What type of non- believer are you?: The Five Categories of Atheism

So, here I am, back on Canadian soil. The suitcases have been put away but there is much unpacking to do in terms of what I have learnt on my trip to the Caribbean and New York in the last couple of months. I have made it a point to try to find freethinkers when I travel. Those interactions I think make the overall journey so much richer. Some of these exchanges will no doubt make their way into future posts.

In talking to atheists, it's interesting to realise the differences in where people are at. It is intriguing to explore their attitudes and feelings about being an atheist or even their willingness to be identified as such. Many people speak of how becoming an atheist is a gradual process and it can't and doesn't happen overnight. That is absolutely true. I think what we often neglect to talk about is the gradual changes you go through after you become an atheist. Based on my discussions,  I realise that there is definitely a process of change within atheism. Richard Dawkins famously developed a seven stage scale for extent of belief or non belief in God. The scale I am proposing here  is one for atheists. I have identified  five distinct stages you go through once you come to the conclusion that, in all likelihood, no gods exist.

It's June now, and in the Caribbean that means hurricane season. So in line with that I have decided to label each stage as a 'Category' just like they do with hurricanes. Coincidentally, those storms can also range from Category one to Category five. Please note that these categories basically apply to the deconverted atheist, the one who once believed. Like all classification lists there will be areas of overlap. Nonetheless, I think the categories are distinct enough that we can make the five separations.

So here they are! My Five Categories of Atheism.


Category  One (1):  I am only an atheist in mind

At this stage you realise that God either does not exist or the probability of existence is extremely small. At this point  by general definition you are an atheist but you don't admit that even to yourself. You don't want to identify yourself with 'those' people. You are an atheist in mind alone. The mere thought of being an atheist is just paralysing but you quite readily recognise the logical contradictions within all of the religious traditions and the incoherence of the God concept itself. You would be willing to identify these in discussions with other theists but will still categorise yourself as vaguely spiritual or if pushed say you are an agnostic.

Category Two (2): Ok, I admit, I am an atheist.

This is the stage where you outright say to yourself, " Ok, I have to admit it, I am am atheist." This stage is both exciting and scary. You have the feeling like you've cracked the code and figured out the mystery. You have admitted the non belief to yourself and may even share it with one or two friends or family members very close to you. However if you do share, you beg them not to tell anybody because you feel that you are not ready to face the indignation and shock of those in your immediate society. You are still emotionally invested in the faith and fear being cut off from your loved ones. You have a bit of shame associated with your non belief at this point. Nonetheless, you walk around happy within yourself that you have come to a position that is your own and you can live with. You have eliminated the discomfort of that cognitive dissonance  that you had before in trying to reconcile what you learnt through the scientific method with what your 'holy book' said . At this stage you often start to explore more of the resources out there on the internet and reading the classic atheist books such as 'God Delusion' and 'God is no Great.'

Category Three (3): I am searching for other non believing intelligent life.

At this point you become  more confident in your position that God does not exist but still feel uneasy talking  about your position with those around who  have not had your experience and cannot understand. You wonder at times if you are alone. This leads you to search for other 'intelligent'  atheist life. Looking through the 'galaxies' to find others of like mind in the universe. It's a bit like the scientists sending out the SETI signal. This can be done through actively joining an atheist/ skeptic group or even starting one. The meet ups can be successful  but very often  when you are on an isolated 'planet'  you have to engage people through virtual linking. This might be joining Atheist Nexus or a Facebook organisation or 'chatting' with a friend you met by chance somewhere who you discovered didn't believe either. This stage can be very tricky because as open as you are with non believers at these meetings or online you are still very careful not to share your views with others in your circle that still believe. This is where you as an atheist lead a double life.You have two distinct social lives.The atheist group completely hidden from the theists.  You are ducking and weaving at skeptic events hoping that you won't be embarrassed by bumping into a theist friend at the wrong time. Or you are continuously monitoring your online profiles, using all sorts of aliases to ensure that no one can trace you back to these non theists platforms.

Category Four (4): I am an atheist. Deal with it!

This is the point where you recognise that being an atheist is fine and something you should wear proudly. By this time you have had enough interaction with fellow free thinkers to realise they and you are not crazy. You realise that atheists are actually just regular people with the same likes, dislikes and quirks in personalities as anyone else. Most importantly, you realise that atheists are not in any way morally compromised and indeed discover that atheism in many cases promotes a superior form of ethics. At this point you will tend to feel more settled and perhaps start to see yourself more as a Humanist. Recognising that atheism is perfectly respectable and defensible you at this stage start to share your atheism in a wider circle and basically considers yourself  to be 'out.' You will share your non belief with anyone so long as the time and place is appropriate. You are not worried at this point about backlash and social ostracisation because you feel extremely justified in your point of view. After all, you have thought long and hard about the position you hold having gone through those three prior stages. There is again a degree of liberation at this stage because the double life is over and there is not now a need to pretend to believe in order to fit in. However you still don't consider it necessary to trumpet your non-belief or push an anti God agenda. You just want to be respected for who and what you are.

Category Five (5): I don't believe in God and neither should you!

This is the final stage on the chart. You will say that you don't believe and that nobody else should either, because the whole idea just doesn't make sense. By this time you are not only proud to not believe but  your outrage about the consequences of belief on society means that you are quite prepared to go out there in public and become an active advocate against religion. You are no longer satisfied with the ' live and let live' attitude. You recognise that you will face some antagonism but you are quite prepared to face that because you are convinced that you are fighting for the social good of  your community. You are the type of atheist that many believers will label 'millitant.'  Yet, it should be recognised that even with your 'extreme'  form of atheism you are not advocating forcing atheism on the general population. No, that would make  you a Category six atheist and I can't include that  as a category because I frankly have never met, listened to or read anything from an atheist who has advocated such a campaign. Category six atheists are in the same category as God, purely hypothetical entities.

However, you as a category five atheist will not compromise on the severity of your language. You will unequivocally state your position on faith, calling religious texts ' fairy tales'  without batting an eyelid. You will not worry about the pain such truths may cause. You will always remind the theist or the Category four or below atheist that whatever pain religions feel by hearing these facts today is  much  less than the pain and even deaths that have been caused by the ignorance, lack of critical thinking, discrimination and bigotry that have stemmed from people following a faith of lies. You will emphasise that all that matters to you is that everybody honestly seek the truth and that no free passes be given to certain belief systems because many people say they can't live without them.

So, those are the type of atheists I have met. I have not met any of them who fall outside all those categories. Let me know if you have. Of course, not all atheists will go all the way through to Category five. Some may actually never get past Category one, others may settle somewhere between two and four. I consider myself Category four at the moment. I am still not sure that I desire to reach Category five. However, there are definitely times where I have been pushing up into that 'five' territory. Perhaps I can say I level out at around 4.6. It will be left to see over time what will happen.

So, if you are an atheist, what Category are you? Are you looking to move up? I think its important you know and keep asking yourself that question. I also think it is critical that those of us hoping to drive the atheist movement know. It will be unreasonable to expect people in Category one and two to be out in the vanguard with us that are in the high fours or fives. We have to let people grow and move to higher categories at their own pace, or stay where they are if that is what they prefer.One thing  that should give us hope is that I have only seen  these atheist category movements in individuals go in one direction. Up!

Hurricanes can downgrade, but atheists do not. Once clouds of atheists come together and the system becomes more organised, believers know the winds of change will be irresistible. That's what I think makes those in religion so very, very scared.

Do you speak theish? : Relearning my mother tongue in the Caribbean

 

I don't know about you, but for me there are few things in this world more enjoyable than travelling. It is always an experience that stays with you. The excitement of seeing things up close that you may have previously only seen in a magazine or on a cinema screen.The introduction to new cultures, new people and very often new ways of looking at the world. However, I find as exciting as discovering and exploring these things can be, there is always a slight feeling of trepidation when you touch down in a country or city for the first time. This begins from the time you enter the airport arrival hall, something as simple as not knowing exactly which door you should be going through or which line you should be in  can be unnerving. These feelings of being lost are increased ten-fold if you happen to be visiting a country where you don't speak the native language. The awkward feelings that accompany smiling and nodding at taxi drivers and red caps; laughing at their jokes, hoping against hope that you will leave their presence well before they get an inkling that  you haven't got the foggiest idea what they are talking about.

It may come as a surprise to many that this issue of language has affected me as I have returned to life in the Caribbean over the last two months. After all, I have been mainly in the anglophone countries and English is the language I speak all the time in Canada. It is not because of varying accents and dialects, though these can sometimes present challenges even to those of us who grew up in these West Indian isles.  No, there is a language spoken on every island in the Caribbean and you can really be at a loss if you are not familiar with the lingo. You may not find it in the Oxford dictionary, but it is called 'theish.' I used to speak it very fluently when I used to live in this part of the world, but you know what they say about language. You use it or you lose it.

Theish is basically 'God language.' Just like any other language out there it has certain rules that you have to adhere to. The central rule is the assumption that a God exists who created the world and dictates ultimately everything that happens in it. He, she or it loves you, protects you and will one day judge you. You can communicate with this God and he will sometimes grant you what you ask for if it is his will. For many atheists this seems like total jibberish, which is not surprising since all languages you are unfamiliar with sound jibberish at first. 'Atheish' is the counter language to this and has only one simple assumption; that Gods do not exist.

It's been a bit scary, but since I have returned to the Caribbean I realise that I am a bit rusty on my theish. These days in Canada I speak almost purely atheish among my friends. It was particularly bad at first when I came home to Barbados. I would be having a conversation which would seem like a normal exchange of pleasantries, a general catching up on things  when suddenly a person would say something in theish that I would not understand. I  asked one friend, " What are you looking to do now that you have decided to leave the teaching profession?" His answer was a simple, " Well, that depends on what God wants."  I went silent,  I realised for that moment I had no idea what he was talking about. What God wants? What the hell does that mean? I was so knocked back that day that I just smiled wished him good luck and went away. I reflected afterwards, that that was the language of theish. I had forgotten how to speak it. Translated into atheish, what he meant was  "I will just go with the flow and see how things turn out. I will wait and see what opportunities come my way." Now had he said that, it would have made perfect sense to me. I realised that once I made these translations to atheish in my head as I talked to people here I would be ok.

It strikes me now that perhaps the reason why it is so difficult for people to give up their religion is because it is like a language to them. Languages are something we speak naturally, we learn our native tongue from the time we are in the cradle and basically it stays with us for life. Language is also a means of self identity. When you meet someone in a distant land and you start to speak their language or dialect you are telling them that you are one of them. We are brothers or sisters because we can understand this language that the others around us can't. We have a special connection which creates a strong emotional bond within the first few seconds of the exchange. Many of us as we get older will learn other languages but as competent as we become in these adopted languages we will always slip back to our mother tongue when we are acting instinctively. Religious belief is something we don't question generally here in the Caribbean because it is our language and an essential part of our identity. It is something we need to understand even for the most basic of communication. If we don't speak theish we will be ostracised, not necessarily because people don't like us. They just won't understand us  and we won't understand them.

An object with a gender

Many of us laughed at first when we went into Spanish classes and were told that every object has a gender. The idea that el lapiz- the chalk was masculine and la naranja- the orange was feminine was to many in my class a ridiculous notion. Does the chalk wear a collar and tie? Does the flirtatious orange have a mini skirt in her wardrobe? When we atheists make fun of magic apples, talking snakes and global floods, we are doing the same as we did when we laughed at our Spanish or French at school. Speculating about where God's genitalia is that can makes us so sure he is a boy is no different than wondering where the 'sweet spot' is on the female orange.

Yes, when we view religion as a language it is quite easy to see why it is so impervious to logic and reasoning.  The philosopher Thomas Kuhn has actually likened ideological paradigms to languages. He has asserted that a paradigm shift is like a total change of language and you cannot compare two paradigms because the definitions of terms within a paradigm have a completely different interpretation when viewed from another. So, we can see that even from Kuhn's work back in the 1970s, language and paradigms are deemed to be similar. So religion as an ideological paradigm can be viewed as a  language. The problem with  the religious language  is that people think that the rules developed for the purposes of communication are fundamentally TRUE. God  becomes a real thing not a linguistic construct. If you think about it, it is a bit like saying English is the one true language. It is just doesn't make sense.

This perceived theistic truth value is the difference between theish and other world languages such as Spanish, French German or Chinese  This of course makes conversing in theish extremely problematic and that's why I try not to speak it. This may seem to some like snobbery. How could I look down on my native language as if it is something inferior? I grew up speaking and identifying myself through it and now I seem to be embarrassed to use it.

If theish was like the other languages I would happily use it and treasure it as part of who I am. It would be no different than how I would promote reggae, soca  music or bajan flying fish among my international friends. But I know that every time I speak theish I am reinforcing among the people that their theistic beliefs are true. So, as a result I try to stay away from theish as much as I possibly can. It's unfortunate that I have to go this route. On the face of it, theish is a very useful language. The word 'God' is a simple word that can be used as a substitute, for the unknowns in nature, uncertainties in interactions, random events and things beyond our control. Simplification is, lest we forget, one of the main objectives of language. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' is a common phrase used in English. Everbody knows exactly what that phrase means. However, one could make the case that in some scenarios if you were in control of the bush, two birds in the bush may be better than the bird in hand. It is true, but for someone to make that point in a debate bringing along two birds in a bushy bird cage would be missing the point of the metaphor. Sadly, missing the point of the metaphor is routine in religion and often done deliberately. I have written in a previous blog post that I would love a Church with a metaphorical God. But I just don't want to take the chance of being taken even semi-literally when I speak in theish.

Still, I realise it's good to keep it handy just in case of emergency. I have always been taught that people all revert to their native languages in moments of danger and ecstasy. Perhaps this explains the liberal use of God supposedly in many of the bedrooms of committed atheists and on the other side why there is a common belief that there are no atheists in foxholes. I must say that if I was going down in a plane and the passenger next to me asked me to say a prayer with them I would oblige with out the slightest bit of reservation.

Trying to be bilingual

It is interesting to note that there are some theists that are well versed in atheish. They can follow extremely well the rules of the language. They understand that there is no word called "God" in atheish  and can converse quite easily given that as a starting premise. Atheists realising that the theists are following the nuances of the new language get very encouraged and are convinced that they are making inroads into the theists belief system, but that is seldom the case. To the theist, atheish is a foreign language. Just like a class they take once a week after work at a community college. They learn certain things by heart, know how to answer certain common phrases in the language but that's where it ends. They never intend to embrace atheish as their own. It may come in handy if they find themselves lost and need to ask for directions at a university philosophy lecture but that is as far as it goes. Once they finish their little lesson with the atheist, it's back home where they are with their families and they slip back into theish again. If they have enough exposure they will eventually become very competent in it but they generally never get to fluency. For some reason as much as many believers actually enjoy learning atheish and spouting the few words they know, they are very opposed to atheist immersion programs which could really push them over the top. A one month stint in an atheist organisation or a CFI could work wonders for these people. I studied in Ecuador and was able to pick up Spanish much more quickly than I did in any classroom. It's hard for a foreign language to stick if you separate it from its cultural context.

By contrast there are many more atheists that speak good theish than the other way around. For a lot of atheists, theish is indeed their native language They have had to try hard to block it out and the traces of it still linger. It takes a while to learn to no longer put an accent on the word 'God.' What worries me sometimes are the atheists that think they know theish well but don't really have a comprehensive grasp. I have met some of them in Canada, people who never grew up speaking the language at home. Some of them are willing to learn from us bilingual atheists but others consider going through this kind of schooling unnecessary.These people have learnt most of their theish from promotional videos on cable television and through the ever growing ' quick fix' online resources such as ' Answers in Genesis.' They think that learning the language is super easy because, at least in this part of the world, there is generally only one text book
that you are required to read. But theish is a very nuanced language with thousands of dialects. You have to be able to decipher one from the other. Christianese is clearly the dominant dialect but even within that the accents are so different that when these people  try to get together and talk they don't understand much of what each other is saying.

It may seem like confusion but I still think it is important for atheists to take the time to learn theish so that they can converse smoothly when they meet a Godly person. Even if we are advocates for secularism or atheism we cannot make any inroads unless we meet theists where they are. You have to be able to know theish to survive in today's world, or at least be familiar with  few phrases.  I think it is time we do a Fodor's Guide for the atheist traveller to theistic lands.

These phrases below I think should feature in the Caribbean edition

-God willing

-If God spare life

-Praise the Lord thank God

-I am here waiting on the Lord
-God is good all the time
-Lord come for your world
-I plead the blood
-I lean on the word
-The bible says
- The devil is busy today
- Hallelujah, thank you Jesus

Know it but don't use it

It may seem like a contradiction to encourage people to learn theish even though I have explained why I don't myself use it. I think learning it is the key rather than using it. It's just like how people encourage you to learn the curse words in foreign languages even though you would never think of using them in polite company.So, when people speak to me in theish, I think about it, absorb what they are saying and then translate in my head to give them a response in atheish. For example, I met a lady yesterday who was delighted to tell me how her  faith had been strengthened after she lost one of a twin while giving birth. The doctors thought the second one would die also but so far the younger one has pulled through and is doing well.  The lady shared with me how at first she wondered  why God was testing her, but her mother was so supportive and encouraged her every step of the way. Mum even flew out from overseas at a night's notice just to be there at her side.

The woman went on to add that she now recognises how the trials have made her stronger and it is a miracle how God has delivered  the one daughter that survived even after the doctors had written her off. She finished off by telling me that based on her experience, she now considers that anyone who doesn't believe in God would have to be a fool. I smiled, I wasn't going to  reveal to her the irony of saying something like that to me. I resisted the temptation to go on the defensive or identify any flaws in logic. I just took a breath and answered her in atheish. This is what I said:

"We live in a natural world, and trials are a part of it. It is not that we need them because many have discovered the strength in their characters without going through the tests that you have. However, it's great to know when difficulties come our way there are people such as your mother who can really come through for you and ease the burden. At  the end of it all it is great to know that in spite of the tragedy you have been able to find that inner strength, emerge with such a sense of happiness and find so much to be thankful for."

She thanked me for my words, nodded and remarked on how true she thought the things I said were. I realised there and then that even though she doesn't know it, she really understands atheish. She is even capable of integrating it into her everyday spoken language. I didn't announce that what I was saying came straight from an atheist root, after all, I never said that God was not there. However, hopefully the few words of atheish  filtered in and maybe she will recognise one day that even in her own language, she doesn't need God to give her a sentence.

I know that to ask someone to let go of the only language they have ever known and  reject their mother tongue is difficult, perhaps nearly impossible. Maybe it is not even a reasonable or ethical thing to attempt. However, we know from history that languages evolve. We may well never be able to achieve that  paradigm shift that Kuhn talks about but if we continue to slip more and more of our words and phrases into the theish thesaurus, the language from the pulpit could be virtually indistinguishable from atheish in 100 years time.

God always found wanting

The Lord is My Shepherd I shall not want

This quote from Psalm 23 is perhaps the most famous line in the entire bible. Certainly the first one I learnt by heart. Looking back, maybe my skeptic mind was being developed even as  a five year old learning this. The line just didn't make any sense. Why would the Lord not be wanted? Isn't the whole point that we need to trust him to get what we want? It was years later that it was explained to me that 'want' in that context means I shall not lack for for anything that I need. Of course, that only made slightly more sense since bible believing Christians lack the things that they need all the time. Anyway, we all know that finding a sentence in the bible that does not contradict something else in the book or  in the observed world is about as easy as getting a camel through the eye of a needle. So, no need for worry here.

What I have been recognising recently is that apart from Christians being full of wants, God himself is found wanting right through the bible.  From what I hear from the sermons on the radio and television we are finding him more wanting every day. God might not have succumbed to the temptations in the wilderness but I heard during holy week about  many things God wants . He wants us to worship him. He wants us to accept him as our Lord and Saviour. He wants us to have sex only in certain ways with certain people. He wants us to go to heaven and not hell. He wants that we keep his commandments. He wants us to have faith. Yes, there are so many things that God wants us to do. And that in large part is why Christians  observe and practice the rituals the way they do. It's done like that because God wants it like that.

However, this whole 'want' thing  leaves me just as confused today as I was learning that Psalm 23 at age five. How can God want anything?  It can't be want as in having a lack of something because he is a God, a god can't lack for anything, can he? Of course when we say 'want' in the usual context it means desire. But still this poses more problems. How can God have desires?  To many in the faith this would seem a strange question. We all have desires, things we want to achieve and things we do our utmost to make become reality. Why would God be any different? Well, that's just the point, God is different.Those omni properties change everything. An all powerful God or even a supremely powerful one must be able to get what he wants especially when it relates to his creation. If God wants it surely he can get it. How could any lowly human being like us possibly resist him? If we are not following him it must be that it's his will to have it that way.

On the other side of the coin, I often  get told what God doesn't want. God doesn't want anybody to go to hell, I hear. That would seem to be an easy problem to fix. Eliminate hell and nobody will go there, simple. If you don't want a child to get shot when playing in the shed at your home where you keep your weapons, you remove all the guns you have from inside . Seems like a no brainer, but a no brainer that seems to have eluded God's grasp so far. Right about this point, the believer yells " Free will ! Free will!"  Well, if that's the reason some of  must go then it would have to be that God doesn't REALLY want the hell prevention.

We all know that if we REALLY want something no way that something like preserving free will ever stands in the way. We want less fatal accidents on the road we put in stipulations for sear belt wearing, that physically restrains people's bodies. Doesn't mean people must drive like robots though. We might have speed limits as well as seat belts  but we  have freedom still to go where we like , take any road we want once we follow the basic rules. Somehow in the curious faith world, God the maker of heaven and earth can't find an ideal balance between  freedom and protecting us from mortal danger. There seemingly is no system of reward and punishment that he can come up with that does not require the use of a torture chamber. But that's simply impossible, how can God can't? There is no way out, if God has the power to do anything, and hell exists he must be in favour of  it.

So the bottom line is this, if God is all powerful he cannot possible want anything more than what he has. The world as it is today must be exactly how he wants it to be now. So anytime a believer says, " God wants you to......." it doesn't matter what comes next its 'game over.' If God wants something for any more than a split second without getting it ,that means he is not God. It just doesn't add up that a God needs our help in order to achieve. Humans need help to get where they want to be, God the Almighty does not. The fact is that we so much want or God to be like us that we make him want, to be like us. Our wants become his. And we humans want so much, that our God is found at the end of our Holy Books just as wanting as we are.

Once we start on this wanting cycle we can't help ourselves. Not just God but the entire religion becomes about wants. We want to go to heaven, we want there to be an ultimate cosmic justice, we want there to be an external meaning of life, we want to live forever, we want there to be a guardian angel protecting us, we even want there to be a devil  in hell so we can feel euphoria that we triumphed over him, but of course most of all we want there to be a God.

Nothing to write about

Well, things have settled down a little in the Caribbean. There has been thankfully no need for mass appeals to the gods for mercy since the ravaging storm Tomas and the illness and subsequent death of the Barbados prime minister. Things have also been relatively quiet on the international faith scene and there are no recent crazy believer statements on my facebook page. In short, there is nothing to write about. So, that's exactly what I thought I would do this week, write about nothing. It's fitting I think, because there is nothing that the faithful like more than telling us atheists that we are right about nothing. Moreover, I have found that religious people when debating with atheists tend to engage a lot in "nothingness" talk.

"How can you get something from nothing?" is eternally the theistic cry. You can bring your arsenal of arguments from physics, chemistry, paleontology, biology,cosmology, archaeology, geology or psychology to justify your position that God does not exist. It matters not to them, because they tell you that you simply can't get something from nothing. They go on to say we atheists believe in nothing and nothing could change our minds. I suppose given all of this it is no surprise that they should think we have nothing of substance to say.

It amazes me that religious people don't see that there is nothing in their argument. Firstly, I am not sure why they are so sure that there had to have been nothing to begin with. Lawrence Krause, a leading physicist, gave a fascinating lecture where he explains that what we consider "nothing" actually has more mass than all the stars, planets and other "somethings" put together. But I don't think we even need to go to a level as sophisticated as that to see the problems with the concept of "nothing." What is a "nothing"? I have certainly never seen one. In my experience "nothing" is used as a relative rather than an absolute term.

Whenever we say the words, " there is nothing" we mean that there is none of the thing or category of things which we are looking for. If we go into a room and state that we see nothing, it doesn't mean absolutely nothing. It may mean there is no furniture. However, the room might have a carpet on the floor or pictures hanging on the wall but it would still be defined as "empty". Of course at the molecular level the room is filled with gases and microbes. Going further down there are atoms with electrons, protons , quarks etc. If you are worried about having a cancer and go to a doctor who looks at an x ray and tells you he sees nothing; he is not telling you have no bones, tissue or muscle fibres.

We can apply this model conceptually to anything that we define as "nothing". Even if we speak of a vacuum, that is not a "nothing" because it still has particular properties and that makes it a "something." Indeed, once we can define a thing it is not a "nothing." In my mind a "nothing" would have to be something devoid of any properties or characteristics. Once we can define it, we have a "something." If we accept that the universe had a beginning, it would have to have existed at that point in some state "X." Even if it was a void that would still have to have some properties, some defining qualities that differentiate it from every other state. The more I think about it, I really don't think there is any such thing as "nothing." I don't believe in "nothing." So, there is one atheist myth debunked. In that respect God and "nothing" have a lot in common, both vacuous concepts. God is undefined because it can include everything while "nothing" is the obvious antithesis.

Once we recognise that the universe was in some state at the beginning, our "nothing" problem goes away. For we have any number of examples in nature where we see one state change in to another. In most of these cases we do not assert that an intelligent supernatural agent is needed in the explanation. At school I did countless chemistry experiments where changes of states occurred. You could get a precipitate salt forming from the mixing of an acid and alkaline solution, but these were never regarded as metaphysical mysteries. It was all natural, a consequence of the interaction between the chemicals which gave rise to something completely different. Indeed, what would be surprising in these experiments would be if you didn't get the product that you expected to get. That would be the mystery and in almost every case it was because you, the experimenter, made an error. Ironically, in such circumstances, it was you, the supposedly intelligent agent, that was getting in the way of nature. I think this analogy is interesting, perhaps the intervention of a God would have impeded nature and prevented the formation of a universe rather than the other way around . In any case, if no divine hand is needed to explain the appearance of colourful solutions or gelatinous precipitates in lab experiments why is a god needed to explain that "big bang reaction" at the beginning of time?

When we look through the universe we see changes that occur all the time; tectonic plates shifting, volcanoes erupting, stars exploding, black holes and dark matter affecting space and time. This is all part of this wondrous thing we call nature. Even though some people think it's all part of God's grand design, I have never heard anyone argue that God is needed to explode a star any more than he is needed to give a "push" at the top of a cliff to ensure a dropped stone reaches the earth below. But then comes the argument which is closely related to the "something from nothing" question. How can we get life from non life? This is a very strange question in light of what we have already said. We know that "life" and "non-life" are made up of all the same elements. We know that elements when they rearrange themselves can form things with different properties. Why are some people so adamant therefore that we can't get life from non life? Why don't they say it is impossible to get stars from non stars, precipitates from non precipitates, colour from non colour or a tsunami from a non tsunami? Why do we consider this thing called "life" so different that we regard it as outside of nature's capabilities?

That's the thing about religion, it makes us the most important thing in the world, rather than just one minuscule part of the many things nature does . We are the great "something" that could not be here unless nature had some help from the outside. We need to have been specially created by a God without whom we would of course be nothing.

But wait, I just remembered I had nothing to write today. Yet I am seeing eight paragraphs above this one. That's amazing ! Well theists, the existence of this blog post seems to suggest that something can come out of nothing after all.

The world can't serve two masters: The question of science and religion

There has been much talk within the last week or two about Stephen Hawking's latest book " The Grand Design" and his assertion that it is "not necessary to invoke God to explain the origins of the universe." Predictably the religious have come out with their swords to attack. I even heard a person on a religious "call in" claim that the media were only pandering to Hawking out of pity for his disability. How low can you go? We all know that if Hawking had declared that there must be an intelligence at the beginning of all this, people of faith would consider that a "slam dunk" for God's existence,citing Hawking's immense stature in the realm of theoretical physics. As far as the disability comment is concerned, we all know that it has often been those born with limbs missing or suffering from sight or speech impediments that have been used to spread the gospel of Christ through their motivational speeches. I wonder if we can also call that cheap pandering.

The whole argument comes from the common belief that religion and science are not enemies and can happily coexist without conflict. It's all part of that whole "faith and works" idea that we often hear. Indeed even many atheists subscribe to the idea that science is not qualified to make statements on issues in the faith domain. I would have subscribed to the NOMA ( Non overlapping magesteria) up to a few years ago. However, as I delved more into the crux of these arguments I began to see that there is indeed a huge conflict between science and religion and that, perhaps more than anything else, led me to being an atheist today. Yes, once you realise science and religion are on opposite sides, you don't have to think long about where to place your bet. Only the deist God, the one who sets off the " big bang" and runs away, might be able to escape the long arm of science, but he is powerless and doesn't even merit consideration.

In thinking about this age old debate , I reflected on a friend of mine who was recounting her family's escape from a very serious car accident. She started by saying that there were a number of reasons why she survived. "First and foremost it was God," she remarked. However, once she had stated that point she went on to explain in considerable detail the the road conditions, the fact that it was raining and that there had been an oil spill minutes earlier. She mentioned the speed that the vehicle was going at and the angle of the bend in the road. She then went on to relate how only minutes earlier she had ensured that the boy's in the back were wearing their seatbelts. She spoke of the fact that the SUV she was driving was large and heavy, so that though the car flipped there was much protection available. She mentioned that the vehicle ended up off the road on a field where escape was easy and there was no threat of collision with other vehicles. She added that a policeman was driving by around the same time and was able to help. I remember hearing all this and wondering where the divine came in, in this whole scenario. She had basically a total explanation for everything in naturalistic terms. Rain falling, oil spills, heavy vehicle, seatbelts, policeman driving by. None of these things needed a God to explain them. As Stephen Hawking would say, God was "not necessary." Yet, in her mind it was God in combination with these other things that saved her life.

The fact is, that it is not as if God was used to fill in the aspects of the accident she couldn't explain. This was not " God of the Gaps" this was more of God "the additional layer."It was somewhat like putting more paper on a wrapped Christmas gift and claiming that the item was unwrapped until the second layer went on. The second piece of Christmas paper may make the gift prettier but it is not needed to complete the task.

There are of course many people of faith who would argue that though none of the events that took place on the day of the accident defied any natural laws, God was responsible for putting things in place. He set up things in the way they were, ensured the accident happened where there were people that could find you or had the foresight to make sure that you purchased the right type of vehicle to save you in the accident you would ultimately be involved in. But this raises some more difficulties, there is a natural causal chain of events that could be used to explain why things were the way they were that day. Rain for example, can be explained by condensation which is linked to humidity, temperature of the oceans and much more. This causal chain can if taken far enough go right back to the "big bang" itself. So too everything else, a person just doesn't "appear" on the scene of an accident. A long series of events can be traced to them being there. Maybe the policeman was going to work, which was a result of being offered that job, which was a consequence of applying for the job, which was influenced by having certain qualifications, which links to school he went to, advice he got and so on. Then the very existence of a person depends on parents getting together which depends on grandparents and this also reaches back to the first living organism and again ultimately to the "big bang" itself, which is an event occurring in nature. To say God set up the scenario is to reject that natural causal chain. To reject the natural causal chain is to reject the assumptions that science is based on. Even if at this moment not every piece of the chain, especially the first link, is fully understood, science assumes that such an unbroken chain exists and so far that has proven to be a valid assumption.

Still, they are many that say that God is just so good that he can get his will to be done even though so many of the actions appear to have a random basis. God after all has an intelligence far greater than ours and he can make it look like he's not here when indeed he is. Why he would want to do that is another mystery and the subject for another discussion, but even if we accept this premise, it leads to some disturbing implications. Apart from the natural laws in the universe such as gravity and electromagnetism, there are statistical laws that also suggest that there is no divine hand at work. For example, actuarial scientists can calculate to a high degree of accuracy how many accidents will occur in a given place in a year and even how many are likely be fatalities. They do this having collected data over a long period and analysing all the evidence. It's completely based in science.

The thing is that in many of the accidents that have been used to make predictions, the persons involved consider that God saved them. If this is true, actuarial science is just an illusion. God would just be rigging it all. It would mean that for every person God intervenes to save he would have to "kill" someone who would not have died in "natural" circumstances. God would have to "put back in what he took out" in order to not skew the probabilities. Not a very edifying thought to think you may have to die to pay for somebody else's miracle. But,that's what would have to be happening if God acts without affecting the stats.

Of course the far more plausible scenario is that the universe appears random because it is and God doesn't look like he's here because he's not. There's just absolutely no evidence that the scientific method itself is in crisis, or that its predictive power in any sphere is weakening. That's not to say that it never will. The day we find the natural causal chain assumption to be not valid is the day we can start looking for non natural causes, an outside intelligence, a being which could justifiably be called a God. Nature if having any influence in this kind of world would become purely a tool at God's disposal, it would have no power of its own. That's right, however you look at it, it's either God or nature. The world just cannot serve two masters.

Many have told me that in spite of all I say there is still room for joint leadership. Yes, it's nature most of the time controlling things, but God intervenes on rare occasions for a "miracle", interrupting normal service like a "break in transmission" during the 7:00 news. I have pondered on this long and hard and I just cannot see how God can interact with nature without leaving some indication that he was or is here. There would have to be some type of fingerprint no matter how faint. As a child it always amazed me that I could go to a pond where the water was still and by just dipping my finger in for a few seconds I could create ripples many many yards away. If I passed even fifteen minutes later I could still observe a slight vibration on the water surface. Yet somehow God, the all powerful, waves his mighty hand and we can't detect any bit of his handiwork even with the most powerful microscope we have. Well, the theist will say that's because the atheist doesn't understand the nature of God. They say, "God is outside time and a space, not made of matter, in fact God is immaterial."

Aha, God is immaterial !

That's what Hawking and many others of us have been saying for years. Maybe we can all agree after all.

Nothing wrong with being wrong

Get it right the first time.
Seems I have heard this statement so many times from people who work in customer services. It's far easier to take the time to do things the way they should be done at the beginning than try to clean up things later. Perhaps if a certain company in the news today had adhered to this mantra, BP would not stand for big problems. The thing is, getting it right from the outset in anything is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you are embarking on a journey into unknown territory. Scary as it may sound, experience is sometimes the only reliable teacher.

Many people claim to accept that trials and failures are necessary for learning but few seem to really take it to heart. We may remember the countless falls off the bicycle as children when learning to ride, but as adults we are consumed by a need to be always right, right away. We are so afraid of being wrong we will only admit we are at fault as a last resort. It is not only aimed at self, we are also reluctant to tell other people that they are wrong, Why? Because being wrong is just not socially acceptable. We feel pointing out a failure is a direct attack on a person's character and is rude; eliciting a fight or flight reaction. The response is either to lash back at a criticiser in similar manner and seek to discredit their judgement or whimper away with head bowed thinking that our worth as a person has been devalued by their words. Both these responses are seen as detrimental to society so we seek to avoid criticism in every sense.

Even in circumstances where feedback and critique is asked for, it is often just a pretense. I always have a chuckle to myself in restaurants. The waiter comes around and cheerfully asks if everything is ok. In almost 100% of circumstances the people I am eating with nod in unison, giving the "thumbs up" while wearing pleasant smiles. All seems well with the world until the waiter is out of earshot and I inevitably hear mumblings about spare ribs that are too dry or potatoes that weren't cooked enough. It's all just a ritual. The waiter must ask the question and the customer must say everything is great. In the few cases where I have been with someone who actually took up the waiter and gave criticism, the waiter has appeared generally uncomfortable and offset as if thrown completely off script. Doesn't this idiot customer understand the program? Why is he picking on me?

So, even though the talk is of honesty being the best policy, this is far from the truth. The unwritten law in our society it is, " Don't tell me ever that I am wrong." It is far more important to be nice than to be honest. In following this edict we inhibit our development. We lose the opportunity to improve; as a result a person, company or country can easily make the same mistake over and over again. Although people like to claim they are straight talking, nobody really calls a spade a spade. This is a real tragedy for humanity. All of us suffer as a result of the human obsession with sparing feelings. I don't think that this is anybody's fault it is just a trait that has persisted over the centuries probably because it carries with it certain species evolutionary advantages. A real honest approach will almost certainly lead to ostracisation from the tribe, any politician will tell you that.


This I think really is the crux of the difficulty when we come to discuss matters of religion. Being wrong is such an undesirable state that human beings do whatever they can to avoid it. Religion is the perfect answer to that insatiable drive to be right because once you belong to a faith, you cannot possibly be wrong. Your belief is unfalsifiable, no evidence can ever knock it down. Basically, you are always right by definition. I have so often told fundamentalists that no one can ever prove that the God they believe in is not real. Amazingly this comment leads to a knowing smirk, they think I am conceding defeat in the theological debate. They just don't get it.

Contrast this with the scientist who goes totally counter to society's philosophy of non critique. Religious people will not hesitate to tell you that science has been wrong many times in the past. Evolutionary biologists have been embarrassed by having to admit that what they thought was a vital link to our earliest ancestors was indeed just a tooth of a pig. But that is science, it takes the risk of being wrong in order to find out what is right. Hypotheses that are disproven can tell us much. Verifying a commonly held hypothesis is good , but true breakthroughs in science come when you actually find out that something you held strongly to be true is in fact in error. Indeed in science there is nothing more exciting that finding out you were wrong. It means you have learnt, you have made a discovery.

This is why it makes me laugh when believers suggest that if a God was ever found to exist atheists would run and hang their heads in shame. I think nothing would be more thrilling than acknowledging that moment when it comes. Any atheist that has left religion has had to admit to himself he was wrong and wrong in a really big way. But, for me I wasn't upset or embarrassed I was just excited to learn something new by honestly following evidence.

I think that as atheists we sometimes don't recognise the paradigm clashes when making arguments. We must sound like stuck records to the religious, responding to their reasons for belief with the words, " But is it true ?" The real issue is that truth is not what is most important to the believer. There is a reason for the phrase " brutally honest." Admittedly it is better if what makes them feel good is true but they are ok if it is not, on the one condition that they never conclusively find that out.

I remember watching a segment on CNN last year. A boy who had down's syndrome wanted to play football for a high school team more than anything, but just didn't have the skill level. One day at the end of the season where the result of the game was a foregone conclusion, the coaches of the two teams got together and decided to allow the kid onto the field . It was agreed that the opposing players would not try to tackle him, he would be allowed to run right down the field unimpeded to score a touch down. I saw the play and it looked impressive. The boy was delighted to score his touch down and the players on his team embraced him like he had just won the FIFA World Cup. He was lifted shoulder high by his team mates and the entire crowd at the stadium were in uproar. He had people rushing up to him hounding him for his autograph.

The media were excited by the story praising both the coaches and all the players for the gesture they had done for this young disabled boy. In their opinion they had made a dream come true for this youngster and the value of that could not be measured. I sat and watched and shook my head. Was I the only person in the world that saw something wrong with this? The boy was happy, friends and family shed tears of unadulterated joy but it was all a LIE!! Sure the boy felt great today but just imagine if he were to ever find out what really happened, that could really shatter him for life. How would we feel if we were to find out tomorrow that all of our achievements were just given to us by others out of pity to make us feel good? This boy undoubtedly has real talent in some area and could with effort and dedication achieve something far more spectacular than even his teammates could imagine. That opportunity may have now been lost.

That tv moment illustrated to me why it is so hard to beat that religious feel good "high". Happy falsehood always seems to beat sober reality, but I am an optimist. I think we can build a new paradigm in society based on honesty and criticism. One where everyone is encouraged to give and take it as much as possible. A world where we smile and say thank you when somebody calls us an idiot; as we revel in the opportunity to correct a mistake. A world where truly and honestly there is nothing wrong with being wrong.

Why I don't call myself agnostic

Agnostic or atheist, what's in a name? It is amazing how many times this comes up for discussion and as many people say, they are certainly not mutually exclusive and sometimes can be almost synonymous. But, say what you like, the connotation that these two words create are oceans apart. Agnostic is a very light term to use in a conversation, it will often endear you to many listeners. It is the "honest" position. For the strong believer you become fertile ground for discipleship, you just don't know God..... yet. To the atheist you are an honest doubter and have taken the first step to non belief.In a way you are like the cup both half empty and half full.

Say that you are an atheist and the response is completely different. First you have to make sure no one is about to sip a cup of coffee,or you run the risk of creating a spill of BP proportions. If you are lucky you may get away with just a gasp followed by an uncomfortable silence, and sighs of relief as someone quickly changes the subject. For the believer, the atheist has closed his mind, not willing to accept any contrary information. To any other atheist there, it is also awkward because unless they have come out about it to this audience before they are just not ready to say, "me too."

Agnosticism is clearly the safe position in the religious debate but I think it ultimately keeps the protection around faith. It pulls at things around the edges rather than targeting the core. Doubt after all is not normally seen as a bad thing by religious people. After all, many will tell you they have gone that way before. It is ok to be unsure, you can question as much as you like so long as you never actually stop believing. God can help with unbelief, non belief is a totally different story. When I was an agnostic, Christians treated me like an athlete with a broken foot. A poor soul tormented by confusion, that needed assistance to understand. At least I entertained the possibility of a God and that meant what the bible said at least COULD be true. There might be a heaven or hell and I needed to keep a half an ear on what they were saying even if only in a Pascal's Wager sort of way. The most you can do as an agnostic is make the ultra-religious slow down for a minute, but you are sure as hell not going to stop their train from moving.

For many years I thought agnostic was the better position. I honestly didn't know. The thing that hits me now is that of course, nobody knows. Therefore, in reality, everybody is an agnostic. So to call yourself an agnostic is about as descriptive a term as calling yourself a human being. It really gives no useful information. What is important is what you believe. You either believe there is a God or you don't, unless of course you think the probability is exactly 50/50. But I would risk to say most people know that their God meter either tips in one direction or the other even if the perturbation is slight.

For me the belief is firmly in "no God" territory even though it is by no means at the extreme. So in a somewhat paradoxical way, I would gladly call myself an agnostic atheist but would consider it a misnomer to be labelled agnostic.I also believe that in order to get the world to become more rational in outlook it is important to emphasize atheism rather than agnosticism. There is a view in the world that agnosticism is the most rational point of view, that needs to change.

The respect for agnosticism as the superior intellectual position comes from the view of science as being an open minded discipline. Many think that scientists that make dogmatic assertions on God's non existence are not being true to the field, acting ultra vires, treading on ground they should not be. However, I think that there is an aspect of science that is often overlooked. Science is not only about seeking the "one truth" it is just as much about weeding out the ideas that don't have merit. It considers all positions but is duty bound to immediately eject from the table anything that is unsupported by the evidence, regardless of the proposer. Science from that perspective is like God, it is no respecter of persons. Science must rank, categorise and separate otherwise it is not doing its job. All ideas are not equal.

We live in a world of limited resources; time devoted to ideas that have long since been recognised as having no merit will hold back overall development. The journey towards the truth depends on an efficient process of eliminating the false.The God hypothesis has unfortunately failed the tests and science has simply moved on. It is a cop out to say that science makes no comment on the supernatural, when it clearly shouts, NO!! Every experiment in the natural or social sciences could have this sentence written in the assumption section:

" We have assumed that no gods, demons, spirits or angels have affected the outcome of this experiment."

So far no results obtained have caused researches to question whether these assumptions are valid. If results do in the future, scientists will go back and question them, but it will take a massive weight of conflicting evidence to counteract an assumption which has been consistent with observations for millennia and that's only fair.

So lack of God's influence is assumed but with good reason, that is why supernatural evidence is not admissible in the law courts. It is why forensic scientists rather than demonologists are called as expert witnesses in murder trials. Atheism is indeed the position of reason and should be promoted as such. You don't remove a child's night phobia by telling him that there is probably no monster living under the bed. You take him in the light of day and let him see for himself there is nothing there but his toys, shoes and colouring books.

Unbreakable until you broke it

Imagine that someone sold you a vase, he claimed it was perfect and infallible in every way, it could never be broken. It seemed an amazing claim but you trusted the salesman and bought it. You showed if off on your living room and everyone you know admired it. From near and far people came to admire your unbreakable vase.

Then one day you brushed the vase lightly as you walked past, the vase fell and shattered into hundreds of pieces in front of you. You are both shocked and angry, this vase was supposed to be perfect and infallible. You go back to the salesman who turns on you and asks you how you could destroy his perfect vase. It was totally infallible, before you carelessly let it fall and now it is perfect no more. You made the perfect imperfect. Yes, the vase was unbreakable until you broke it.

Reluctantly you admit your mistake, although the salesman's logic still baffles you. You shrug your shoulders and ask him if he could fix the vase and make it "perfect" again. The seller tells you that is totally impossible, by your actions you have changed the nature of the vase forever, it is perfect no more. Ok, you could maybe accept that, but you ask if he could sell you a new perfect vase. Surprisingly, you are told "no". You broke the one perfect vase ever made, the nature of vases are now forever changed and all will be fragile from now on. In fact every time a person breaks a vase for generations to come , it would be a reminder to them of your careless action. Yes, vases were once unbreakable until that fateful day of the "fall."

Well, by now I am sure you can follow the analogy. This is the genesis story. A perfect world that we messed up. Some will argue that the analogy doesn't hold because perfection does not imply infallibility. Something could be perfect today and imperfect tomorrow. Even the most beautiful picture can be destroyed by a three year old's scrawls. Maybe we had a perfect vase in terms of the artwork or design but not in terms of its durabilility. A fair point, but surely when we talk about a perfect world we are not talking merely of aesthetics.It's not just beautiful trees, animals and landscapes. Indeed in terms of raw beauty the world seems no less beautiful than any you will find in a Garden of Eden representation. The critical difference is that in the perfect world there was supposedly no death, suffering or pain, no decay,deterioration or destruction. That sounds like an infallible world, one that could not be broken down, no different from the fictional unbreakable vase.

Yet christian doctrine suggests sin came into the world and things changed. There are millions in the world who accept this idea, yet all would immediately identify the salesman with the super fragile unbreakable vase as a con man. We are often told that man after the fall took on a sinful nature. This talk bothers me. How could any human being change anything of his nature? I can understand how you can change your behaviour, attitudes or responses. But how can you change your nature? That would be like changing the very essence of yourself. You can break the vase but you can't change the way that it was made. A human can no more change his nature than a lion can take on a sheep nature or a butterfly can take on the nature of a boa constrictor.

The maker of the vase is the only one who can determine the nature of the vase. The creator of the human is the only one who would have any power to determine human nature. A man with the ability to change even his own nature, far less the nature of the entire world or universe would have to possess powers equivalent to a God himself.

But, inpite of all these arguments, many will still insist that it is possible for perfection to be transient. Once perfect does not mean always perfect.But, what does that say about God? Can his nature be changed just like his creation? God may have a perfect mind today, but he might get Alzheimer's tomorrow, all because of our sinful actions. Maybe it has happened already, the fall might have affected God too. It affected all of his creation we are told, and that would mean heaven too. How do we know that the imperfections did not reach up to God?

The scary thing is we would never know if God ever becomes less than perfect.For,he is the ultimate self regulator, only he can judge himself.I tell you, there really is no way ever to get your money back after purchasing that vase that was unbreakable until you broke it.