“I Tried To Be An Atheist”
I’ve spoken about my Christian friend David a few times on this blog, and I’m getting a chance to see his dad preach on Monday at a Christian Union meeting, so I thought I might talk about him and his beliefs a bit more. Out of respect for his privacy, I’m only referring to him by his first name (as is my policy on these things).
When I met David last year, we talked a lot about religion / Christianity / atheism. He came across to me as a very moderate Christian, the kind that never angers and always smiles (i.e. the most annoying kind). There is being nice, and then there is being so nice you constantly come across as an arrogant condescending moron.
When losing an argument about faith or religion, he would always *without fail* resort to his favourite catchphrase:
I tried to be an atheist…I really tried…
As if he thought this argument was actually worth anything. It is of course, a logical fallacy in many ways. Firstly there is no correlation between failing to do something and the accuracy of what you were trying to attempt. I could say “I tried to be a Christian” or “I tried to be a banana”, but my failure to be either of those doesn’t reflect on their actual veracity as subjects. It only reflects on my personal failure, and as we can easily demonstrate, there are people who have succeeded at being Christians, and there are plenty of bananas in the world (although atheists wish that weren’t so true).
Secondly, it doesn’t prove anything other than the inevitability of failure. Since it’s pretty easy to establish that you cannot change your beliefs on will (despite what some people claim), “trying” to be an atheist just by pure will isn’t going to work. Atheism is more of a realisation than anything; it involves reading the arguments and realising that you agree with them. So saying that you tried to be an atheist but always came back to Christianity is as much an argument as saying “I tried to be bald but my hair kept growing back”. If it’s an inevitable event, you won’t be able to change the outcome.
I guess in the baldness metaphor, you could liken becoming an atheist to older people losing their hair, or if you damaged the hair follicles beyond all hope of repair. What I’m trying to say is, that if you really want to take the view that you can “try” to believe / disbelieve in something, it will only work if the conditions are correct. A Christian can no more try to be an atheist and succeed than an atheist can try to be a Christian and succeed. There have to be certain conditions present first (doubt for the Christian, delusion for the atheist).
Another popular argument David uses is “Where did logic come from?” which implies that logic can’t exist without a creator. The obvious problem with this is that logic doesn’t exist…at least not in any material way. It’s a human concept; a way of viewing reality through the human mind. Animals do not have a concept of logic, they merely appear to live by it because everything that exists go through our logic filter before being processed by our brain. Everything we see has a logical reason for happening, otherwise we classify it as a delusion.
Asking “Where did logic come from” is the same as asking “Where did our minds come from?”, and the answer is the same: They evolved. Daniel Dennett has written on the evolution of our conscious minds (many times), and I highly recommend his book, Freedom Evolves, which deals with the concept of free will.
Needless to say, I think Monday’s CU meeting should be a blast. Hopefully I’ll get to meet the man who convinced an extremely intelligent son to follow a delusional fantasy.
The person is forcing logic to be more than it really is.
As Todangst of the Rational Response Squad pointed out…
Logic is Math and Math is Logic. Just ways for us to reason about the world. Given previous reasoning.
Ian, what they mean is that there is something extraordinary about the universe, which is it is “logical”, or what Aristotle had said, the universe is intelligible (and hence the possibility of science). The fact that it is intelligible, and understandable means that its inherent patterns can be understood by means of logic. Of course, many people didn’t understand these things quite well, and thought that by pure “logic”, one could indeed understand the world. It’s insanely wrong, of course, we also need empirical feedback on our logic, so we can evaluate it, correct it, improve it (otherwise, we enter the realms of pseudo-science, aka “theologies”).
What these theists will never understand because they will never have thought enough about it, is that if the universe is intelligible and logical, then it doesn’t need any supernatural explanation for it, then God is completely unnecessary. That is, the very thing that these theists so wonder about the universe is the exact same thing that makes God obsolete.
I'm more intrigued by how a Christian "tries" to be an atheist. What, he started improving his spelling and grammar and turned off his caps lock key? ;)
Seriously though, "tried to be an atheist"? Does he understand what it means?
I love the response to your friend on the logical fallacy of claiming that failing at trying is a "disproof" of atheism in anyway and especially the part that trying to believe/disbelieve is doomed to fail except for certain conditions.
For me, I'm in a precarious position because my church (should probably start saying ex-church, but I have reasons) believes that a valid position to take is to merely desire to believe, even if you can't actually believe. I think this is a bankrupt kind of idea that defeats itself (after all…if you can justify faith in a church's claims by simply "desiring" to believe in something you really don't, what's to stop you from "desiring" to believe in anything?)
I think the interesting question is…how do people become more inclined to believe or doubt? Since I recognize that if I were inclined to believe as many others I know are, then I'd be somewhat powerless to that faith (as your friend says, he certainly has "tried"). Calvinism has this concept of irresistible grace, and although they would like to attribute it as a proof of their God (as your friend probably also might)…what *really* causes this tendency for some to irresistibly be drawn to believing?
And "I tried to be a Christian", but common sense wouldn't allow me to believe.
I've heard this sort of claim a few times, and it always strikes me as strange. To "try to be a Christian" at least has some motivation–Christians consider faith to be a virtue, and so one should try to be a person of faith. I guess they assume we atheists feel the same way, that atheism is a virtue and one should strive to not believe in god. But I don't feel that way at all–critical thinking is a virtue, and atheism is just one effect of that.
Its hard to not believe in something…wonder why that is? We're born with to many traits, feelings and desires that couldn't have evolved from an explosion or an original cell, that has no logic to it at all! The biggest argument for a God is LOVE. Why do we naturally draw to another? Why do we care for each other? Why do we choose to be with one person for the rest of our lives? Some say we are cultured that way, but who put that thought in the original guys head? Love can't be created from basic matter of cells and evolution. Disprove that and you will disprove God.
The reason is hard not to believe either in gods or conspiracies, is because we are naturally adapted to foresee agency, as soon as something happens to us we want to know who did it, and often end up inventing that who. Love is an adaptation that favors the transmission of genes of a kin. Humans have it, monkeys have it, even rats have it, we know it is the same feeling because we observe the same chemical reactions in their brains in experiments. Monogamy is an adaptation from territorial banding (one male many females) to a hunting nomad banding (many males and females). And you really have to prove God first, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
As Yoda would put it, "Believe, or believe not; there is no try."
Surely that would be "Believe or not believe; no try there is" :D
Where did blue come from? /koan
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