing neurological time-lapses in response to statements and questions.

You can obsess yourself into believing something for awhile, but you need to make sure you have no contravening data.

Besides, there are worse problems with Pascal's Wager. God needs to be defined logically in the form of a existence proof (there exists an x such that x equals) before it can be a part of an argument. Otherwise all you have is an empty verbal token...I could replace "god" with "beblehfjdd" and it would be the same argument.

[Neal Jansons]

If you decide to go with the classical "omnimax" god (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent) than that god is subject to the Problem of Evil/Suffering, to wit:

1. God exists
2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good
3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.
4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.
5. An omnipotent being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.
8. Evil exists (logical contradiction).

Since you don't seem to know as much about logic as you thought you did (as I showed you in an earlier comment), you might wish to consider whether your position is mistaken.

[Neal Jansons]

Maybe you should have taken three semesters.

A tautology is not a place logic breaks down at all. All logic is built on tautologies, in a sense. A tautology is a logical statement that can be reduced to the form "A=A" and has a truth-value of T because of its form, not its content. An example is a statement like "It will either rain tomorrow or it won't."

I think you might have meant a paradox, which is merely an argument which has contradictory premises. In real life, paradoxes do not exist because "A" and "not-A" are never both true at the same time. When you produce a paradox in logic it is due to either a problem in your premises or in your rules of logic. A famous paradox along these lines is the Barber Paradox in set theory: "Imagine a barber who shaves every man in the village who does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?" Discovering this paradox led to "fixing" set theory, because it was realized that the problem was in defining a set of sets by negation.

You might have also meant to reference Godel Incompleteness, which actually is a place logic "breaks down" in the sense that we can't prove all possible logico-mathematical statements that we can construct to be either true or false...some are undecidable in principle.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i stand corrected. it was the 80's.
my logic is imperfekt too.
I thank you for it.

[Neal Jansons]

No worries. Once upon a time I was working towards a doctorate, and my focus was logic and philosophy of science. I TAed for two years...this is not the worst error I have seen by far.

[TruthJustice4America]

I believe in God. It is okay with me if you do not. But it is not okay with me when you inform me that it is not okay with you for me to believe in God.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

kind of like - "your rights end at the start of my nose"?

[OrangeSam]

Joe wrote: "i don't know that the local library will have his book for a couple of months."

Well, I know. The book, The God Delusion, published in 2006, is available in the Montgomery County Library system. The online database currently shows eight copies available.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

we are members of the Lower Providence Library. I will go there when I get a chance. I was referring to his new book that won't be there for a while.
i like the intensity.

[OrangeSam]

Just tryin' to be helpful.
The book doesn't seem to be at the Lower Providence branch, but it seems that you can make an online request or a copy be transferred over.

[OrangeSam]

A few comments on the outcomes outlined above:
"If I believe in God and there is a God, I should be in good shape when I pass on."
The arrogance of the believer. So many assumptions are built in here. For example, it assumes that one can understand the nature of the deity and the deity’s expectations.
“If I believe in God and there is no God, I’ll have lived a good life, but no harm, no foul when I pass on.”
What? Just because one doesn’t believe in a god somehow means that one can’t live a good life or can’t be motivated to live a good life. Talk about throwing folks under the bus.
“If I don’t believe in God and there is no God, I’ll have a ‘whatever’ life, it means nothing when I pass on.”
A life without a god somehow equates to a life without meaning? Rubbish. Consider this quote passed on to me as a Native American proverb: “We are forever judged by the tracks we leave.”
“If I don’t believe in God and there is a God, I may have a slight problem when I hook up with Him/Her when I pass on.”
Or you may not. Depends on the deity’s nature and expectations. It may be possible to meet those expectations with a belief in the god(s) you encounter.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i was going with a short-hand example there. i didn't want too get too long-winded and legalistic at the top.

i get where you are coming from and appreciate it.

[unhrainer]

Logic and the scientific method are indeed tools, very useful ones that have been proven time and again to work -- they give us answers that are testable against observable reality. They are tools that give us a very good idea of what is real.

They cannot, as you point out, prove a negative. The fact that the existence of god cannot be logically disproven, however, is not a very good argument in favor of his existence. The fact that you cannot logically disprove the existence of my pet dodo bird doesn't mean it's irrational for you to live your life as if it doesn't exist.

And... perhaps dial down the righteous indignation? I have but to turn on a radio or television, pick up a newspaper, step out onto certain street corners, or call my grandmother to get religious bigotry spouted at me -- I have been called an enemy of morality, a person unworthy of U.S. citizenship, and a fool, and that's before the threats of eternal damnation are counted in. One author writing one book that calls religious believers delusional is hardly an attack on the same level. Screams of victimhood are inappropriate.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i am happy to dial down ...
thanks for the restraint...

[mike bosworth]

You make a point: logic is not a big enough tool to deal with God.

With all due respect I find this to be an enormous cop-out.

If you are telling me that a pseudo-physical, undetectable super-intelligence exists inside and/or outside of the universe, then I am hearing a logical statement about reality. I am hearing a claim about "what is." I am hearing a proposition about empirical truth, which either is supported by evidence, or is not supported by evidence.

In other words, simply stating the phrase, "God exists," is using logic to deal with God.

Am I hearing wrong? If you are not, in fact, making a logical statement about reality - if you are not making a claim about "what is" - an empirical proposition - then you are correct: I have nothing to use in an argument against you, I have no logical means of opposing your stance, because you don't, in fact, have an argument, have a stance, or have a logical meaning.

But if you are saying what I think you're saying, then your proposition - being a proposition - is subject to critical thought and reasoning.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i think you have almost got where i am going. the last part of what you say is clearing the clouds.

[mike bosworth]

You take issue with Richard Dawkins's tone. You find his tone disrespectful. I do too. Dawkins does not respect religious followers at all.

I agree that respect is important. When dealing with opinions vastly different from your own, respect enables reconciliation and it enables amicable conversation.

I am not sure what Richard Dawkins intends, but I don't think he seeks either reconciliation OR friendship.

Can you clarify what you mean exactly by "throw under a bus?"

Is that how you refer to "being rude?" Or are you suggesting that Dawkins wants to kill people? I realize those are loaded questions but I sincerely find the phrase to be confusing. I want to make sure I understand your intended meaning.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

he's looking for unreconcilable, cold, hard, respect for his positions.

he won't get it because he won't allow flexibilty in the face of those on the other side. he is inflaming people by going after what they hold to be true with insults.

it is a disrespect cycle.

"throwing under the bus" is my way of expressing his disrespect for the better part of the planet.

[mcthfg]

Oh, Joe. Stick to topics you understand.

"A Billion Roman Catholics here ( not including at least a half BILLION combined Eastern Rite Orthodoxies plus Protestant plus Evangelical churches), a BILLION Muslims over there, a BILLION Hindus hiding in the sub-continent; that is a pretty big darn bus." This is called argumentum ad populum. At one point in time, most people thought the Earth was flat. Maybe you believe the world is flat. It would fit with your religion.

So your belief in God is based on the outside chance that a bunch of guys living in a cave 2000 years ago might have got it right? And that you should believe in god because if not, you might get in trouble? Why not believe in Zeus? He's even older than your Jesus.

Have you ever actually researched your religion? Have you ever read about Horus, on whom your mythological Jesus is based? I doubt you know the first thing about how your religion started, yet you worship this great could being.

You call Dawkins arrogant, yet claim you have befuddled this arrogant man (who teaches at Oxford - where do you teach, Joe?) with your own easily dismissed piece of sophistry.

Joe, do some research. Often, people who are wrong view people who are right as arrogant. I think it is far more arrogant to assert something you can't prove. But then again, I like science.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

I am saying it is a stalemate. Logic isn't a strong enough tool to go either way with this.
Whether Christ existed 2000 years ago or part of another story is immaterial. I have researched that as well as the gnostic gospels as well as other creation stories.
I am staying on the topic of the existance of God, whatever form God takes.
Science and God are not mutually exclusive.

[minimalist syntax]

As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, (who has Uniate ancestors) I wanted to point out that Eastern Orthodox are *not* Eastern Rite "Orthodox". The only Eastern Rite are the Byzantine Catholics as they tend to be called in the US, or Eastern Rite Catholics who threw their lot in with the Catholic pope (on a charitable interpretation of the history) but kept their Orthodox liturgies. Hence they are called Eastern Rite (Catholics). The Eastern Orthodox are a completely different group. The Eastern Orthodox are the second largest Christian group in the world. :-)

[Ali A. Rizvi - Huffpost Blogger]

The definition of "delusion" in the DSM-IV:

"A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture."

The last sentence of the definition was specifically added because if it hadn't been, religion would have fallen under the definition.

Saying someone is "delusional" does not mean they are delusional about everything. Many people have delusions about something or another. It is only when it takes over your life that it becomes a delusional disorder.

Most people that are speaking out against religion aren't necessarily speaking out against people having private, unproveable beliefs. Otherwise, they'd rail against astrology and numerology as well. They're speaking about the imposition of unproveable, faith-based beliefs on legislation, foreign policy, and the science classroom, among other things.

Faith requires a lack of evidence. Once you have evidence, it's not faith anymore, it's knowledge. Religion is immutable faith based on faith. Science is mutable, evolving knowledge based on evidence. They're not equivalent.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

i am using the common street definition of delusional, the one where a detatchment for reality is associated. he needs to use different words for what he is saying because calling someone delusional is an insult.

That puts 2 strikes on you immedatly before you get in the batter's box.

[Ali A. Rizvi - Huffpost Blogger]

Has insulting ever been a problem for the religious? What do tax-exempt churches openly preach about homosexuality? Or about Scientology? What did Mormons say about blacks until a few decades ago? What does Deuteronomy 22:20-21 say should be done to women who are not found to be virgins on their wedding night? What does the Quran say about Christians in Verses 5:72 and 5:73?

Most importantly - and this is to all religious people who are "offended" by the criticism of atheists like Dawkins - what do all of these texts say about nonbelievers and atheists?

Nonbelievers will use words, satire, criticism, and occasionally say faith is a delusion.

But the texts that many of the religiou believe are the word of God say that nonbelievers are not only immoral and astray, but subject to eternal damnation and hellfire, not to mention death on earth: Look up Leviticus 24:16. Or 8:12 in the Quran. So, um, WHO should be offended here again?

I don't have a problem with religious belief. Most of my family and friends are believers, many of them much smarter and accomplished than I could hope to be. But they do not impose their beliefs or ask that they be written into legislation or science textbooks. Many of them, however, have told me that they know I'm going to hell. I can deal with that. Can you?

[CollinJE]

Wouldn't any religious follower of any given religion consider the followers of a different religion to be delusional?

Do Catholics not consider Evangelicals delusional about Christianity? and vice-versa?
Do Muslims not consider Christians delusional? and vice-versa?
etc.....

[DevonTexas]

You might try reading Dawkin's book before you expose your prejudice further. The God Delusion is an eye-opening, mind-expanding experience.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

I am not against evolution. I think Darwin did a great job of explaining what he saw. I believe Evolution is a tool in the hand of God.

[DevonTexas]

You are confusing his books. The God Delusion is not about Evolution. It's about the delusion of the thing you call god. Hence, the title "God Delusion".
You really need to investigate and research this more beofre you take a position attacking Dawkins. I don't think you understand what you're railing against yet.