C.S. Lewis on Morality

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C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity is a fundamental work in Christian apologetics. Many Christians point to this book as a turning point in their coming to faith. I’d like to respond to some of Lewis’s ideas.
Lewis says that there is a “real” right and wrong. If this were not so, how could we declare the Nazis wrong? Find a man who rejects this premise, Lewis says, and you will quickly detect the hypocrisy. He may break a promise to you, but as soon as you do the same, he declares that that’s not fair and falls back on a “real” rightness.
I don’t see it that way. “Right” and “wrong” come with an implied point of view. I’m happy to say that the Nazis were wrong, but when I do so, the word wrong is grounded in my point of view. (Kind of obvious, right? I mean, whose point of view would I be using but my own?)
That statement is simply a less clumsy version of, “The Nazis were wrong according to Bob.” There is neither a need to imagine nor justification for an absolute standard.
Lewis doesn’t use the term “objective morality” (he wrote about 70 years ago, which explains a few odd phrasings), but I believe this is what he means by “real right and wrong.” Let’s use William Lane Craig’s definition for objective morality: “moral values that are valid and binding whether anybody believes in them or not.”
Despite Lewis’s claims, we needn’t imagine that morality is objectively true. We see this simply by looking in the dictionary. The definition of “morality” (or “right” or “wrong”) doesn’t require any sense of objective grounding or absoluteness.
Like Lewis, I insist that you keep your commitments to me, that you follow the basic rules of civility, and so on. When you don’t, I’m annoyed not because you violated an absolute law; you violate my law. It ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got, and that’s enough to explain the morality we see around us.
To the person who insists that objective morality exists, I say: show me. Take a vexing moral issue—abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, capital punishment, sex before marriage, torture, and so on—and show us the objectively true moral position. If you want to say that objective morality exists but it’s not reliably accessible, then what good is it? This kind of objective morality that looks nonexistent might as well be.
When we see a widespread sense of a shared morality within society, are we seeing universal moral truth? Or are we seeing universally held moral instincts? That latter, natural explanation does the job without the need to handwave objective moral truth into existence.
Evolution explains why part of morals is built-in. What we think of as proper morals has survival value. It’s not surprising that evolution would select for a moral instinct in social animals like humans. Evolution is often caricatured as being built on the principle “might makes right.” No, natural selection doesn’t favor might but fitness to the environment. A human tribe with trust and compassion might outcompete a more savage rival tribe without those traits.
We see this moral instinct in other animals. In a study of capuchin monkeys, for example, those given cucumber for completing a task complained when others got grapes (a preferred food) for the same task. These monkeys understood fairness just like a human. (An excellent video of the monkey’s reaction is here.)
As an aside, I think it’s a mistake to look down on other primates and their “less-developed” sense of morality. The same powerful brain that gives us honor and patriotism, justice and mercy, love and altruism, and other moral instincts that we’re proud of also gives us racism, self-pity, greed, resentment, hate, contempt, bitterness, jealousy, and all the others on the other side of the coin. No other species has perfected violence, slavery, cruelty, revenge, torture, and war to the extent that humans have.
If we exceed the morality of our primate cousins on the positive side, we also do so on the negative side. Let’s show a little humility.
Human morality is nicely explained by an instinctive and shared sense of the Golden Rule plus rules that are specific to each culture. The dictionary doesn’t demand any objective grounding in its definition of morality, and neither should we.

I believe in Christianity
as I believe that the sun has risen:
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else.
— C. S. Lewis

Photo credit: ho visto nina volare

Prayer Doesn’t Work as Advertised

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This is an excerpt from my book, Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey.
A bit of background: Jim is a wealthy, housebound, and somewhat obnoxious atheist, though formerly a devout and learned Christian. Paul is the young acolyte of a famous pastor, doing his best to evangelize. It’s 1906 in Los Angeles, and they’re in Jim’s study.
“Have you thought much about how prayer works?” Jim asked.
“The Bible tells us how: ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’”
“Does it really work that way? You just ask for things and then you get them?”
Paul breathed deeply to focus his mind. He had to think clearly. Jim’s arguments always seemed to trap him. “Well, no, of course not. And that frustrates some Christians. They don’t understand that they need to let God’s plan unfold for them. It may simply not be part of God’s plan to give you what you ask for right now. You can’t treat God as an all-powerful servant always at your elbow, fulfilling every whim that comes to mind. God isn’t a genie.”
Several white chess pieces—three pawns, a knight, and a bishop—lay on the center table. Though the table was not marked with a chessboard, Jim leaned forward and set them up on the table in their beginning positions. “Perhaps not, but ‘ask and ye shall receive’ is pretty straightforward. It makes God sound like a genie to me.”
“But that’s clearly not how prayer works.”
“I agree, but the Bible doesn’t. It makes plain that prayer is supposed to work that way—you ask for it, and then you get it. Prayer is a telephone call to God, and he always answers your call.”
“No—you’re misreading the Bible. It doesn’t say when you get it.”
Jim shook his head. “But it does say that you’ll get it.”
Paul tried another tack. “God answers every prayer, but sometimes the answer is No.”
“That’s not what the Bible says. Jesus said that if you have faith as tiny as a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains. Jesus said that prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. Jesus said that whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Jesus said that all things are possible to him who believes. Jesus said, ‘Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it.’ No limitations or delays are mentioned.”
“Fine,” Paul said, clenching his teeth. “Fine.” He hated conceding ground, but he had no response.
“Okay,” Jim said, “let’s look at another aspect of prayer. When you pray, are you telling God something he doesn’t already know? That is, is prayer important because you’re informing God of some news, like ‘I’ve lost my job’ or ‘my brother has consumption’?”
“Certainly not—God is all-knowing. Obviously, he already understands your situation. It’s the asking part that’s important.”
“So you need to change it to ‘please help me get this new job’ or ‘please cure my brother’s consumption’?”
“That sounds better.”
Jim leaned forward. “But even this doesn’t make sense. God knows what’s best for you. For you to ask God to change his plans is presumptuous. It’s like an ant giving an engineer tips for designing a bridge. Will God think, ‘It’s best that you not get the new job, but since you asked nicely, I’ve changed my mind’? And maybe it’s simply part of his plan that your brother die from consumption.”
“But prayers are answered all the time! Lots of consumption patients can point to God as the reason they’re alive now.”
“Not with any justification. Let’s say Aunt May has an illness. She and her family pray, and then she gets well. She concludes that it was prayer and God’s intervention that cured her. But obviously there are other explanations, such as, that her treatment saved her. And if she had no treatment, perhaps it was simply her body healing itself.”
“And perhaps it was God!” Paul ached to pace around the room to burn off some of his tension, but he was a guest and thought better of it.
“Perhaps so, but you’re basing that on no evidence. I agree that we can’t rule out that it was God—or Vishnu or Osiris or a four-leaf clover. But we have no evidence that any of them did anything.” Jim was quickly running through different opening moves for his five chess pieces—tick, tick, tick as the pieces quickly struck the table, then a pause as he set them up again.
Paul wondered if his responses were so bland that Jim needed to play chess to keep his mind occupied.
Jim looked up and said, “The attraction of prayer in many cases is that it’s easier than doing the hard work yourself. Praying for a promotion is easier than doing what’s necessary to deserve a promotion. But let’s look at this from another angle. God has cured zero cases of birth defects—say, mental idiocy. We know this because zero cases have been cured by any cause, natural or supernatural. Millions of mothers have been devastated by the prospect of their children growing up with a disability or even dying an early death. Has God found none of their prayers worthy of an answer? Or amputations—there are probably men in your own church who have lost limbs due to war or injury. Has a single limb ever grown back? No. And since God has cured zero of these, maybe he has intervened in zero illnesses. That is, since God hasn’t performed any visible cures, maybe he hasn’t done any invisible ones, either.
“And think of the millions of people around the world who are starving. Prayers or no prayers, God apparently can’t be bothered to help them. If God is going to set aside the laws of physics and perform a miracle, is he to put my needs at the top of the list? If he won’t save a country starving during a famine, why should I think he’ll cure my rheumatism?”
Jim expanded his diversion, adding opposing black chess pieces to his imaginary board—three pawns and a knight from the other side of the table. He alternated moves from each side and held the captured pieces between his fingers so that the round bottoms embellished his hands like fat wooden rings.
“Consider smallpox,” Jim said as he set up the pieces for another mock game. “We don’t think of it much now, but it has been one of civilization’s most deadly diseases. In fact, the last smallpox outbreak in this country was here in Los Angeles, about thirty years ago. Suppose you have a large number of people who are vaccinated against smallpox and an equally large number who aren’t, and both groups are exposed to smallpox. Those who were vaccinated will do far better than those who don’t—regardless of who prays. You can look at this from the other direction—the high death rate from smallpox suggests that God’s plan is for it to be deadly. That is, vaccines interfere with God’s plan. Maybe we shouldn’t be using them.”
Every confident tick of a chess piece was a goad to Paul, a reminder that he was the novice in this discussion. Tick, tick, tick became “i-di-ot.” He said, “Maybe God doesn’t need to focus on smallpox anymore because science has stepped in. Maybe He’s focusing His miracle cures on diseases like consumption or cancer because that’s where the need still exists.”
“Did God ever focus on people with diseases?” Jim tossed away the chess pieces, and they clattered on the table. “Before vaccines, smallpox was life threatening. It killed hundreds of thousands of people every year. But in America, it’s now just a nuisance. Science has improved life expectancy; prayer hasn’t.”
Paul clenched the arms of his chair. “You can’t judge prayer with science,” he said, probably louder than he should have. “You can’t expect God to perform like a trained monkey at your command. It’s not our place, nor is it even possible, to judge God’s work. I agree that there are aspects of God’s actions that we just can’t explain. But I have the patience and the humility to accept God’s wisdom and wait for understanding. Perhaps I won’t understand until I get to heaven.”
“Fine, but if your argument is that you don’t understand, then say so. When asked, ‘Can we say that prayer gives results?’ the correct answer must then be ‘No, we cannot because we don’t understand.’ God might answer every prayer as you suggest, but we have no reason to believe that. A sufficient explanation is that prayers don’t appear to work because there is no God to answer them. The invisible looks very much like the nonexistent. Which one is God—invisible or nonexistent?”
Paul had no clever rebuttal, so he treated the question as rhetorical. “You’ve ignored praise,” he said. “That’s a vitally important reason for prayer. We humble ourselves before God and acknowledge that He can do what we can’t. It’s only appropriate to give thanks and praise to God.”
Jim snorted. “What’s the point in praising God? Surely God doesn’t need to hear how great he is. Is he that insecure that he needs constant reminding? Put this in human terms—do we curse insects for not acknowledging how important we are? Suppose we built a race of mechanical men. Would our first command to them be that they need to worship their human creators?”
“Are you unwilling to humble yourself before a greater power?”
“I’ll consider it when I know that such a power exists,” Jim said. “The picture of God that the writers of the Old Testament painted for us is that of a great king—a man with the wisdom of Solomon, the generalship of Alexander, and the physical strength of Hercules. And he apparently needs the fawning and flattering of a great king as well. You would think that God would be a magnification of all good human qualities and an elimination of the bad ones. But the small-minded, praise-demanding, vindictive, and intolerant God of the Bible is simply a caricature, a magnification of all human inclinations, good and bad. As Man becomes nobler, he loses these petty needs. Shouldn’t this be even more true of God?”
Jim leaned down and picked up a rumpled copy of a newspaper from the floor. “Let me show you something I read in this morning’s paper,” he said as he noisily flipped through a section. After a few moments he laid the newspaper on the table. “Here it is. It’s about a train accident in which eight people died. A woman was just released from the hospital, and here she says, ‘The doctors told my husband that I probably wouldn’t make it. But he prayed and prayed. And his prayers were answered—it was a miracle.’” Jim looked up. “So according to this, prayer works. But I must wonder if I understand the meaning of the word ‘works.’ Imagine if the utilities that we use so often—electricity, clean water, trains, mail delivery, and so on—worked no more reliably than prayer.”
“You’re mixing two different things,” Paul said. “You can’t judge the Almighty’s response to prayer in the same way that you judge something as artificial and profane as electricity.”
“Then don’t use the same word to describe their reliability. Prayer clearly does not ‘work’ as electricity does. And to compensate, the rules are rigged so that success is inevitable—if I get what I pray for, that’s God’s plan, and if I don’t get what I pray for, that’s also God’s plan. When a train crash kills eight people, and it’s called a miracle, how can God lose?” Jim slapped his hand on the newspaper. “But this makes praying to God as effective as praying to an old stump.”
Paul’s rebuttal lay scattered about him like a division of troops overrun by Jim’s argument. His fists were clenched, but he felt defenseless. “Are you saying that prayer has no value?”
“Many spiritual traditions across the world use meditation to clarify the mind or relax. Christian prayer can have these same benefits. A mature view acknowledges what you can’t control and can be an important part of facing a problem, but to imagine an all-powerful benefactor helping you out of a jam is simply to ignore reality. None of prayer’s benefits demand a supernatural explanation, and to imagine that prayer shows that God exists is simply to delude yourself. The voice on the other end of the telephone line is your own.”
Photo credit: Wikimedia

I’ll Do What I Wanna! Pulpit Freedom Sunday

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Rev. Ken Hutcherson has made a name for himself in the Seattle area as an anti-gay defender of the sanctity of marriage. He tried to organize a boycott against Microsoft when they first extended health benefits to same-sex partners of employees, years ago.
I attended Antioch Bible Church last Sunday to hear Rev. Ken Hutcherson speak on a different topic. It was Pulpit Freedom Sunday, and “Hutch” said that 1500 churches would be participating by breaking IRS rules against politicking from the pulpit. Church-state separation is fine, but to him this means that the state should stay out of the church and the church can say what it wants about politics.
At the end of the service, he brought up three local politicians and endorsed them. He said that this would all be taped and sent to the IRS. Though he joked about hoping that people would visit him in jail, his bold action wasn’t particularly dangerous, both because of the safety of the herd and because the IRS has been toothless about responding to provocations like this.
Consider the logic of Hutcherson’s position. He positions this as support for free speech rights. Ordinary citizens can publicly endorse candidates, so how could this be denied to churches?
But, of course, this comparison is flawed. Ordinary citizens aren’t offered nonprofit (IRS 501(c)3) status, so they don’t need to obey Internal Revenue Service rules constraining political activity. By contrast, churches eagerly accept this contract, but the obligations go both ways.
In return for parishioners’ being able to deduct their church donations from their income when computing tax owed, churches agree to certain rules:
Thou shalt not participate in any political campaign, either for or against any candidate.
Thou shalt not make any partisan comments when acting in a church capacity.
Thou shalt not contribute money to a political campaign.
Thou shalt not excessively lobby government.
Issue advocacy is allowed, but thou shalt not use it to make an implicit endorsement of a candidate.
But the IRS is righteous and just, and churches may organize non-partisan voter education activities, voter registration, and get-out-the-vote drives. Religious leaders speaking for themselves can say whatever they want, and they can speak “about important issues of public policy.”
For his sermon, Hutcherson used the first verses of Romans 13.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (Romans 13:1)

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t recognize this divine authority, but if Hutcherson does, then his flouting the rules is all the more surprising.
Churches enter into IRS tax-exempt status of their own accord. If they don’t like these constraints, they don’t have to declare themselves nonprofits. This isn’t a free speech issue; it’s a contractual issue.
I wonder if Reverend Hutch remembers “Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,’ no” from James 5:12. That is, there should be no need for the Christian to say “I swear to God” (and risk violating the Fourth Commandment against blasphemy) because he should be a man known for keeping his word.
To Church leaders: if the IRS constraints against speaking out on political issues are a problem, then don’t enter into a contract with the IRS. Drop your nonprofit status, tell church members that they can no longer deduct donations, and then give your opinion about any candidate or issue.
But to keep your nonprofit status, you must follow the rules.
If what you’re saying is that the whole relationship between religious nonprofits and taxes should be critiqued, I’ve written a lot about how messed up that is (here, here, here, here, and here). I’m happy to see some sunlight let into that issue, but I doubt you are.

Congress has not violated [an organization’s] First Amendment rights
by declining to subsidize its First Amendment activities.
— U.S. Supreme Court, Regan v. TWR (1983)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Christianity Supports Same-Sex Marriage

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In four weeks, Washington state voters will be deciding on Referendum 74, a law that, if approved, would allow same-sex marriage. This op-ed of mine, urging support for the referendum, was published in a Seattle-area newspaper last week. It’s a more well-behaved version of my usual argument—enjoy.
A century ago, America was immersed in social change, and Christians were leaders. They wrestled with issues such as women’s suffrage, prison reform, temperance, racial inequality, child labor, and labor unions. Christians were a positive force for social change.
Now, at a time when Christians lament the decline of marriage, gay and lesbian couples want to embrace it. This represents a great opportunity for Christians to lead once again. They can do it by supporting Referendum 74 (R-74), which would approve the bill, signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, to legalize marriage equality in Washington.
Of course, some Christians may claim there are numerous religious arguments against same-sex marriage. Let’s examine these to see why this argument falls flat.
Many loudly proclaim that homosexuality is unnatural, but homosexuality has been observed in 500 animal species, including all the higher primates. That means humans, too. Yet homophobia has been observed in only one species: ours. Perhaps it’s homophobia that’s unnatural.
Biblical marriage is not the institution that conservatives imagine it to be. The Old Testament says that you can only marry someone from your own tribe, and once you are married, it’s fine to have sex with concubines. It offers other marital advice as well: You can marry a woman by first raping her; you can make sex slaves of captured women; a man must sleep with his deceased brother’s wife to produce heirs; and polygamy is permitted.
Let’s not pretend that the definition of marriage has been static. In fact, marriage was most recently redefined in the United States less than 50 years ago when laws against mixed-race marriage were overturned. Perhaps society has matured so that we can expand it again to include all consenting adults.
For arguments against homosexuality, many Christians point to the biblical towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed with fire and brimstone because of the perceived sin of homosexuality. But the Bible makes clear that the true sin of Sodom was attempted rape. This has nothing to do with the loving, monogamous, homosexual relationships that stand at the center of today’s discussion of same-sex marriage.
The Book of Leviticus is another source of anti-gay ammunition used by opponents of same-sex marriage because it calls gay sex an abomination. This sounds pretty damning, but the word “abomination” is also used to describe eating forbidden food such as shellfish, sacrificing blemished animals, performing divination or wearing men’s clothing if you’re a woman. These are ritual abominations; homosexuality was not forbidden because of any innate harm. With what justification can one select the anti-homosexual verses and ignore the rest?
The underlying objection to homosexuality for many is that gay sex is icky or distasteful. Fair enough, but then the solution is easy: If you don’t like gay sex, don’t have any.
If you’re prudish about gay sex, consider that there may be ickier or more distasteful sex happening between straight partners than gay, simply because there are far more straight couples. The solution is simply to let consenting adults resolve these questions themselves.
Another popular Christian argument against same-sex marriage is that the purpose of marriage is procreation. But is that all they get out of marriage vows? “I promise to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow”? And what about couples who don’t want children, can’t have them or are beyond child-bearing age? Are these marriages invalid or inferior? Of course, if you were to ask opponents of marriage equality why a straight couple should get married instead of living together, the procreation argument would likely go out the window, replaced with profound thoughts about love and commitment — precisely the reason same-sex couples want to get married.
Open-hearted Christians have a chance to reclaim that revolutionary spirit that guided them a century ago. To today’s religious leaders, I say: With all the disease, poverty, famine, natural disaster and economic troubles in the world, should same-sex marriage be a major worry?
There’s far too little love in the world as it is. It’s reprehensible to stand in the way of what love is here.
The time has come for marriage equality in Washington. The time has come to approve R-74.

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red,
and he placed them on separate continents.
And but for the interference with his arrangement
there would be no cause for such marriages.
The fact that he separated the races
shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
— Initial judgment against Mildred and Richard Loving, 1959

Photo credit: Economist Mom

The Prayer Experiment Critiques Itself

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I promised in my introduction to the Prayer Experiment to return to the T. J. Mawson paper that was its inspiration. Mawson claims that atheists praying for God to help them is as reasonable as shouting “Is anyone there?” in a certain dark room. Some say that a wise and helpful old man lives in this dark room, though others say that this claim is false.
Later in the paper, Mawson challenged his own position with a reworking of this example. Suppose the hypothesis is now that there are fairies at the bottom of his garden. Should he shout “Fairies, reveal yourselves!” into the garden each morning? He admits that he doesn’t, but why?
First, he says that he’s not especially motivated because the issue of fairies’ existence is not particularly important. This surprises me—wouldn’t this be the scientific discovery of the century? Unless I’m underestimating the value of the wisdom the old man can provide, discovering fairies would be at least as important as discovering him.
Mawson goes on to wonder if fragile and shy fairies would deliberately not respond to remain undetected. Sure, this makes sense—in contrast to the old man who we’ve assumed is eager to make contact and pass on his wisdom. But in making this contrast, he doubles down on the results of the prayer experiment. Getting a negative result (no gods answer the prayers) can’t be dismissed as an unimportant curiosity. He presumes the god(s) are like the wise old man, eager to make contact, not skittish fairies eager to remain hidden.
The other objection a potential fairy-finder might raise is that getting into the habit of talking to fairies might make one “slightly dotty.” He gives as an example the two girls behind the 1917 Cottingley fairies hoax (I wrote about that here). One of the girls maintained throughout her life that some of the photos of fairies were genuine. Is this kind of delusion a risk of an overly earnest search for fairies?
I think that this concern of going “dotty” is a valid one when applied to god belief. The human brain can play all sorts of tricks—confident memories aren’t necessarily accurate, we see patterns where they don’t exist, we have built-in mental biases, we’re tricked by optical illusions, trauma can create PTSD, long periods of solitary confinement can create mental illness, and so on—and I simply have no desire to immerse myself in a belief system unless I think that it’s accurate. If I seriously walked the walk of a Muslim for a year, for example, there’s a chance that I might adopt that belief system, but why would I want to do this?
This self-delusion is what PZ Myers was concerned about in his initial critique of the experiment.

If you tell yourself something every day over a fairly long period of time, will it affect how your mind works? I suspect the answer would be yes. … It could affect somebody who is gullible and impressionable. There’s nothing in this ‘experiment’ that could provide evidence of a god, but there is plenty of stuff to show that plastic minds exist…which we already know.

I believe things the old-fashioned way: because there’s sufficient evidence to convince me that they’re true. What’s the upside of “walking the walk”? So I can believe something for which there’s insufficient evidence?
Mawson responds:

Most agnostics and atheists will be able, quite rightly, to remove from consideration as a serious possibility that they will “project” some fantasy and thus generate false positives by conducting the sort of prayer experiment which I have suggested is otherwise prima facie obligatory on them.

For this low-demand experiment, I agree—there isn’t much of a worry. Nevertheless, a false positive seems a plausible explanation for the conversion of many people immersed in emotional religious environments such as exist in certain cults.
Mawson gives psychotherapy as an analogy, which I think is valid. Only by investing seriously in the psychotherapy process and wanting to change can a patient progress. A tepid involvement will probably produce no results.
Similarly, I could invest seriously in the process of being a good Muslim, and I might change. But while there is evidence that the health claims of psychotherapy are correct, which is the prerequisite of participating in that process, I’ve seen no evidence that Islam is correct.
Mawson claims that his simple experiment is “prima facie obligatory on [atheists].” But why only atheists? The fallacy here is like the fallacy with Pascal’s Wager—it applies to the Christian as well as the atheist. If the atheist is logically obliged to conduct a low-cost experiment just to make sure that he hasn’t overlooked any deities, the Christian is as well.
Let me suggest as a follow-on to this project the Christian Prayer Experiment.

The doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator
to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind
— Herbert Muller

Photo credit: Brenda Starr

Getting off Mount Atheism

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Leah Libresco (of “Unequally Yoked”) suggested the idea of a local maximum as a helpful way of looking at competing worldviews. This is a great analogy, and I’d like to share my interpretation of it.
Imagine an undulating surface with mountain peaks of various sizes, like this surface (left). This space is Rationality, and the higher you are on the surface, the better that spot explains reality.
I hope the analogy remains clear as we explore this fantasy world. I realize it’s imperfect, but I think it gives both insights and a new vocabulary for discussing worldview changes. Here goes …
If you’re on a slope in Rationality space, you realize that you can do better, so you climb higher (by study or discussion, for example). When you get to the top of your mountain, movement in any direction takes you to a place that does a poorer job of explaining reality. You’ve now reached a local maximum. Let’s add a little ambiguity by imagining that it’s foggy, so you connect with other people who share your mountain. With time, study, and discussion, you might be discover that your mountain goes higher still, and you become even more pleased with your position.
Things look pretty good … but what if you’d climbed a different mountain? Maybe that mountain would be higher and provide a more complete explanation of reality.
Another mountain is hard to get to. From your current location, a step in any direction takes you to a worse spot, and because you’d move down into the saddle between two peaks, it would get a lot worse before it got better. This mountain change (that is: worldview change) isn’t to be taken lightly.
The open-minded Catholic (say) at the top of one mountain might wonder how things look from other mountains (the atheist or Buddhist or New Age mountains, for example), so she asks the atheist. The atheist assures her that his mountain is far higher than hers—but of course that’s what he would say. If he didn’t think that his perch was the best, he’d be at the top of a different mountain. It would be a rare person—someone who was dissatisfied with an old view and was slogging through Rationality space searching for something better—who would not recommend their current position.
People sometimes spend years in the investigation required to trek from one spot to another, moving from Fundamentalist Christianity to Buddhism to New Age to atheism, for example. That’s not to say that the journey was a waste. It can be a educational and even enjoyable process, but it can also be a long one.
I’d like to map onto this analogy my hypothesis that well-informed atheists never convert (through rational arguments) to Christianity. Those wandering listlessly around the base of Mount Atheism could call themselves atheists, though they have put little time into finding more about Rationality space or climbing higher. Not knowing the various options, they could be convinced to follow Christians to one of their mountains. This is the Type 2 atheist converting to Christianity.
Others take a different path. Not only do they climb Mount Atheism, but they also explore the various Christian peaks well enough to speak with confidence about how they compare. Or perhaps the order is the reverse: they start from a thorough knowledge of a Christian peak (and an initial confidence in the rightness of that position) and then go far afield to understand the terrain around the atheist peak.
My hypothesis is that those who understand that terrain and conclude that Mount Atheism is the place to remain, the Type 3 atheists, are stuck there with no path to anything higher.
Let’s consider again Richard Morgan’s remarkable story. He was at the top of Mount Atheism but was transported in an instant to the Christian peak. He was familiar with the landscape—Christianity wasn’t a strange place to him—but he teleported there and has remained there for four years now.
A Type 3 atheist—the well-informed kind like Richard Morgan—can teleport to a Christian peak that he already knows well, but this doesn’t give the rest of us a trail. Denied the option of teleportation, atheists look for a new route.
Translated, these atheists are looking for intellectual arguments that show that the Christian worldview explains reality better. And they are still waiting.

Reality is a cold and heartless bitch,
and I love her for it.
— someone on The Nonprophets podcast

Photo credit: Wikimedia