They're a cause of numerous social ills, to boot. But they are also quite stupid, as well. And they hate sex.
A few months ago I wrote an article--You Christians Are Stupid and We Hate You--about the political left's antipathy towards Christians, and was dubious of the wisdom of calling Christians stupid as a tool for making political progress in America. And I don't think it's a winning strategy.
And you folks know I write for a reasonably select audience--not that it's a private blog, but it's mostly for friends and folks I know. So it's interesting that the first email I got from someone that I don't know (at least, as far as I know I don't know them) regarding anything I've written here was on that article. And it didn't address the point of what I was writing--which is that some folks on the left are outright hostile to Christians, mix it up with politics, trend towards hyperbole in their critique of the many perceived Christian evils they are subjected to, and strangely seem to expect that to be a big vote-getter in a country where a majority of folks self- identify as Christian.
The email was also anonymous, which just strikes me as strange, given the tone seems to be one of establishing a dialog. Perhaps he or she lacks the courage of his or her convictions, or was fearful I might call out the Christian attack dogs if I knew who they were. And the author certainly doesn't actually dispute the core points of my original article, which is that folks on the left generally don't like Christians and think they are stupid. In fact, he or she seems to emphasize the point, blaming all sorts of other manner of evils on Christians:
In response to certain claims that you make in your article, I submit the following study, which finds correlations between religiosity and various types of social dysfunction, such as child mortality, homicide, abortions, STDs, low life expectancy, etc. All of the aforementioned social ills seem to increase as the percentage of the population that believes in God increases:This is going to be a two-parter. On my next post, I'm going to examine said study more closely. But just as a general point, as any statistician can tell you, correlation is not causation. It would be just as easy, and as likely, to say that in environments where social dysfunction is high and moral turpitude plentiful, people turn to religion for hope, direction, and fulfillment. Other factors could be responsible for STDs and low life expectancy and high abortion rates, if this is, indeed, a true statistical correlation where the data has not been massaged for a more pleasing outcome. And people could be more prone to find solace in religion where such factors are plentiful. Indeed, people frequently do not turn to God until things turn bad for them. It's often unpleasant exterior circumstances that reveal a deeper, spiritual world. And it could be possible that such data is, at the least, questionable.
http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html
The first thing that occurs to me is that the Soviet Union, where atheism was the state religion and enforced by imprisonment and death, there were numerous social ills, including high child mortality and STDs, rampant alcoholism, and low life expectancy, although the murder rate wasn't that bad, if you didn't count the ten million Russian citizens slaughtered by the superior secular state. But perhaps Communist China is a better example. Certainly, the economy isn't as terrible as was the Soviet Union’s. Although through execution, starvation, and forced labor, the People's Party managed to kill by most estimates almost 25 million of its people. And certain social ills, like malnutrition, force abortions, and torturous deaths for the treason of practicing Christianity (or being Jewish or Muslim) could also be considered social ills. But then, of course, there's North Korea . . .
Sufficed to say, I'm not convinced that a study that finds a causal relationship of social dysfunction and religiosity has been completely thorough. But I'll review the report, Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies(try saying that with a mouthful of marbles), next time.
But I do wonder what the author would have made of a similar study that found correlations of certain social ills with large populations of registered Democrats (and this can be done), or correlations of certain social ills with large populations of blacks (and this can be done as well). As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Correlation and causation aren't the same thing, and are usually entirely different. Or a matrix that demonstrated that populations with more Methodist churches than Baptist Churches had far more social ills than populations with more Baptist Churches than Methodist churches. Now, I don't know for sure that that can be done, but I know something very much like it can definitely be done. That is the magic of statistical analysis.
My anonymous correspondent continues:
In answer to your question regarding how many Americans reject evolution, the International Social Survey Program, cited by the above paper, puts that figure at a little over 50%. Not quite 77%, but still the highest evolution rejection rate in the developed world. (Not necessarily the highest rejection rate among third-world theocracies like Iran)."Not quite" 77%. Quite a statistical leap, to go from one unsupported claim for 77% of Americans disbelieving in evolution (the number that was in the original Alternet article that I critiqued in the post my anonymous emailer is responding to) to 50%. That's a 27% difference. Well, if there was another 27% jump downwards in there, that'd mean only 23% of Americans disbelieved in evolution. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that figure is right. Half the folks in the country don't believe the human race evolved from lower life forms. Okay. At least half of America is dumber than you and less enlightened than you, my anonymous friend. Great! Yay for you!
I don't intend to be flip when I say: so what? What does that mean, really?
Certainly, I part company from many good Christian folks when I say that the evolution of man from lower life forms was the mechanism of God's creation of man. But perhaps not as many as you think. But does that make me happier than you? Or a better person in some fundamental way than a strict Creationist? Does it make me better at my job to believe in a Darwinian origin of species? A better musician, writer, husband or father? At the very most, it makes me right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle on one issue that's largely immaterial to day to day life.
Perhaps the known facts of evolution are very important to you because you feel they disprove the existence of a Creator. But I just see it was one more part of God's grand Creation. I may be wrong. If I am, and you're right, you win. So why worry about it?
And one more comment here. Evolution is a broad term. Are we establishing that people don't believe that man evolved from apes, or a common ape-like ancestor? Or that they don't believe in dog breeding, genetic engineering, inheritance, and animal husbandry? Or are we talking an either/or--do you believe that man evolved from a thick organic soup as a matter of chance, or do you believe God created man in his image? There's not an option in that sort of question for a "yes, I believe in evolution and I believe in God, too" sort of answer. And I've taken surveys with those sorts of questions, so I know they can happen.
My friend writes:
It is ironic that, while Christians howl about abortion, their anti- birth control teachings drive the abortion rate through the roof, as folks who believe that condoms don't work, as Christians teach, use the ineffective, and Biblical, "pull and pray" method instead, resorting to abortion when this fails.I don't know about you, but I have not personally experienced a church teaching the "pull and pray" method. I know the church counsels against premarital sex, and there are good reasons for this, but, except for the orthodox Catholic church, how much of the Christian church counsels against birth control? I'm not arguing for Catholicism. To be honest, I'm not arguing for Christianity, per se, as I don't believe I'm called to be a witness in the way that some Christians are.
For the record, I'm not howling about abortion. I don't think it's right. And I think it is a form of infanticide. And I think birth control is a great thing. I don't think teen sex is such a great thing, because teens are generally emotionally immature, because the girls usually end up getting hurt, because teen pregnancies happen when even educated teens misuse, or forget to use, their free condoms and because . . . well, there's a reason it's not Christmas every frickin' day of the year. There's a reason fine wines are aged. Some things are better when you wait.
And, technically, "pull and pray" would not be Biblical. You weren't supposed to spill your seed upon the ground, either.
My friend continues:
You never did answer why you believe in the Christian god to begin with. All Christians whose answers I've ever heard have admitted that they simply assume that the assertions of Christianity are correct. Those who don't admit that they're simply assuming that the Gospels are true avoid the question like the plague, preferring to commit harder-to-spot fallacies instead (special pleading in your case: You admit that assuming the existence of the Greek gods and Santa Claus is absurd, but you insinuate the idea that it's somehow different to assume the Hebrew god's existence-- Insistingthat atheists just don't "get it" is an inarticulate cop-out).Actually, it was an "aside", as it wasn't really the point of the post. And while I can see exactly how it was a cop-out, I'm not sure how it was "inarticulate". You seemed to understand it well enough.
I didn't answer the question as to why I believe in God to begin with because it wasn't actually a question posed in the post, just a statement of fact. But my answer isn't going to be very different from all the other answers you've heard. I have faith. That's why I believe. I know what I have experienced. What I've learned. I could not encompass all of that here, and, in any case, it wouldn't mean much to you. Like I said, I was an atheist. Every single example, every brick that slowly built the wall of my belief, even the biggest ones, could be dismissed by you. Was exactly the sort of stuff I dismissed for a long, long time. I wish I had something better to give you here, but I don't. Maybe one day I will.
But you sound happy with your beliefs, and I'm not going to try and dissuade you. It may make me a crappy Christian, but I don't want to sell you something you don't want. I was evangelized several times in my life, and never bought it. At all. I was completely alone when I accepted Jesus Christ. So, I personally don't go the evangelism route. You asked, I try to answer, but that's pretty much that. It would appear that you've got answers that your satisfied with, and I've got answers I'm largely satisfied with, so we're both good and that's that.
By the way, I don't say that assuming the existence of Greek gods and Santa Claus is absurd, per se, simply that it's a clever rhetorical trick liberals and the anti-religious to make the beliefs of Christians and Jews sound more silly. Actually, a belief in Santa Claus makes sense for a young child who is told by his parents that Santa is real. Belief in the Greek Gods made perfect sense to many Greeks at the time. A belief in God makes sense to me, now. A belief in nothing makes sense to you. I'm not about to make fun of, or ridicule, your beliefs. I was an atheist until I was 33 years old. I'm not about to start pointing fingers.
I am especially interested in hearing how an atheist like you claim to have been gets converted into a Believer.I think that "claim to have been" gives lie to your assertion that you're genuinely interested. But, at least it lets me know that you, my anonymous friend, aren't anybody I knew in the past. And I expect you weren't on any of the lists I've been on where religion was discussed. I can tell you, more than a few people were surprised--and disappointed--by my conversion, and some suggested it was probably just a phase.
But, it's a good thing you aren't actually interested, because it is not something I'm going to be able to tell you in a way you will understand. C.S. Lewis, a fellow converted atheist, described it as-- I'm paraphrasing--falling to his knees in awe of the undeniable truth of it. That idea would have done me no good when I was an atheist, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't convey anything of the actual experience. If you've ever seen a movie where a twist at the end changed the meaning of everything, so suddenly everything you saw earlier that you thought meant one thing now actually meant something else . . . well, it's like that. And I wish I could be clearer, and I'm really doing my best, but I'm not called to witness in that way. I'm almost sure of that.
You had to somehow be convinced that humans have a massless entity located somewhere within their body that is the true seat of consciousness (as opposed to the scientific theory that the brain is the seat of consciousness).I disagree. And frankly, so does most of history, which indicates that numerous religious folks have forever located the mind somewhere in the body, indicating that the soul is something “beyond” the mind, or that we have an eternal, Platonic self connected to the physical body at some point (the pineal gland being a popular option). Additionally, one could easily believe that the brain is the seat of consciousness and the mind is entirely a matter of chemical reactions in this realm, and that it is transmuted by some supernatural mechanism at or after death to another state in another realm.
While some people may have at one time regarded the physical body as unrelated to consciousness, one hardly has to believe that the soul—and certainly our mental processes and sense-of-self--is unrelated to the brain, in order to believe in God.
I believe the brain is the seat of consciousness. I believe my memories, my emotions, my memories and my sense-of-self are a product of the electro-chemical reactions in my brains. And yet, for all of us, I believe the whole is much, much greater than the sum of its parts. And that the hand of God is demonstrated in the fact. No doubt, you disagree, and, dude, that’s so cool. I was in that same place for, like, almost all of my life. I understand why you disagree, and I’m not going to try and talk you out of it.
But aren’t Christians called to witness? Aren’t we supposed to be salt of the earth, a light of our faith? Well, yes, but . . .
This entity, called a "soul" by Christians, somehow interacts with the brain to produce behavior, and somehow floats off and flies away somewhere at death.You neglect the possibility of transmutation. But whatever it is and however it happens after death, I suspect the mechanism is not knowable to us. At least until after we’re dead. And maybe not then. I can’t promise you, one way or the other, because I haven’t been dead yet.
I have yet to encounter a Christian who believes this by anything other than assumption.Otherwise known as faith. There are reasons for faith, but direct empirical observation of the face of God or life-after-death is generally not one of them.
It's not a conclusion that could ever be reached by any sort of empirical investigation-- you have to presuppose that this absolutely undetectable entity exists, or you can't believe it.So how does a Christian go about convincing an atheist that souls really exist?I suspect, in most cases, that they don’t. I was not convinced by evangelism or proselytizing. It was a conclusion I had been building toward for awhile without knowing it, and some minor difficult circumstances in my life were enough to open my eyes, as it were. Not quite having the scales fall off my eyes on the road to Damascus, but close enough for government work. However, I was proselytized several times and by several people, and none of that figured in to it. The one guy who I had once discussed such issues with, atheist-to-believer, that did have some effect, in retrospect, had discussed his opinions on the issues but had not really tried to proselytize me. I would have liked to discuss things with him more, now, but I don’t have any way to contact him. So I’m stuck there.
If there is something a believer can say to an atheist to convert him, I don’t know it and I’m not that guy. I do know that every argument every used on me—and there were many—didn’t work. So I’m prone to believe you've got to find your own way. If anything is going to bring you to God, it's probably not going to me.
But, best of luck in all you do. And have a blessed day.
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