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

This is part 3b of a critique of The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist: The Dreadful Consequences of Bad Arguments (2015) by Andy Bannister (part 1 here). The book promises to critique a number of atheist arguments.
This post wraps up my critique of Chapter 3, “The Aardvark in the Artichokes.” In the first half, I responded to Bannister’s critique of the atheist argument that the Christian rejects hundreds or thousands of gods, while the atheist just goes one god further. He’s now moved on to argue that Christianity is special, and lumping it in with the unwashed masses of religions is wrong.
Why Christianity is unique
Christianity’s big difference compared to Zeus, Thor, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the other gods is:

Every single one of those other entities is an object inside the universe. God, on the other hand, according to Christianity is the creator and sustainer of the universe, the author of the story.

So then make up a new character and call him the Creator. Make him outside. Now Yahweh has a competitor.
You don’t like that he was just invented? All right, then revisit this character after 2000 years has passed so that the origins of this tale are clouded and it has become legend and mythology. That’s Christianity’s advantage—not that it’s correct but that it’s venerable and uncheckable.
Bannister simply declares that God is the creator. That’s not good enough: he must prove it. Without evidence, this is just theology, not an argument.
I’d also recommend that he read up on the Combat Myth and then tell me that Yahweh is in a completely different category. Today’s timeless, outside-the-universe god isn’t what Yahweh was initially. He’s evolved. (Y’know how Superman at first was just pretty strong and could “leap tall buildings in a single bound” but then became insanely strong and could fly? Like that.)
And let me take issue with this claim of uniqueness—that the Christian god’s relationship with the universe is somehow unique. The Greek creation myth (to take just one) has Chaos creating Gaia (Earth). She created Uranus (heavens), and their offspring were the Titans. Cronus (the youngest Titan) was the father of Zeus, the ruler of the pantheon that’s now in power.
That sounds about as sensible (or ridiculous) as the two creation stories that Genesis opens with. Bannister wants you to ignore the man behind the curtain and look instead at the modern Christian view where God walks hand-in-hand with modern cosmology. God is now said to have triggered the Big Bang, sustain the laws of physics, exist outside of time and space, and so on, ideas that would mystify the original audience for Genesis.
No, that won’t do—you’re saddled with the pre-scientific thinking in your holy book that makes your origin myth no more compelling than the Greek one.
How can you dismiss religions without understanding them?
Bannister next complains:

The atheist making [the claim that the world’s religions are essentially the same] has not investigated all of them—probably not any of them—and is instead assuming that they must all be more or less similar to the characterless Catholicism or pedestrian Protestantism they half-remember from their youth.

Bannister has a PhD in Quranic Studies, so he has studied at least one additional religion in great depth. I wonder though if he and I are much different with respect to the other religions. He’s right that I’m no expert in the other thousand (to pick a number) of religions in history, but how can he criticize me for rejecting those thousand religions without cause? Didn’t he do the same thing?
Sure, let’s acknowledge that Christianity is different from all the other religions, but why is that a bold claim? Each religion is different from all the other religions. And as far as I’ve been able to determine, they all have the same unmet burden of proof. You’re right that I haven’t thoroughly investigated Santeria, Baha’i, Raelianism, and the hundreds of others. If you’ve compared them all against Christianity, show us.
Christianity vs. Islam
Returning to Bannister’s expertise in Islam, he tells us, “On almost every major point of Christian doctrine, I think it is safe to say that Islam teaches the opposite.”
But they’ve got the same god! Islam accepts the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), so whatever properties you pull out for Yahweh you must assign to Allah as well. You can say that Mohammed took things in a very different direction to give Allah a unique character, but Christianity did the same with its New Testament.
You can focus on their common origin or their divergence, but let’s go where Bannister is pointing. He says Christianity and Islam are very different—okay, they’re very different. So what? This example only emphasizes the made-up nature of both religions. How does this support his thesis that Christianity is not just different from all the other religions but the only one that’s true?
Atheists aren’t allowed to play with God’s toys
Bannister wants to banish atheists from the field of intellectual discourse, though not for any good reason.

Truth, the pursuit of knowledge, the existence of ultimate values such as justice—those are grounded, ultimately, in God. And so to pick these things up and wield them as weapons against God is to play by his rules.

Give me a break. These things come from humans. Don’t flatter yourself that your God gives truth, justice, and so on to humans when they were humans’ to begin with. But if you have evidence of your remarkable claim, provide it.
And if this turns on the word “ultimate” (as in objective or absolute or God-grounded), I await the evidence for that as well. Ordinary justice is defined in the dictionary without the word “ultimate.”
Continue with chapter 4.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation,
whose purposes are modeled after our own—
a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.
— Albert Einstein

Image credit: Ketzirah Lesser & Art Drauglis, flickr, CC

This is part 3 of a critique of The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist: The Dreadful Consequences of Bad Arguments (2015) by Andy Bannister (part 1 here). The book promises to critique a number of atheist arguments.
Chapter 3: The Aardvark in the Artichokes
In today’s episode, Fred is furious because something destroyed his garden. He’s considering and dismissing possible culprits—from aardvarks to zebras—while our hero points out the clues for rabbits. Fred says that it’s not rabbits, either. You’ve dismissed all those other animals? Well, he just goes one animal further.
This is obviously supposed to mimic the atheist argument used by Richard Dawkins and others that the Christian rejects hundreds or thousands of gods; why not just one god further like the atheist?
Bannister’s harsh critique: “To describe this as a bad argument is to flirt somewhat casually with understatement.”
Game on!
(I’ve responded to this argument in another post, but this chapter has some new ideas that I’d like to respond to.)
Examples to illustrate the error
Bannister lists several examples to illustrate the problem.

• The atheist says, “You’re an atheist with respect to every other religions’ god(s)” and then goes on to disbelieve that final one. Similarly, a married man can be a bachelor with respect every other woman in the world. Would it make sense to disbelieve that final one, his wife? This isn’t analogous. This is exists vs. married to—hardly the same thing. The existence of women isn’t the question when we’re talking about bachelorhood.
• He imagines Col. Mustard in the game Clue saying, “All the other characters are innocent! You should go one character more and let me go as well.” The rules say there is exactly one murderer. And we understand murders in real life—there must be one or more murderers. Zero is not an option. Contrast that with the number of gods that exist, which could be zero.
• He imagines a biologist saying that he rejects evolution because he’s rejected all the other explanations and has just gone “one theorem further.” If the scientist has reasons to reject evolution, no problem. It’s possible for science to have zero theories to explain a phenomenon, though science is looking for one theory. Again, this is different from religion, where zero gods is plausible.

Bannister’s critique to summarize his examples: “The argument leaks like a rusty colander” and “The argument is, to use a technical term from academic philosophy, bonkers.”
No, what’s bonkers is the idea that his examples are analogous to the subject at hand. All I see them doing is raising dust to cloud the issue. (But then that might be the goal.)
The general problem
Bannister generalizes the argument: never pick something out of a collection because it leaves you open to the challenge, “Hold on! You rejected all these other ones, so why not just go one further and reject them all?” He phrases it this way:

You see, the underlying problem with the “One God Less” argument is that it goes too far. If the argument were valid, it would have a devastating consequence, namely that it would behave like a universal acid and erode all exclusive truth claims, be they in theology, law, or science.

It goes too far only when you force it there. Sometimes “None of the above” is an option and sometimes not. You can suggest that a Christian believe in zero gods, but you can’t tell a vegan to adopt zero dietary regimes (they have to eat something).
Let’s return to Fred’s poor garden, ravaged the previous night by some kind of animal. The constant fight of gardeners against animals that eat their crops is well understood. You know that something trashed Fred’s garden, so “this had zero causes” isn’t an option.
And we’re supposed to see this as analogous to the religion case? Compare many animals with the many religions. We know that all these animals exist. In sharp contrast, most religions must be false and they might all be. There are one or more causes of Fred’s damaged garden, while there could be zero or more gods that actually exist. “Zero” is absolutely not an answer in the garden case, while it is a very live option in the religion case.
Not all religions are the same, y’know!
Bannister now wants to argue that when you compare religions, Christianity comes out decisively on top. He begins by scolding his favorite atheist, Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins has made a fairly basic mistake, namely failing to notice that when multiple explanations are offered for something—be that a murder, a scientific theory, or a religious claim—we don’t immediately assume that all are equally likely.

All religions have the same Achilles Heel—supernatural belief. If that single foundational assumption is wrong, then they’re all wrong—all equally wrong and all in the same way. Only if the supernatural does indeed exist are the differences interesting and worth comparing. Without the supernatural, those differences are trivia, and Bannister does nothing to argue for the existence of the supernatural.
And then, in a startling addition to the conversation, Bannister states: “It often comes as a shock to many atheists to know that there is surprisingly good evidence for God.”
Wow—are we to get some argument to support his just-trust-me handwaving for Christianity’s remarkable claims? Nope, just a link to Alvin Plantinga’s “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments.” (I’ve skimmed it in the past without finding anything interesting. Point out anything you find noteworthy.)
Conclude this argument in part 3b.

I’m a friendly enough sort of chap . . .
I’m not a hostile person to meet.
But I think it’s important to realise
that when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity,
the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them.
It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.
— Richard Dawkins

Image credit: David Whelan, flickr, CC

This is part 2 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 2: The Scandinavian Skeptic
Each chapter begins with a silly story to illustrate the problem. In today’s episode, Fred is a friend of the author who disbelieves in Sweden. When our hero asks for evidence, Fred says, “You think that my denial of Sweden is an actual claim of some kind, that it’s a belief. But it isn’t. It’s a non-belief. There’s nothing I need to explain—rather, I’m talking about something I lack, namely a belief in Sweden, so I don’t need to give any evidence for it.” He says he doesn’t have to give evidence for his nonbelief in Atlantis, either.
Who has the burden of proof?
Bannister is annoyed by people who similarly say, “Atheism isn’t a claim. It’s just a non-belief in the claim ‘There is a god.’” Avoiding the burden of proof in this way may be a smart rhetorical move, he says, but it won’t work. “The first problem is that the statement ‘Atheism is just non-belief in God’ proves too much.” Cats have a non-belief in God—does that make them atheists? How about potatoes? Rocks? The color green?
This isn’t necessarily a ridiculous definition. Babies are atheists by this thinking, and that can make some sense. They begin with no god belief as a default, and they can evaluate and choose (or get indoctrinated into) a religion when they’re able to understand.
Another definition is that atheism is simply a “No” to the question, “Do you believe in gods?”
My own approach is that I’ll take a stand. I think that the evidence points to no gods, and I’ll make a positive argument for atheism. There are dozens of posts at this blog that do just that. But I shouldn’t have to since I’m not making the extraordinary claim—that’s the asymmetry that Bannister ignores. In the case of an extraordinary claim (and “There is a god” is certainly one), the default position is the denial of that claim: “There is a god” vs. “there isn’t.”
“Humans have been medically probed by aliens in spaceships” vs. “didn’t happen.”
“The Loch Ness monster exists” (or Atlantis or unicorns or leprechauns) vs. “nope.”
If the extraordinary claim isn’t supported with extraordinary evidence, I’m obliged to return to the default position. My position (no gods) is the default one, and it is my option to get its benefits. I don’t have to make a positive case. If you don’t like the asymmetry of our positions, don’t embrace an extraordinary claim.
And why is the Christian making a big deal about this? He’s characterizing the burden of proof as a burden. If he demands reciprocity before he will make his case, he’s missing an opportunity. Does he want me to earn the right to hear the Good News? Why not say that he will gladly make his case and simply hope that the atheist follows his lead?
I think it’s because his defense of Christianity is weak, and he wants to improve his overall argument by having something to attack as well. But never mind, Bannister is adamant that he doesn’t want to be the only one having to defend his worldview. “If my atheist friends wish to join the conversation sensibly—and I believe that atheism deserves its seat at the table of discussion as much as any other world view—then they must recognize their belief for what it is and engage accordingly.”
This refusal to be the only one defending his worldview is a popular view within apologetics circles, but it’s still indefensible. As another example, I respond to Greg Koukl’s version here.
True vs. false? Ordinary vs. extraordinary? No—beliefs are active vs. passive.
Bannister says that we’re categorizing beliefs wrong. We should use active vs. passive.

There are a near-infinite number of things I passively don’t believe in, if you were to press me: everything from floating celestial teapots to unicycling unicorns. . . . On the other hand, there are plenty of things I actively disbelieve: for example, I do not believe that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made it to the summit of Everest in June 1924, beating Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay by some thirty years. . . . For our active non-beliefs, disbeliefs that consume our time and energy, for those, yes, we do need to give reasons.

I’m seeing three categories of beliefs:

• A, beliefs that are true (Sweden exists)
• B, beliefs that are false (Atlantis exists)
• C, things you could have a belief about but don’t (Bannister’s example: whether there are hippos in the bathroom).

He wants to call A an active belief, ignore B and hope no one asks him about it, and call C a passive belief. I want to focus instead on A (true beliefs) and B (false beliefs) and ignore C, since we’re both in agreement that no one cares about C.
Another useful way is to re-sort categories A and B into two different categories, extraordinary beliefs and mundane beliefs. Bannister doesn’t like either approach (true/false or extraordinary/mundane) because it doesn’t get him what he wants, parity with atheism.
He would come closer by dropping the demand that “atheism is a belief” and instead push for “atheism is a worldview.” Yes, maybe atheism is more correctly “the lack of a religious worldview,” but at least he would be closer.
Atheism leads to nihilism?
What follows from atheism? He quotes atheist Friedrich Nietzsche: “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident.”
What “Christian morality”? Do you mean “Western morality”? Do you mean the innate human morality that Christianity pretends to give back to us? What is unique about Christian morality that you don’t find in other cultures? Yes, there is non-self-evident morality that is unique to Christianity (or Abrahamic religions), but that part sucks. Don’t get me started about the crazy immorality God condones in the Old Testament.
And then there’s the nihilism. He quotes an atheist:

[The atheist] must be bold to weave a bower of “endless night” upon the very edge of the abyss of abysses. This precarious cat’s-cradle he must make his intellectual habitation. It is not only belief in God that must be abandoned, not only all hope of life after death, but all trust in an ordained moral order . . .

and blah, blah, blah. You also have no belief in Norse religion and must abandon all hope of Valhalla. Oh my gosh! How can you go on??
I can appreciate that reality is daunting for some people. Perhaps it’s hard being part of the generation that’s supposed to be in charge. But as for me and my house, we follow the evidence.
Atheism a religion?
He seems especially desperate at chapter’s end when he quotes an atheist: “Atheism is a religion of sorts, or can be.” And then a sociologist who said that religion is “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things.”
Doesn’t “worldview” work well enough? Why try to shoehorn atheism into the Religion category? Is it that misery loves company? Whenever I see this argument, it always sounds like, “Don’t tell me that I’m stupid for believing a religion! You’re just as stupid, since you’ve got a religion, too!” Casting a net this wide would capture many sports fans as well. And perhaps I’m just old fashioned, but I won’t call something a religion if it doesn’t have supernatural beliefs.
This is just another attempt to deny the asymmetry. You are the one making the incredible claim. Prove it.
Continue to part 3.

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.
— John F. Kennedy

Image credit: Arild, flickr, CC

The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist (2015) by Andy Bannister promises to critique a number of atheist arguments. The subtitle is, “The dreadful consequences of bad arguments.” I’m on board with bad arguments having bad consequences, so I’m curious to hear about these bad atheist arguments.
Scope of the book
In the introduction, Ravi Zacharias says, “Time and again the atheist is unable to answer the fundamental questions of life, such as ‘is there a moral framework to life?’” In the first place, I disagree, but more importantly: the Christian thinks he can answer these questions?? Unfortunately, though the author seems to understand his need to show that Christianity is more than just groundless claims, all he provides are a couple of references and apologies that pro-Christian arguments aren’t within the scope of the book. It’s like a Creationist approach in this regard—all attack and no defense.
The tone is deliberately lighthearted, often to an extreme of silliness, though it was too full of insults for me to find it amusing. I can’t in one paragraph frisk in field of lavender clover with a miniature pink rhinoceros who plays show tunes through a calliope in its horn and farts cotton-candy-scented soap bubbles but then two paragraphs later be lectured that my arguments are embarrassing, “extremely bad,” or “disastrous.” The flippant tone got old fast.
Bannister is writing from a UK context, and some of his “What’s the big deal?” comments in response to Christian excesses didn’t translate well to the religious environment in the U.S. Christian privilege is indeed a big deal in the U.S., especially for atheists living in the Bible Belt.
Chapter 1. The Loch Ness Monster’s Moustache
He begins with the 2009 atheist bus campaign sponsored by the British Humanist Association that put the following slogan on hundreds of buses in the UK: “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” I remember being impressed when I first heard about this campaign. It seemed edgy—public proclamations were more appropriate for Christian messages—but the message is pretty tame.
If you’re going to give a reason to reconsider religion, there are plenty of harsher ones. Maybe: “The Thirty Years’ War killed 8 million people in the name of God. I hope you’re happy, God.” Or: “Christianity makes you do strange things” with a photo of a child killed by parents who insisted on prayer instead of medicine or a teen driven to suicide by Christian bullies.
But the mild “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” still exasperates Bannister. He says,

The slogan, despite its friendly pink letters, is a perfect example of a really bad argument. An argument so bad, so disastrous, in fact, that one has to wonder what its sponsors were thinking. …
Much of contemporary atheism thrives on poor arguments and cheap sound bites, advancing claims that simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Only after several pages of throat clearing do we get a glimmer of an actual complaint.

One might begin by noting the preachy, condescending, and hectoring tone.

With that gentle slogan? Oh, please. Drop some of your Christian privilege and grow a thicker skin.
How big a deal is this?
Bannister next asks, “What’s the connection between the non-existence of something and any effect, emotional or otherwise?” Do you complain about unicorns or the Flying Spaghetti Monster not existing?
In a dozen places, Banister writes something like this that makes me wonder if he’s just not paying attention. No, we don’t complain about unicorns—they don’t exist, and they don’t cause problems. Christianity, on the other hand, does exist, and Christianity and Christians cause problems.
He next gives Christian author Francis Spufford’s critique:

I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment.

If you’re not causing problems, that’s great, but if you’re not aware of the problems, you’re also not paying attention. Christian adults live burdened with guilt. Christian children startle awake at a noise and wonder if this is the beginning of the imminent Armageddon. Christian homosexuals deny themselves romantic relationships to satisfy an absent god. This isn’t true for all Christians, of course, but imposing a worldview burdened with Bronze Age nonsense and informed by faith rather than evidence has consequences.
Bannister wants to highlight the problem with the slogan by proposing this variant: “There’s probably no Loch Ness Monster, so stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Imagine telling this to someone down on his luck, someone who’s been kicked around by fate. Would he be cheered by this new knowledge?
No, because the Loch Ness Monster has zero impact in anyone’s life. Remove Nessie’s non-existent impact from someone’s life and nothing has changed. But do I really have to explain that god belief has a big impact on many people? For example, the United States has a famously secular constitution, and Christians nibble at the edges like rats looking for ways to dismantle the its separation of church and state for their benefit. See the difference?
Do you understand the consequences of atheism?
He wants to force atheists to take their own medicine.

If the atheist bus slogan is right and there is no God, there’s nobody out there who is ultimately going to help with any pulling. You’re alone in a universe that cares as little about you (and your enjoyment) as it does about the fate of the amoeba, the ant or the aardvark.

First, I hope we can agree that it’s vital for us to see reality correctly. If there isn’t a god out there, best we figure that out, come to terms with it, and shape society in accord with that knowledge.
And you’re seriously wagging your finger at us to warn that our worldview has no beneficent Sky Daddy? Yes, we know—we’re atheists! It’s not like the heavens shower us with benefits that disbelief will shut off. God already does nothing for us now—that’s the point.
You know what improves society? We do. We’re not perfect, and some of the problems are of our own making, but let’s acknowledge where we have improved things. Slavery is illegal. Smallpox is gone. Clean water, vaccines, and antibiotics improve health. Artificial fertilizer and improved strains of wheat feed billions and make famine unlikely. We can anticipate natural disasters. (More here and here.) God has done nothing to improve society.
As for the universe not caring about us, well, yeah. Is there any evidence otherwise? If so, make a case.
Atheists like Stalin are evil
A popular Christian argument shifts attention from Christianity’s excesses (wars, Crusades, and so on) to bad atheist leaders like Stalin.

What about atheism’s own chequered history? Stalin was responsible for the deaths of some 20 million people, while the death toll for Mao’s regime is at least double that.

Richard Dawkins lampooned this argument with this tweet: “Stalin, Hitler and Saddam Hussein were evil, murdering dictators. All had moustaches. Therefore moustaches are evil.”
Yes, Stalin was a bad man, but why? Was it the mustache? Was it his atheism? No, Stalin was a dictator, and dictators don’t like alternate power structures like the church. Religion was competition, so Stalin made it illegal. They didn’t do anything in the name of atheism. Lack of a god belief is no reason to order that people be killed. (I expose the Stalin argument here and here.)
Bannister concludes that the bus slogan and the moustache argument “are both examples of not just weak arguments, but extremely bad arguments.” Uh huh. You’ll have to tell us why some day. He continues, “I have been struck by how many of my atheist friends are deeply embarrassed by these terrible skeptical arguments.”
Oh, dear. He’s disappointed in me, and I would be embarrassed at these arguments, too, if I had any sense.
Sorry, I’m not riding that train. Give me less outrage and more argument.
Argument by sound bite
Bannister laments, “The atheist bus advertisement illustrates the danger not just of poor arguments, but especially of argument by sound bite.”
This is coming from a Christian? Where some think that evolution is overturned by mocking it as “from goo to you via the zoo”? Where church signs have slogans like “How will you spend eternity—Smoking or Nonsmoking?”? Where emotion is the argument, not intellect? Get your own house in order first, pal.
Continue with part 2.

Wandering in a vast forest at night,
I have only a faint light to guide me.
A stranger appears and says to me:
“My friend, you should blow out your candle
in order to find your way more clearly.”
This stranger is a theologian.
— Denis Diderot

Image credit: Wikipedia