Christians sometimes boast that they gather to do good works and contribute to good causes. But this isn’t a Christian invention—people give time and money to good causes, atheists included.

Seattle Atheists has been an educational nonprofit organization for a decade. In addition to hosting social events and lectures and being a popular presence at local street fairs, Seattle Atheists members have participated as a group in disaster relief fundraising, assisting the local NPR pledge drive, holiday gift wrapping for charity, blood drives, and more.

Another regular event is the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life. The summary page for the Seattle Atheist team is here.

Cancer is on my mind at the moment. Just a few weeks ago, a close relative of mine was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer, nine years after the initial diagnosis. Cancer affects all of us, if only indirectly.

The Relay for Life is a fundraiser, a celebration of cancer survivors, and a memorial to loved ones lost to cancer. It’s a 24-hour event at a local track, and team members take turns doing laps. A particularly moving tradition is the luminaria ceremony held after dark. Paper bags holding candles line the track, each one remembering a particular friend or family member dealing with or who has died from cancer.

Over three decades, the Relay for Life movement has raised nearly $5 billion to fight cancer. “Help the American Cancer Society create a world with less cancer and more birthdays.”

You can donate to the Seattle Atheists team here.

The hands that help
are better far than lips that pray.
— Robert Ingersoll

Dan Fincke of the Camels with Hammers blog is showcasing the work of many of the other Patheos atheist bloggers.
Check out his Atheist Blog Carnival.
Photo credit: Wikimedia

Some years ago, I attended a lecture by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza. He began by asking why atheists care about religion. No one goes around complaining about those who believe in unicorns or mermaids, he said, so why should an atheist complain about theists? Theists and atheists should be allowed their separate viewpoints so that everyone’s happy.
The proper place for religion in society
Atheists are annoyed, and yet they have no reason to be, right?
Wrong. But before I get into that, let me briefly summarize the religious aspects of American society that I’m happy with. It’s okay to hand out leaflets in public places (not government buildings or schools—I’m referring to parks or sidewalks) or proselytize from a soapbox. Free speech is great. We all have to put up with hearing stuff we don’t want to, but the good (each of us getting the same rights) outweighs the bad. Churches are fine. I have no problem with someone saying “Merry Christmas” or religious displays on private property. These are all guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The problem
But I do draw a line, so let me summarize some of the things that concern me. I don’t like the tax support for churches ($71 billion in lost taxes each year in the U.S. because church donations are tax deductible). That’s tax money that the rest of us have to make up. I don’t like that all nonprofits’ financial records are available for public scrutiny except those of churches and ministries.
I don’t like “In God We Trust” as my country’s new motto (that change was made about 50 years ago) or on my money. I don’t like “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance (also added about 50 years ago). I don’t like the idea of the Ten Commandments displayed on government property, and I don’t like prayers opening government events like city council meetings.
I don’t like that “I’m more religious than you are” seems to be an important claim to make in politics. In 2002, the Senate passed a resolution in favor of “under God” in the Pledge when that phrase was under attack in the court system. The senators then made a pompous photo op on the Capital steps to demonstrate the God-pleasing (or voter-pleasing?) manner with which they could say the Pledge with “under God.” Even Democrats need to make public pilgrimages to churches to prove their godly credentials.
I don’t like revisionist historians claiming that this country was founded as a Christian nation (an empty argument given the clearly secular nature of the Constitution).
I don’t like religion clouding policy decisions. President Bush reportedly said in 2003, “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq … And I did.”
Why is it that if Bush had said, “Poseidon told me to end the tyranny in Iraq,” he would be laughed at, but when he refers to God, it’s okay? I know the answer, of course—it’s because most of the people he’s talking to are comfortable with the idea of God—but is reason a majority-rules kind of thing?
Political lobbyists of any kind can be a problem, of course, but I don’t like the special influence of religious leaders (James Dobson, Pat Robertson, etc.).
I don’t like that policy questions like abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research are partly driven by religious concerns. I don’t like religion in the form of Intelligent Design masquerading as science in the science classroom. Despite the Dover decision, ID will doubtless reappear, like a hydra.
I don’t like that children are indoctrinated into religion when they’re young and defenseless. I’d like to see religion treated as an adult issue, like cigarettes, sex, or alcohol—something that you can get involved with if you choose, but only after you’re mature enough to weigh the issue properly. Adults are very good at justifying beliefs they arrived at through poor reasoning—that’s why adults from a myriad of religions can each argue with a straight face that theirs is the one true religion. And, of course, this explains why religion must maintain access to children’s minds: their market share would plummet without it.
I don’t like people using religion as a proxy for moral behavior. For example, you’ve probably heard about the survey that ranks atheists as the least trustworthy minority in America.
For more reasons why atheists have a right to be angry, see Greta Christina’s list.
D’Souza is right about one thing—no one complains about belief in unicorns or mermaids. That’s because those beliefs don’t cause harm in society. Contrast that with Christianity.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force
for atheism ever conceived.
— Isaac Asimov

Photo credit: Dan Santat

The arguments for God in vogue among the Christian apologists that I listen to have a curious flaw. I’m surprised when they take little notice of this.
Consider the following popular arguments and see if you can find the common feature. In-depth discussions of these arguments deserve their own posts, but I’ve added brief (and incomplete) summaries to remind you what these arguments claim.
Popular Christian Apologetics

• Cosmological Argument: “Someone had to get everything started, therefore God”
• Moral Argument: “Objective morals exist, and who but God could create them?”
• Transcendental Argument: “What grounds logic? God does.”
• Ontological Argument: “If ‘God’ is the greatest possible being that we can imagine, and a being existing is greater than being imaginary, then this greatest being must exist.”
• Design Argument: “Just look around you and you’ll see the marvelously complex design of a Designer.”
• Fine Tuning Argument: “The constants that define the universe are fine-tuned for life, therefore God.”
• Argument from Incredulity: “It’s all just so … so incredibly complex! Therefore, God.”

What’s the common feature? It’s that these are all deist arguments. If I bought into any one of them, I’d only be agreeing that some deity (or deities) created the universe. But which one? These arguments are as good for Islam or Shintoism as Christianity and Judaism.
(This reminds me of the famous Sidney Harris cartoon with the punch line “I think you should be more explicit here in step 2.”)
And yet the apologists are often unaware of the problem. They finish their deist argument with a “Ta-dah!” and a sweep of the hand and think that they’ve made a sale, but they’ve got a long way to go to convince me that their particular deity is the real one and it’s actually all those other ones that are mere human inventions.
Maybe they count on ambiguity to help. They conclude that God created everything and—whaddya know?—their god is named “God.” I’ve written before about this odd confusion of names. It’s like a cat named “Cat.”
One noteworthy exception is John Warwick Montgomery, an apologist from an earlier generation. He takes the opposite approach and first uses the New Testament to argue the resurrection of Jesus. From there, he tries to build the rest of the Christian worldview. This approach is no more convincing, but at least it avoids this problem with deist arguments.
How Can We Access the Supernatural?
If we explain the world in a Christian way, God is active in our natural world, and we can see his hand in Nature. This runs into a problem that (IMO) is for Christians at least as big a problem as the Problem of Evil: the Problem of Divine Hiddenness. If God enters into our world and is eager for a relationship, why the mystery? Why make things so difficult? Why make our world look exactly like a world without a god?
And if we imagine the opposite, that God isn’t particularly eager for a relationship or isn’t motivated to provide compelling evidence that he exists, then we’re back in the deist camp. We have a deity who indeed exists, but we’re on our own to show that he exists anywhere but in our minds. And if the deity hasn’t provided a conduit between the Natural and the Supernatural, why imagine that natural techniques (prayer, meditation, or logic, say) could prove the existence of the supernatural? If God is just sitting there and not helping us out, how can we show that he exists?
Christians sometimes argue that science is incapable of detecting the supernatural. But keep in mind that the boundary of “natural” expands with time. Seeing through opaque objects was supernatural before X-rays, for example. And even if science can’t detect supernatural beings, what makes those Christians imagine that they can?
A couple of analogies come to mind. Imagine using integers (1, 2, 3, …) with addition and subtraction and trying to creating anything but more integers. You couldn’t reach 7.65, the square root of 2, or pi, for example. Or, imagine a two-dimensional Flatlander trying to prove the existence of three-dimensional space. Sure, he can imagine it, but that’s hardly a proof.
It seems to me that our pointing to evidence of the supernatural with a deist argument is like creating all real numbers using addition and subtraction on integers, or a Flatlander proving the existence of 3-space. Sure, we can imagine something more, but that’s no proof and not particularly compelling evidence.

Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?  
— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, act III, scene i

Photo credit: Wikimedia