Humanism

I Am Not A Piano Key: Thoughts on Consciousness

Humanism, Naturalism

Does consciousness require a soul?

In Notes From The Underground Dostoyevsky’s underground man character is pitiful, spiteful and loathsome. Naturally, I relate to him very much. In the book the underground man is railing against 19th century rationalism, the growth of scientific explanations and the beginnings of psychology. Mostly he is railing against the idea that humans can be explained by scientific reduction. The underground man expresses a profound point about human nature. Human beings do not like being reduced to the sum of their parts and they will tell you about it in so many words.

Even if man were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of sheer ingratitude, simply to have his own way…then, after all, perhaps only by his curse will he attain his object, that is, really convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated…then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and have his own way.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground

Though this would naturally take us down the road to discuss free will and determinism, we will save those topics for another time. The topic for this post is consciousness, specifically, the way theists use consciousness as a god-of-the-gaps argument for the existence of God.

In the year before my deconversion I was going to write on this very topic with the title “In defense of the Soul.” Ironically, it was my thinking about the veracity of my soul that was the final straw to break my faith. Instead I wrote “The Death of a Soul” a year later.

The underground man expresses the theist’s abhorrence of materialism and what for them is reductionist account of humanity. “I am not a piano key,” one can hear them say, “I have a soul, I cannot be reduced to synapses and electrical firings.” How can an atheist materialist suggest that consciousness does not require a soul and ultimately the Animator of that soul? How can consciousness come from purely physical processes?

To be fair even some atheists admit that because theism entails consciousness and materialism does not, yet consciousness exists, this is evidence on the side of theism.

Sidebar: I deeply respect Jeffry Lowder from the above link, and clearly he is not suggesting that theism is correct. He is merely conceding consciousness is built into theism and is not in materialism. I have one rant about the form of the argument,  my problem with attempting to quantify probabilities in philosophy is that one winds up only quantifying one’s biases. If I am an atheist I assume the probability that god exists approaches zero. If I am a theist I assume the probability that god exists approaches one. Therefore the conclusions derived no matter how technical the process used are still based on one’s presuppositions baked into the initial conditions.

Thoughts on consciousness

Let me begin to respond with a strange confession, by admitting my ignorance. Consciousness is such a wildly complex phenomenon and so poorly understood by the scientific community that I feel I am in good company by admitting my ignorance.

I have said before, one does not need to have a complete unassailable explanation to a problem to critique another proposed explanation. The three hardest problems or the largest gaps in scientific knowledge are how the universe began, what jump started organic molecules into living RNA and what causes consciousness. Interestingly, the theist’s answer to these is the same: god. From the atheist’s perspective these are all god-of-the-gaps arguments. Meaning, though we admit ignorance, the gap in knowledge, asserting a more complex solution, god, is not a satisfying solution to the problem. It begs more questions than it answers.

Emergence

So having admitted my ignorance, I’ll give some thoughts on the way I understand consciousness. I am most certainly a naturalist and a materialist. I have the audacity to say consciousness is not from a soul but rather biological processes.

The idea of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon in complex biological systems makes the most sense to me. When brains (in the case of our evolutionary past) reach a certain level of complexity consciousness emerges as phenomenon. Notice this is intentionally fuzzy. We think of ourselves as conscious of course. We include animals like elephants, dolphins and apes who demonstrate a self-awareness. What about fish? Or an amoeba? I don’t know. And because we don’t understand consciousness well it is difficult to draw a hard line.

Now, I am out on a limb. Others have argued that emergence is a non-answer, including neuroscientist Sam Harris:

Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.

…

Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness. However, this is not to say that some other thesis about consciousness must be true. Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing. But I don’t know what that sentence means—and I don’t think anyone else does either.

…

At some point in the development of certain complex organisms, however, consciousness emerges. This miracle does not depend on a change of materials—for you and I are built of the same atoms as a fern or a ham sandwich. Rather, it must be a matter of organization. Arranging atoms in a certain way appears to bring consciousness into being. And this fact is among the deepest mysteries given to us to contemplate.

…

Every chain of explanation must end somewhere—generally with a brute fact that neglects to explain itself. Consciousness might represent a terminus of this sort. Defying analysis, the mystery of inner life may one day cease to trouble us.

— Sam Harris

So although Sam argues emergence is a non-answer, we do not currently have a better one. We currently cannot explain how consciousness emerges from synapses firing. But we can observe the fact that it does.

The Cloud Analogy

I like to think of emergence like “the cloud.” When you see advertisements about storing your data (music, movies, documents, etc) in the cloud, what do you think that means? It basically means you have no idea where or how that data is stored. It could be in the US, Europe or on the African continent. You don’t know and probably don’t care as long as you have access to it when you want it. In the networking world a cloud is a symbol for something we do not have information about. It is a place holder.

Similarly, explaining consciousness as emergent phenomenon is a bit of a place holder for something we do not yet fully understand. We suspect that someday we will have a theory that explains how consciousness can come from unconscious mater, but we don’t know what that will look like yet.

The reason I think this is a justifiable position to hold is that science knows very little not only about consciousness but also there is much science does not yet fully understand about complex biological systems such as ourselves.

Evolutionary biologist, Jerry Coyne, has written about how vastly complicated biological systems are. I don’t have the exact quote but he compares biology and physics and suggest that biology is “harder” due to the complex path evolution takes. In fact, in arguing against Intelligent Design rather than ducking the complexity of biology he leans into it, only evolution could explain how complex biological systems are.

Human beings are in effect the pinnacle of evolution, the most complex biological systems on the planet. No wonder we do not yet fully understand ourselves. In many ways we are at the beginning of studying the brain and consciousness.

Physical source of consciousness

Humans experience consciousness in Sam Harris’ words as “irreducibly subjective.” In some way we think of ourselves as something other than our bodies. The ‘I’ floating along with the physical body. Due to the influence of dualism on Western thought rather than analyse this we lean into it and suggest it is due to a soul.

But humans are physical. If a certain medication is administered to a human being, the light of consciousness goes out for a time. If the brain does not receive enough oxygen one becomes unconscious. Victims of brain injuries sometimes experience radical shifts in personality. Consciousness is affected by the physical world not a spiritual one.

Though our unconscious brain comes alive while we sleep there is a real way in which we experience the loss and regaining of consciousness on a daily basis. Our bodies are flooded with chemicals that immobilize us and stop us from being aware of our surroundings. We dream and sleep, awaking in the morning.

At death homeostasis in the body is stopped. The synapses stop firing. The physical body has stopped functioning. Consciousness ceases and unfortunately does not return.

It seems clear that consciousness is produced by the physical even if we cannot yet explain it.

Update: My new favorite blogger, Matthew Ferguson, writes on this very topic in his description of meta-physical naturalism. In it he quotes Keith Augustine who says that mental states are supervenient upon physical states. This means that the mind is dependent upon physical states but not identical to those physical states. In other words, emergent, more than the sum of the parts *but* dependent upon those parts.

The Underground Man’s Perspective

The underground man rightly asserts that we as humans are more than the sum of our parts. We rebel against attempts to reduce human beings to scientific objects. On this point I agree.

Is the answer to assert that we are souls traveling along in these physical bodies? No. Human beings are physical, this is an essential part of being human. That does not mean that we are only the sum of our physical parts.

Human sentience  is painfully unique on Earth and as far as we know in the cosmos. We have value for far more than just the particular set of molecules that compose us. Our intellect and thoughts have great value particularly to one another. We live, we love, we give and this entails incomprehensible value. Secular Grace and humanism represents this well. The care, protection and advancement of human kind is of the utmost importance.

It is true, we are not piano keys, we are humans.

You are not broken, you are human

Deconversion, Humanism

As time passes and my deconversion is further and further in the rear view mirror, I find it more and more difficult to remember how or why I once believed certain things without questioning. Christians might say this is because I have distanced myself from god and I am alone in my sin. Which leads me to the topic of this blog post.

What the hell is the deal with sin?

One of the dark sides to religion is the focus on sin. This may be one of the most baffling aspects for secularists who have never subscribed to one faith or another.  It is also one of the most difficult mindsets to break free from for the deconverted. Religions indoctrinate the idea that you, as a human being, are broken.

I have talked about morality  before but I did not address the elephant in the room, sin. From the perspective of the believer it is why one cannot be good without god. It is why when secular humanists talk about morality and ethics believers are unable to to take them seriously. The presupposition is that as a human you are sinful and broken by default.

The most fascinating aspect of the doctrine of sin is that it is an entirely fabricated problem. The atonement is a solution looking for a problem. What Christianity posits is that a perfectly good god created good creations (humans). Gave them basically one arbitrary rule about a tree. And for reasons no one can adequately explain the humans decided to listen to the snake. Did I mention there was a talking snake? For this the whole of humanity is permanently held responsible for the rest of human history.

Think about this from an omniscient god’s perspective. Why create creations with an Achilles heel, knowing they will reject you, particularly, if your purported reason is for relationship with said creatures? Free will is a wholly inadequate explanation for why a god would make this decision. This bleeds into the problem of evil and theodicy which I have written about before.

Let’s take a closer look at the doctrine of sin. In Christian theology sin is pervasive and complete. Paul quoting the old testament explains it in this cheery way:

10 “There is no one righteous, not even one,
11 there is no one who understands,
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves,
they deceive with their tongues,
the poison of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,
16 ruin and misery are in their paths,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
— Romans 3:10-18

In reformed (sometimes called Calvinist) theology, this is canonized as the doctrine of “Total Depravity.” Not all Christian sects go this far but it is illustrative. To be fair, the doctrine does not assert that people are all bad all the time. Rather, it suggests that even the best motives are tinged with sin. So even when a person is being good it is not purely good. It is not just about the sins one commits or omits but the state of having been impugned with Sin with a capital S.

Even for what I considered the best of Christianity, grace, sin is the dark flip side of the coin. The believer cannot understand the need for graceful forgiveness without truly understanding their sin. To the believer the doctrine of sin is not abhorrent because the solution to sin is one sinner’s prayer away. The entire point of Christianity is the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross for the Sin (capital S) of humanity. Good news, right?

He who is forgiven much, loves much

The critique I want to make is about the psychological damage that this inflicts. The message that is internalized is that the person themselves is worthless. Whether this is the intent of the doctrine or not this often happens in practice.

The constant message of the church is a dark one:

You are a sinner
You are broken
You are defective
You are lost
You cannot save yourself
Families are broken and dysfunctional
The world is broken

I want to focus on this word ‘broken’ because it gets used quite often and is quite damaging. Even beyond the spiritual term sin, broken has a very real world connotation. Constantly sending the message that a person is broken is not helpful, it does not encourage a healthy perspective and ultimately can be destructive.

Imagine a person who is experiencing real world tragedy, a person battling depression, and the message of the church is, “you are broken.” What would you expect that person to take away from that message? To add insult to injury, when people suffer real tragedy the victim is often blamed. This does not help people to wellness.

Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well. I’ll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. –Christopher Hitchens

Before I continue, I need to address the reality of evil in the world. Human beings are capable of great good and terrible evil. I am not denying that we as a species are capable of the worst atrocities both individually and collectively. Though we have evolved the ability to think rationally, logically and morally, those selfish and sometimes destructive instincts can and do assert themselves. We are often in a battle with our baser natures. But stigmatizing this as sin does not help the problem and is certainly not a solution.

Evolutionary psychology has some insights into human nature. We have evolved to be selfish as a survival mechanism. We can be tribal. And we are prone to overreact to fear and anger. We are capable of fooling ourselves and others. But that is not the end of the story.

As far as we know, we are the only sentient beings in the cosmos. That makes us painfully unique and can add to our sense of loneliness as a species. At least on Earth we are the only species who have the capacity to be self aware of our instincts and act in spite of them with rationality and morality.

Humans are not broken, in fact we are the most precious commodity in the universe, sentient beings. We are capable of altruism, forgiveness and sacrifice for the greater good. Humanity is capable of both defining and being good.

To err is human, to forgive divine

Humans are, however, fallible. We make mistakes. Sometimes often. We need to be gracious and empathetic with one another. We need to acknowledge our fallibility even embrace it. Admit when we are wrong quickly and not beat our selves up over it.

We are accountable to one another rather than sinners in the hands of an angry god*. How we treat each other is the basis of all morality. I have argued for a secular form of grace. Humans deeply need to feel accepted. That begins with accepting one another’s imperfections.

Interestingly, the entire point of the scientific method is to rule out as much as is humanly possible human fallibility. Peer review, falsifiability and repetition are attempts to avoid human error. This method mostly rules out erroneous ideas leaving room to discover the truth. Through this method the human species has gone to the moon, overcome diseases and created the internet. What is next?

You are not broken you are human and that is divine.

* I am aware Edwards’ sermon was actually about grace but the phrase is evocative.

The Beginning of Religion is Death

Atheism, Deconversion, Humanism, Philosophy, Secular Grace

Philosophy of religion has much to say about the origins of religion. Under no compunction to accept religious claims as fact, philosophy of religion can look at the root causes. In vernacular terms, the explanation tends to be that religion evolved due to early humanity’s attempt to explain that which they did not understand. The list of confusing phenomenon included everything from the weather to death itself. The idea of an unseen agent observing one’s actions helped keep group mores enforced. The priests, shaman and spiritual leaders likely enjoyed the recognition and power it brought and began to use said power to overtly control others by enforcing orthodoxy (right thought) and orthopraxy (right action).

While the above explanation is a good one it does not capture the pathos of why religion is so tempting to humans. I will argue the driving force for the evolution of religion is death itself. The soul (if you will permit me the term) of the continuing appeal of religion today is the fear of one’s own death and the need to understand the death of our loved ones.

Lest you think this discussion is in the abstract, I would like to make this personal. I am writing this within arms reach of my mother’s ashes. Eight months after my loss of faith my mother somewhat unexpectedly succumbed to the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction. I had to face the stark reality of her death without the comfort of my previous faith. She is gone. She will not one day be resurrected with a body impervious to addiction. I will not be seeing her again.

It is from this perspective that I would like to discuss how powerful a motivator the need to explain death can be. In my early not-a-Christian state I will admit it was tempting to fall back to the comforting self-delusion that I would get to see her again some day. Worse than that was dealing with the rest of my believing family showering me with similar platitudes that rang profoundly shallow to my ears. Not to mention, the misplaced attention on me by the family pastor who knew I was an atheist during my mother’s funeral.

We humans have a number of psychological defense mechanisms regarding death. We have the amazing capacity to ignore its inevitability until it is thrust in front of us. When we are young we are invincible. The understanding of our mortality slowly grows on us as we age. Some handle this gracefully, others rail against it until the end.

I am sympathetic to those who still believe and even more so to the early humans living in a hostile world they did not understand. The idea of our loved ones living on after death is a powerful one. Our minds take evasive action in order to protect ourselves from the grim reality that not only will we not see our loved ones again, but one day we too will cease to be. It is so much easier to tell ourselves a beautiful story about heaven, and easier still to ignore the evidence to the contrary.

Our cognitive goal is not one of truth but of validation. Opposition results in cognitive dissonance, a psychological conflict that is seldom resolved by the abandonment of belief. Consonance is restored through refutation, support, and proselytism. — Neil Brown

Accepting the truth that there is no life after death and the inevitability of one’s mortality has benefits beyond just being true. For one, I was able to truly grieve my mother’s loss without the pressure to “Buck up, because you’ll see her again someday,” I could allow myself to feel the pain of her loss, to weep with all of my being and to be inconsolable without the guilt of not having enough faith piled on top of my grief. This allows the eventual and even inevitable acceptance to feel freer and more complete. She is gone but the love that we had for each other continues on in me for a time.

Understanding at a deep level that this is the only life I get to live makes each moment more poignant. My time with my wife and children is invaluable to me precisely because it is finite. To be a mortal human is a glorious and terrifying thing.

As we as atheists* interact with and debate theists we must keep in mind the many powerful motivators pushing people toward faith. Our logic may come up short against the visceral need to believe life continues after this one. We need a bit of Secular Grace for them in our interactions.

Have you lost a loved one? Are you worried about facing death as an atheist? Need a bit of Secular Grace yourself? Tell me about it in the comments or on Twitter.

Secular Grace

Deconversion, Humanism, Secular Grace

Secular grace is a proactive acceptance, love and caring for our fellow human beings person to person.

Secular humanism has a ways to go to catch up to religious organizations in regards to building community and facilitating deep human connection. Religion has had centuries and sometimes millennia to fine-tune their strategies. Some of their strategies have been manipulative and others have been genuine. One of the manipulative strategies is easy to induce guilt in the guise of sin against a deity. One of the more effective and genuine strategies is simply loving acceptance sometimes called grace.

Find out more about Secular Grace. Looking for Secular Humanist Graces (saying grace)?

Secular Grace is a major theme of the Graceful Atheist Podcast

When I was a Christian I was a grace junkie. I became a Christian because of grace and I stayed a Christian much longer than I would have without my understanding of grace. I understood on a deep level my need for acceptance. I saw it as equally important to give grace to other people. I still do.

Many atheists hate the term grace for a number of reasons.  For one, the implications of both substitutionary punishment and substitutionary atonement are offensive. The idea that someone can be punished for another’s crimes is heinous as are the implications of human sacrifice.  Atheists also don’t like the term because it implies people are broken in some way and are in need of fixing.  The very idea of sinfulness has dark implications about how one feels about oneself. Lastly, atheist balk at the idea that people can do anything immoral and then just repent/confess and all is forgiven. Is that really moral?

Christians will argue atheists are reacting to the “offense of the cross,” without really thinking through the implications because to them atheists are actively rebelling against God. They cannot begin to comprehend how someone would reject such a wonderful offer sometimes while simultaneously condemning atheists to hell.

So let’s remove the theological implications of grace for a moment.  At its best, grace is about being accepted and loved for who you are as you are. I believe there is a deep human need for this kind of acceptance and love. One of the great draws to religion is becoming a part of a community that cares for you. Our need for human connection does not go away when we discard belief. In fact, that may be the time of our greatest need.

So is grace about being forgiven by an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent god? Or is it at its heart people caring for people? I realized after deconverting that it is very much about the latter. And since then I have noticed more and more that religious organizations are leveraging their communities to bring people into their doors. It is the people and not a deity that provide meaning and connection.

Humanism is the idea of being good and ethical without the need for a god. I propose an addition to humanism: secular grace. Secular grace is a proactive acceptance, love and caring for our fellow human beings person to person. Humanists being human to other humans.

The concept of Secular Grace acknowledges that there is nothing more valuable, moral or ethical than people loving and accepting one another.

It is summed up succinctly in the South African term, ubuntu:

“I am because you are.”

Secular grace does not assume people are broken. It does not assume punishment is required substitutionary or otherwise. Neither does it necessarily condone peoples’ poor decisions. It does attempt to understand them. But most of all Secular Grace attempts to empathize with people without requiring them to conform to an ideal. This simple act of human kindness is quite powerful.

You do not have to look far for the opposite of secular grace. Many atheists and theist online see it as their personal mission to disabuse each other of their respective positions. I’ll admit debate and argument are a lot of fun. But it rarely actually changes someone’s mind.

I am much more interested in interacting with people who are questioning, deconstructing, on their way to deconverting or have recently deconverted. It is clear to me that this is the group of people who could benefit most from secular grace. People in these positions are in the greatest need of human connection and community.

When a person is considering giving up their belief structure, it is not just their beliefs they are losing. They may be risking relationships with family, careers and their concept of meaning. That is a fragile place to be. They need a listening ear more than cold hard logic.

I am looking for ways to create humanist community. And to help those who are doubting, deconstructing and deconverting through the process.

We need each other and each other is all we need.

You can follow my journey and further discussion of Secular Grace on the Graceful Atheist Podcast.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Is morality objective and absolute?

Atheism, Humanism, Philosophy

Continuing with my series on presuppositions that lead to credulity or incredulity, I ask the question is morality objective and absolute? Your answer to this question will greatly influence your perspective on the existence of God.

A rock bottom foundational assumption of the theist is that morality must have an objective source. To believe otherwise is to cast oneself into the chaos of moral relativity. C. S. Lewis captures this argument in Mere Christianity. In fact, I suspect that most modern Christians have absorbed this way of thinking from C. S. Lewis if not directly, by osmosis.

Conscience reveals to us a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural Lawgiver. –C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis argues that because we feel like there is an objective moral ruler that we measure ourselves from it must exist and its source must be God. Now, I will grant, this perspective is understandable. Humans do feel a sense of right and wrong. The question is what is the source of that sense?

The assumption of an objective morality is so foundational that very few believers ever consider to question it. The threat of moral relativism is the specter that keeps them from evaluating its validity. Many arguments between believers and atheists spin round and round in circles because of not understanding each other’s presuppositions on this point alone.

This argument for God based on conscience that C. S. Lewis uses is called the argument from morality. It is important to understand that the assertion of moral order is taken as a given a prori.

Argument[s] from moral order are based on the asserted need for moral order to exist in the universe. — Wikipedia

The argument from objective moral truths for the existence of God goes like this

  1. If morality is objective and absolute, God must exist.
  2. Morality is objective and absolute.
  3. Therefore, God must exist (source: Wikipedia)

Now here is the thing, the second assertion is completely taken for granted. Nothing objective in nature suggests that morality is an absolute. Although differing cultures agree on some basic broad strokes of morality like “murder is bad,” they do not agree on many particulars like the treatment of women, the justification for war, etc.

What is the source of morality?

Back to my statement earlier that humans do feel a sense of right and wrong. How can this be explained without a deity? As in many things believers question atheists about evolution is the answer. Humans have evolved to have a moral conscience. We instinctively know some moral truths, cooperation over antagonism, do not mate with a sibling, murder is bad. This evolved conscience helped the human race survive against its competitors.

Culture then adds on top of these innate moral instincts. Individual cultures value certain morals above others. Some cultures value strength and honor while others value service and humility.

I argue that morality progresses. We as a the human race or even an individual culture recognize past mistakes and make improvements. In short morality itself evolves. The greatest case in point, is slavery. Who today in 2016 would make the argument that slavery is acceptable let alone based on inherent differences in the “humanness” of the races? We recognized this terrible mistake, realized that all humans have inherent worth and abolished slavery to the extent that now anyone who communicates racist attitudes is considered backward and ignorant not to mention morally repugnant.

An evolutionary morality married with progressive cultural mores explains both the similarities and differences in morality between cultures today. In fact, it explains this much better than an objective absolute morality. For if morality is objective how does one explain the change over time?

Christian morality has not remained static through history. The above example of slavery is again my prime argument. I assure you if you are a modern day Christian woman you would not want to be placed in a time machine and travel back to the first century. It would be unpleasant for you. Nor would a Christian of color wish to live in almost any time in history prior to today. Notice also the dramatic change in moral tone from the Old to the New testaments. Morality is fluid and influenced by the surrounding culture whether one acknowledges this or not.

This is why two ethical questions of our time are of great importance: the LGBTQ community and Black Lives Matter movement. I believe the church is on the wrong side of history on these issues. Why? Because morality progresses. We recognized our mistakes like marginalizing minority groups and we improve. Looking backwards to a 2000 year old document set in the context of first century culture and morality will not help us navigate these modern ethical questions.

On the fear of relativism, morality is relative it always has been. * We must accept that. Even within a particular faith group their are differences of opinion on morality. The very fact that we have different moral intuitions, even among similar faith groups is evidence for the non-existence of an objective moral truth.

Does this mean that we cannot argue between cultures over progress? No. We very much can and should push for progress on the ethical issues of our day. The world is shrinking by the day. We will have to cooperate and we are likely to disagree. But having the debate in the first place is already progress.

Can one be good without God?

Finally, the root of the believer’s discomfort on these issues comes from the assumption that one cannot be good without God. The believer is taught that human beings though made in the image of God are fundamentally broken by sin and incapable of good on their own.

To atheist ears the idea that Christians are moral only because God told them to be is an indictment. If the only thing holding the believer back from a murderous rampage is their belief in a non-corporeal judge, is this goodness?

I have been a Christian. I have held some of the above believer’s opinions. I then met a number of atheists who love their families, contribute to charities and give back to their communities, in short, very good people. I am now one of them. And though, I am still uncomfortable calling myself a good person due to the prior indoctrination, my morality has remained virtually the same. Just a lot less guilt.

* Update: I am entirely too flippant in this paragraph. This post is an argument against the theistic argument that morality is impossible without a god, specifically premise 1 above. It is not a complete theory of natural morality. The point I was attempting to make is that societies’ morality progresses and likely at different rates relative to one another.

I actually do think there are some objective moral truths. Not in the absolute sense but in the sense that humanity as a whole moves towards consensus like Martin Luther King Jr.’s “the moral arc of history bending toward justice.” The simplest example is “The unnecessary suffering of sentient beings should be avoided.” I will be the first to admit I have an incomplete theory of natural morality. It is a work in progress for me. As a skeptic I suspect that all moral theories are incomplete.

The thrust of the post is to say that the source of morality is us, human beings, and not a theistic god. We will get it wrong at times but through the process of error correction morality will progress.

 

Watershed Presuppositions

Atheism, Critique of Apologetics, Humanism, Philosophy

When I was a Christian I wondered often why many of my peers who were atheists did not believe. And more importantly I questioned why I did believe. We were of similar intellect, social and economic background so why the difference?

I theorized there was some watershed idea, experience or environmental variable that caused one person to believe and another to reject faith.

Now after having a deconversion experience and becoming an atheist myself, I think I have some insight into why intelligent people of good faith believe and others do not.

Culture

Our culture encapsulates us completely. Like a fish that is unaware that it is wet, we are blind to the culture that surrounds us. It influences us in benign and insidious ways. For the purposes of this discussion, let me just point out that the surrounding culture dramatically influences our thinking and perspective sometimes in imperceptible ways.

For me and my likely readers we are a part of Western culture. Western culture has been heavily influenced by ancient Greek thinking. We have many great cultural artifacts from our Greek past including democracy, the Socratic method and geometry.

Dualism

One of the Greek ideas that we could do without is dualism. Dualism, simply put, is the idea that the physical and the non-physical exist and may or may not be seen as in opposition to one another. The two major philosophical influences that lead us to dualism are the Platonic ideals and Gnosticism.

In The analogy of the cave Plato argues that the reality we experience is a mere shadow of the true reality. We are like cave dwellers who are looking at shadows on the wall rather than going out into the light and witnessing the reality that causes the shadows. Plato is suggesting that the perfect ideals are the real reality and that the physical reality we experience is crude facsimile of the perfect forms.

From Platonism we get the idea that the non-physical ideals (or forms) are more real than the physical world we experience around us. Let that sink in.

Soon after came Gnosticism which took dualism to the next level. They taught the dichotomy that the material physical world was evil and that the spiritual non-physical world was good.  The flesh is to be despised while the things of the spiritual world were holy.

Relevant to our discussion, the early Christian fathers argued with and against the Gnostics. Much of the early doctrinal creeds had to do with arguing against Gnosticism. Many of the rejected books of the apocrypha are Gnostic books. In spite of this effort, early Christianity was deeply influenced by the Gnostics. The Gnostic influence on Christianity is seen in the ascetic sects which taught the need to flagellate the flesh into submission.

This dualistic perspective has permeated what we call Western thinking throughout history. Dualism to one degree or another has continued to influence our thinking to this day.

It is in the sea of unexamined cultural dualism that most people view spirituality. The non-physical exists and it in some mystical way is more real than the physical reality around them. It is holy. Through the prism of dualism theism is not a huge leap.

To those who reject dualism either intuitively or analytically the physical, that which can be experienced, tested and examined is all there is. For these people theism is a very huge leap indeed.

Presuppositions

The point I am trying to make is that we have a number of presuppositions that lead us either to credulity or incredulity. One’s perspective on theism or atheism does not happen in a vacuum.

It wasn’t so much my rejection of Christianity itself that lead to my deconversion but the eroding of these underlying beliefs. I held on to faith in the resurrection for dear life up until the bitter end knowing that it was a binary choice. Once I admitted to myself I did not believe in the resurrection it was all over. This did not come from a rejection of the “evidence” in the bible because that was all of a piece, a closed system. It came by examining the assumptions that the closed system rested on.

To further make the point, given a certain set of presuppositions it might even be reasonable to have faith in a theistic god. This is why Christian apologists almost always use the same arguments. They are arguing within the closed system that makes assumptions about reality. The atheists who debate with them are speaking an entirely different language based upon an orthogonal set of assumptions.

You may note that I have not shied away from using the term assumption. At some level we must make assumptions. I think math is beautiful in that it conveys rock solid truth. 1+1=2 is True with a capital T. But even mathematics makes some assumptions about reality. For even the concept of twoness is abstract, not two sheep or two apples but two as a concept. It took humanity a while to understand numbers as abstract ideas. It is very easy to fall into an epistemological black hole when discussing assumptions, a hole which I would like to avoid.

Therefore, I would like to posit a number of presuppositions that act as watersheds separating those who believe and those who reject belief. My plan is to write a blog post about each of these in the coming months. We have already talked about dualism here,  and I have written about the soul. I’ll be adding to the list as time goes on. Let me know what you would add to the list.

Abusing the Term Post Theist

Atheism, Humanism, Post Theism

UPDATE

I have come to the realization that the term post theist was too loaded with connotation. I had mistakenly used a very technical philosophical term to mean simply after theism.

I have changed my handle and wordpress blog to Graceful Atheist which more accurately captures the connotations I am trying to convey.

Previous version of the blog post

Post Theism is a term that can be used to mean a post modern liberal religious view. Or all the religion but none of the supernatural.

I want to be clear that I am abusing this term for the name of the blog. I am very much an atheist in that I believe there is no evidence for a god or gods. I am agnostic in the sense that one cannot prove a negative. And I am a humanist that puts people before ideology.

What I want to convey with Post Theism is the sense of humanism after having had a theistic world view and subsequently having abandoned it. The much pithier Life After God was taken.

I have a much more nuanced perspective on religion itself. I am still working out how to express it. I have family and friends who are still very religious. I do not side with the hard line atheists who find no value in it whatsoever. And I think humanism has a ways to go to catch up to the ability of religions to meet the basic human need for connection.

Having said that I would describe myself as areligious. I think religion has had more downside than upside and its potential to go wrong may make it not worth salvaging. In particular, the use of the term “god” in a non-theist sense is misleading and confusing to most of the world who has not studied theology in some formal setting.

The question this blog will continue to attempt to answer is how can humanism match religion in delivering connection and community without devolving into dogmatic ideology.

A Very Common Message

Atheism, Deconstruction, Deconversion, Humanism

A Deconversion Story

These kinds of messages have become cliché, but I find the need to write it anyway. Mostly this is an attempt to communicate to my friends and family as succinctly but thoroughly as possible the what and the why of my deconversion from Christianity. This is also for those of you readers who have had doubts and have struggled to keep them contained.

What I am

I am no longer a Christian. In the summer of 2015 after it became increasing more difficult to hold my beliefs against surmounting evidence to the contrary I admitted to myself I no longer believed. I was a Christian for approximately 27 years, until the Jenga tower of contradiction between belief and facts came crashing down. I could no longer sustain the mental effort it required to maintain belief against the overwhelming lack of evidence for that belief.

I am an atheist. Others, wiser than I, have pointed out that this does not tell you very much about me. To say that I am not something is not very descriptive. The list of things I am not is infinite. But I am not afraid of this moniker. I am not a theist. This means I do not believe in God or gods. I do not believe in the supernatural of any kind. The natural is more than sufficient.

I am a humanist. This means that I believe humanity is the most precious existence in the cosmos. It means that loving people trumps ideology. Julia Sweeny said it better than I can. In “Letting Go of God” after tentatively putting on the “Not believing in God glasses” she says:

And I thought wait a minute, wait a minute, what about all those people who are unjustifiably jailed? … There is no god hearing their pleas and I guess this goes for the really poor people too and really oppressed people who I had this vague idea that they had a god to comfort them and then an even vaguer idea that god had orchestrated their lives for some unknowable grand design. I walked around and thought oh, no one is minding the store! … And slowly I began to see the world differently.

We are responsible for each other there is no one else minding the store. Being acutely aware that this is the only life we get to live sharpens and focuses one’s sense of how precious our time together really is. There is no after life where we get a do over. This is it. We need to take care of each other. My time with my family and friends is the most important part of my life.

To say that I am a former theist is significant in that I have rejected Christianity not out of ignorance but from having lived it and found it wanting. It also means that I am not hostile towards my friends and family who are still believers. I have been there. I still respect and love those of you who are believers. Having said that, I acknowledge off the top that my rejection of Christianity and statement of unbelief necessarily implies a particular opinion about your beliefs. I cannot change this. I still love and care for you.

I am the same person I have always been though I am no longer a Christian. My morality did not disappear the moment I admitted to myself that I no longer believed. For my friends and family I hope to continue our relationship with each other. I have lost no love for you. If you choose, we can enter into a new conversation with one another. If you choose to pick up stones … well, there is a saying I can quote you.

A few things I am not

I have learned that there are a number of common, shall we say, embellishments that Christians tell each other about atheists that turn out to be untrue much of the time. And I am no exception.

I am not angry.
I am not hurt.
I am not depressed. My life is actually unbelievably wonderful.
I am not running away from anything.
I am not throwing away my morality to live a “sinful” life.
I am not ignorant of the Bible or the teachings of Christianity. My unbelief is because of this knowledge not in spite of it.

I am also not interested in arguing with you about your belief. I will say only this if you are having doubts try trusting your doubts.

The Why

Answering the why question will be the ongoing project of this blog but here are some of the highlights.

The Search For Truth

In a word: Science. The scientific method has proven over and over to be a reliable way to determine truth. A hypothesis is made. Evidence is gathered. If the evidence supports the hypothesis it may become a theory. Others test the hypothesis to find its weaknesses. If the evidence does not support the hypothesis then it is discarded.

David Deutsch in “The Beginning of Infinity” posits that for most of human history we have had “bad explanations” for things. If the weather was bad the gods did it. If the weather was good the gods did it. He describes this as highly variable. Which god?  Any god will do. How? Magic? He points out we did not begin to have good (non varying) explanations until the scientific method came along and we as humans began to discard bad explanations.

In science theories are falsifiable. Meaning if evidence is found against the theory it has been falsified and thus will be discarded. What is important to understand is that scientific theories may be dependent on one another. If one dependent theory was in fact false subsequent theories would find falsifying evidence.

A quick example. Einstein’s theories of General and Special Relativity predicted several phenomenon that were not testable at the time. Black holes were predicted by the theories but not discovered until 1971. The theories predict time dilation both at relative speed and near a gravity source. GPS would not work if it did not account for the time differences between the moving satellites in orbit and the receivers on earth. Lastly, gravitation waves in spacetime, a mind bending phenomenon, was not proven until one hundred years after the theory was introduced that predicted them. The LIGO lab detected these waves in 2016. Ultimately, studying gravitational waves will give us a better understanding of our universe.

The point is, if either of the theories were incorrect then none of these findings would have been possible. And if we found contradictory evidence the theories would be discarded. Better yet, if we find a better theory that more tightly explains the data (less variance in Deutsch’s words) even Einstein would be replaced. It is not personal, it is about the truth.

Contrast this with faith. Questioning and doubt are things to be avoided at best and sinful at worst. Adherence to dogma is considered a virtue. Faith is hoped for and unseen. Seeking evidence is seen as “testing” God and a sign of lack of faith. And I can see why.  The deeper I dug into my Christianity looking for evidence the shakier things became.

Which Faith?

I happened to grow up in the United States in a nominally Christian household. When I became a Christian in my late teens it was within the context of a culture soaked with Christian themes. But what if I had been born in Saudi Arabia? Wouldn’t I have become a Muslim? What about India? A Sikh or a Hindu? How can I honestly say I would have become a Christian if I had been raised in a different culture. The answer is I can’t.

People of faith have no problem not believing in other faiths’ gods. They do not believe that Zeus controls lightening. Nor do they believe in the literal thousands of gods worshiped throughout human history. Stephen F. Roberts famously responded to a believer with this quip:

I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Even within Christianity we have a tremendous amount of disagreement. Catholics and Protestants. Evangelical and Main liners. There are something like 2000 different Christian sects alone. As an evangelical we call many of them cults. But how do we determine what is a cult and what is gospel?

How does one determine whether one faith is more right than another? If your answer is the bible re-read the line about 2000 different sects of Christianity. Most of them use the same Christian bible.

Even within a narrow group like Evangelicals , who or what decides between two contradictory beliefs? Is pre-destination correct or is it human choice? Is baptism submersion or will a sprinkling do?  Is it pure grace or good works that saves a person? I had strong opinions on each of these as do those who would have disagreed with me. But there is no way to determine which is true and which is false.

It comes down to cultural microcosms. If you were raised Baptist, then pre-destination is true. If you were raise Pentecostal then speaking in tongues is true. All the while both groups point to the other with disdain.

It was when I began to look at what my in-group considered to be cults trying to understand why a person would believe these “crazy” things, that it occurred to me that they saw my beliefs as just as crazy. And atheists thought we were all crazy.

You see, it is not enough to convince those who agree with you. If a belief or a theory is true it must convince even the hardest skeptic. John Loftus calls this the “outsider test for faith.” If someone outside your culture is unconvinced by your arguments, maybe it is time to re-evaluate your belief. Here is Hemant Mehta describing John Loftus’ “outsider test for faith:”

I believed that if faith was worth while it should stand up to scrutiny. Once I used the same basic scrutiny and incredulity on my own faith as I used for others, it did not hold up.

Reading the Bible

One of the factors leading to my deconversion was reading the bible through in a year. Seriously, have you read the bible lately? As believers (of all faiths) we have an amazing ability to cherry pick the bits of our ancient texts that suit us and be completely blind to the parts that are contradictory, horrifying and down right dangerous. The whole of the bible, including the parts often not read like Numbers and the prophets, and even the parts read often like Psalms, is dark, violent and hateful. Only through the rose colored glasses of blind faith can the whole of the bible be seen as a moral book about love.

Read the bible without the rose colored glasses of inerrancy or authority and a different picture of the holy book appears. Does the bible contradict itself? Try this yourself. Read the genealogies at the beginning of Matthew and Luke. Notice anything? They don’t match. If you say one is for Marry and one is for Joseph, isn’t God supposed to be Jesus’s father? Read the passion story in all four gospels and try and unify them. What events took place in which order? Who first saw Jesus after the resurrection? How many people/angels were at the tomb?

For a list of contradictions see: http://bibviz.com/

Update: When I originally wrote this piece I was still learning. Though the above link has many real contradictions, they tend toward the trivial and easily dismissed.  For a much more scholarly and, therefore, all the more devastating look at contradictions see Steven DiMattei’s Contradictions In The Bible.

Apologetics

Apologetics is the defense of Christianity. Over many years I have read the best apologists Christianity has to offer: William Lane Craig of the Kalam cosmological argument fame and Guiermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards who wrote “The Privileged Planet”. As well as some that are not so great like Josh McDowell and Lee Stroble. The more I read the more doubt crept in. The arguments from these authors were bending over backwards requiring mental gymnastics to try and fit the supernatural into the frame work of the scientific understanding of the world and the cosmos. The more I dug the less convincing the arguments became particularly when pitted against established scientific knowledge like evolutionary biology, big bang cosmology and quantum physics.

We can argue over first causes or supposed missing links but the point is this is the “God of the gaps” or argument from ignorance. Throughout history science has been filling in those gaps overcoming ignorance with evidence. A couple of hundred years ago there was no germ theory.  Attributing sickness or healing to a god was the “best” explanation we had. Now we prescribe penicillin.

There will always be gaps in our knowledge but this is a prompt to explore and discover and not be satiated by “God did it.”

I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
― Richard Feynman

Tautology

A tautology is a circular argument. Here is an example:

Why do I believe in God? Because the bible tells me so.
Why do I believe the Bible is authoritative? Because God says it is.

Now you can throw a lot of elements into this tautology beyond just the bible: The known universe (“creation”), one’s subjective experience, stories from missionaries from far off lands, however each of these is interpreted based on the others. In a word tautological.

Objectivity

The most convincing argument for any believer is their own subjective experience.

You don’t understand, I know God exists! My relationship with God is special and real.

I do understand. I felt that way. I knew that same way. Until I didn’t.

The second I asked myself one simple question, “Could I find an objective non-tautological foundation for my faith in God?” That was the beginning of the end.

The invisible and the non-existent look an awful lot alike.

I could be wrong

This might sound like a strange thing to say. But it is extremely important to me. The scientific method leverages falsifiability and requires error correction. When new information is presented that contradicts a hypothesis it must be taken into account and either explained or the hypothesis needs to be changed or thrown out. It is error correction that leads to the accumulation of knowledge and truth.

This is what led me away from theism. But to be clear, everything I write about and hold as true is available for scrutiny up to and including my atheism. But before you come at me with your unassailable argument, keep in mind, I have read a number of well know apologists, I read and consume podcasts from theists all the time and I was once an apologist of sorts myself. I remain unconvinced by the arguments for theism. So, to change my mind I need objective evidence of the variety that skeptics accept not the kind that allows the faithful to entrench themselves.

Here is a video by @holykoolaid that nicely sums up the kind of evidence that would be required to convert an atheist like me:

Final Thought

This was not a choice. I did not wake up one day and decide I no longer wanted to believe in God. This was something that happened to me.

When Bart Campolo, Tony Campolo’s son, was asked when did he start to lose his faith he said:

About 15 minutes after I started to believe.

In a sense, that is true for me as well. I struggled with doubt throughout my Christian faith. I knew there were areas best left unexplored. If I asked too pointed of questions I might not like the answers. So I didn’t for a very long time.

But this masks the fact that I had very real very deep faith for more than twenty years. It makes it sound as if my faith was not the right kind of faith. If you find that argument convincing, more power to you.

Under scrutiny, I could no longer believe. Belief escaped me. The very foundations of my faith gave way. I no longer believed.

The emperor has no clothes.

To the extent that this happened in an instant, my exact thoughts where:

Oh, ____, what am I going to do?

The very search for truth that led me to Christianity led me away.