I recently summarized the conflagration caused by a 2013 atheist monument on public property in Starke, Florida, installed in response to a six-ton Ten Commandments monument on the same property. Only after a legal fight did the county on whose land it sat allow monuments with other viewpoints.

Benjamin Wiker in “Atheists Flood the Public Square” (no longer available online) critiques the text written on its four sides. On the front side of the monument is this:

An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church.
An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of prayer said.
An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.
He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.

This is by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of American Atheists. It is part of her opening statement before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that concluded in 1963 that Bible reading in public school was unconstitutional.

It’s pretty powerful stuff, though Benjamin Wiker, the author of the article, isn’t impressed: “The problem with this well-known quote is—to be blunt—that it displays to everyone . . . the total ignorance of O’Hair. Ignorance embedded in granite for all to see.”

Hospitals vs. churches

Take that first line about hospitals. Wiker says, “The truth is that if there had not been churches, there would never have been hospitals.”

Never? Nonsense. The claim that Christianity gave us the modern hospital is at best only slightly true.

To the extent that Christianity built churches for altruistic (rather than marketing) reasons, that’s terrific. Good works by the church says nothing about the truth of the supernatural beliefs on which it is built or problems caused by the church, of course, but I’m happy to acknowledge any social good that happened due to those beliefs. My only complaint is that churches in the U.S. are laughably inefficient as good-works organizations, passing on perhaps as little as two percent of their income.

The history of Christianity and science is, at best, checkered (more on the Bible’s confused relationship with science here). Modern understanding and treatment of disease is in spite of, not because of, the work of the church. For example, a president of Yale University rejected smallpox vaccination because it interfered with God’s design. The same could be said of any medical treatment—if God didn’t want that person to have a broken leg or yellow fever or an infection, he wouldn’t have caused it to happen. Even today, various Christian denominations stand in the way of in vitro fertilization and some kinds of stem cell research.

Let’s get back to Wiker celebrating how Christians want to do good for other people. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick—that’s terrific stuff. I imagine then that he’d be delighted if society at large realized this and took care of its least fortunate.

(Oops—no, it looks like his organization hates federally funded health care.)

Deeds vs. prayers

On to the second line, “An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of prayer said.” Wiker says that the Christian wants the prayer said and the deed done. He points to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31–46), in which Jesus makes clear that only those who do good works will enter the Kingdom of God.

Yes, let’s look at this parable. Nothing is said about faith—you get into heaven by caring for others. That’s it. I like that attitude, though doesn’t this undercut the Protestant position?

This reminds me of an insight from Julia Sweeney. She said that as a serious Christian, she took disasters in distant countries seriously. And she did something about it: she prayed.

Only after she became an atheist did she realize that this notion of “doing something” was, at best, mental masturbation. It only weakened any desire to actually do something to help those people (educate her neighbors about the problem, write a check, and so on). If homes are to be rebuilt or people vaccinated, people must actually get off the couch and do something real, something in this world. By giving yourself a pat on the head for a job well done, prayer is actually harmful.

Life vs. death

The third line says, “An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.” Wiker went off on a tangent about euthanasia, which I think is a misunderstanding. My interpretation of the line is that we know we have one life, the one here on earth. Let’s participate energetically and enthusiastically in this life rather than yearn without evidence for an eternity in an imaginary paradise.

Social evils

And the final line: “[The atheist] wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.” Wiker bristles at the idea that a Christian wouldn’t have the same goals.

Where Christianity has been an asset, again I celebrate that, but it hasn’t always been an altruistic force for good.

Before an atheist can point to religious wars, he’s quick to point to 20th-century atheists who were behind the deaths of millions. The problem is, of course, that the atheism wasn’t behind any of the deaths (more here).

Wiker said that this brief quote “displays to everyone … the total ignorance of [Madalyn Murray] O’Hair.” In fact, O’Hair’s words have much of the permanence of the stone in which they were carved. Wiker’s whining is as effective as a rainstorm at erasing them.

Continue with part 3.

If this is going to be a Christian nation
that doesn’t help the poor,
either we have to pretend that Jesus
was just as selfish as we are,
or we’ve got to acknowledge
that he commanded us to love the poor
and serve the needy without condition
and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.
— Stephen Colbert

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/9/13.)

Photo credit: Wikipedia

This is part 5 of a critique of The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist: The Dreadful Consequences of Bad Arguments (2015) by Andy Bannister (part 1). The book promises to critique a number of atheist arguments.

Chapter 5. Aim for That Haystack!

In today’s opening episode, our hero is tandem jumping out of an airplane. Things are exhilarating at first but then become terrifying when it’s clear that his partner, the experienced jumper, isn’t wearing a parachute and is planning on breaking their fall by landing in a haystack. He says that parachutes might make you feel good because you’re afraid of death or you remember them fondly from your childhood, but “just because something makes you feel good, it doesn’t make it true, does it?”

Bannister connects this to Freud’s theory that God is simply a heavenly version of their earthly father who’ll make sure that we safely get through this scary world, and he admits his own frequent reflections on mortality. (Which reminds me of apologist William Lane Craig, whose own childhood anxiety about death seems to have set him on his path as an apologist.)

Let me quickly agree with Bannister’s point: just because you want something to be true is no evidence that it is. What’s strange though is hearing this from him. He imagines that it’s the atheists who have the problem with wishful thinking? He has this issue backwards for the entire chapter. It’s so backwards, in fact, that I use a quote from him to close this post.

He touches on C. S. Lewis’s Argument from Desire: thirst and hunger exist, so we know that there’s water and food, and a desire for God exists, so we know that there’s a God. (I respond to that argument here.) This isn’t quite as fanciful as the Ontological Argument, but it does argue that desire points to God, which undercuts the point of the chapter.

He anticipates one obvious rebuttal. We all agree that water and food exist, but we don’t agree that God exists. He responds by handwaving that we don’t sense anything directly. The mind can be deceived or wrong. In an extreme case, you could be a brain in a jar.

After trying to cast doubt on our knowledge of mundane things, he tries to boost God belief. “There is a wealth of evidence that you can engage with to explore that question, ranging from philosophical and scientific arguments, to moral and ethical arguments, to arguments from literature and history, as well as those from personal experience.” And (again) he gives us none of it, saying that this isn’t that book.

Sorry—you get no points for an empty declaration.

Could Christianity be invented?

He next considers the idea that Christianity was invented. “If Christianity were mere wish-fulfilment, just a psychological projection, then those who dreamt it up had pretty impoverished imaginations.” He sketches out the more comfortable religion he would invent: a distant god who didn’t interfere, relaxed moral standards, freedom, and easy entry requirements to a great heaven. But being a good Christian is really hard. Conclusion: Christianity wasn’t invented.

I know of no one who says that it was. There’s a big difference between a religion deliberately invented (Bannister’s proposal here) and a religion that was manmade instead of having real god(s) behind it. Only Christians use this straw man. Note also that ordinary morality constrains hedonism, too, so Christianity is just one more path that puts constraints on our lives.

And let me push back on his characterization of Christianity as a burdensome religion. I never read about a Christian who says, “Y’know, same-sex marriage doesn’t affect me a bit. In fact, I’m delighted by the idea that homosexuals can get married and that society supports that. But my hands are tied—my understanding of the Bible makes clear that this is wrong.” On the contrary, God always seems to conveniently agree with their moral position that the other guy is wrong. There are exceptions, but the God that Christians believe in is often a projection of themselves. Because the Bible is so ambiguous, the Christian hydra has morphed into tens of thousands of denominations, and Christians get to choose the God that fits best.

Bannister agrees: “If you are religious, a sure sign that you’ve [created your own God] is that the God you claim to believe in spends most of his time benevolently blessing all of your own prejudices, desires, and ambitions.” It sounds like atheists aren’t the group he should worry about.

I can’t resist adding the wisdom of third-century church father Tertullian: “The Son of God died: it is wholly believable because it is absurd; he was buried and rose again, which is certain because it is impossible.”

They couldn’t have made up this stuff, so therefore it’s true? Sorry—I need evidence.

Tough love time!

Bannister quotes atheist Aldus Huxley to illustrate the problem with a flexible approach to reality: “We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” Bannister expands on this: “Other atheists who have reflected carefully on their motives have similarly admitted that their atheism is not so much rational as emotional.”

Huxley doesn’t speak for me. My rejection of Christianity is (to the best of my ability) entirely rational, and I’ve never heard anyone say that they pick and choose facts to cobble together a worldview they want.

No, let me correct that: I see Christians doing that a lot. It’s just that I never hear that from atheists.

See also: “I Used to be an Atheist, Just Like You”

Bannister next brings up atheists who say that they’re open minded enough that a compelling miracle would make them believe. “Really? Forgive me, but I think I need to call your bluff. . . . You see, belief isn’t really what God is looking for. As the New Testament itself memorably puts it: ‘Even the demons believe—and shudder!’” He wants to know if these atheists then just say, “Huh—so God exists. Who knew?” and proceed with life, or would they surrender to God and commit their lives to following him?

But where’s the bluff? Bannister is correct that belief in and commitment to God are two very different things. Why should servitude to God automatically follow from belief? The Old Testament makes clear that God is a nasty piece of work (more here and here)—why serve him?

We leave this argument with Bannister’s taunts following us: “But don’t walk away because you are rebelling at a deeper level and merely hiding behind the fig leaf of bad arguments.”

You flatter yourself. Don’t tell me that the atheists have bad arguments when you’ve got no arguments! Give me some plausible frikkin’ arguments and then we can decide if I’m rebelling.

Continue with part 6.

What you feel about God doesn’t
answer the question of whether there is a God.
— Andy Bannister,
The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist

Image credit: Greg Palmer, flickr, CC