Time to weigh in on Atheism Plus

For a few days now I've been seeing comments about something called "Atheism Plus" or "A+" all over Twitter.  I didn't know what it was but I could see it was generating strong feeling, so I googled it earlier.  The first post I found on the subject was at Greta Christina's blog, which can be found here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/08/21/why-atheism-plus-is-good-for-atheism/

Now, I have to say that when I read this my initial reaction was to wonder what on earth the problem was; I've seen some people come down pretty hard against A+, but based on what I read here I couldn't see why.  Much as I admire thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett and other names typically associated with "New Atheism", I've thought for a while now that it would be good to let people see that not all atheists are posh, uber-educated, straight white dudes aged forty to eighty - they're not actually all that representative.

Atheists and secularists, in my experience, do tend to be more progressive in terms of promoting social equality.  I'm sure there are exceptions, but I think as a rule we're pretty consistently ahead of the curve.  And I want to make this clear right now; I am totally, totally, in favour of improving the culture of atheism such that it is more welcoming, more supportive and more inclusive to everyone.  If we have been guilty of making people feel excluded, I consider that something that should be addressed.

But after reading Greta's comments, I read around a bit further and was increasingly horrified by what I found. Now, it's rare for me to disagree with Greta, and in fact I can't help thinking that maybe the A+ movement's spun out of control since she registered her approval of it, that maybe it started out far more sensibly. In fact, from looking at Jen McCreight's blog where the whole thing seems to have started, I think it probably WAS quite laudable at first: http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/08/atheism/

But then the problems start to creep in. Notable among them is Richard Carrier's particularly charmless post which can be seen here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2207/  You know you're on dodgy territory when the opening sentence reads "There is a new atheism brewing, and it’s the rift we need, to cut free the dead weight so we can kick the C.H.U.D.’s back into the sewers and finally disown them, once and for all."  It doesn't bode well, does it?  What that essentially amounts to is "I'm sick of hearing opposing opinions, it's time to brand dissenters subhuman, generate a bit of mob mentality and forcibly eject them from our movement".  With that kind of mentality, your reasons for trying to exclude the given group/s are all but irrelevant - you've become at least as scary as they are.  From that beginning, it's not a huge surprise to end with "I call everyone now to pick sides (not in comments here, but publicly, via Facebook or other social media): are you with us, or with them; are you now a part of the Atheism+ movement, or are you going to stick with Atheism Less?  Then at least we’ll know who to work with. And who to avoid."

In practical terms, what this seems to have led to is an assumption that only people willing to sign up to the A+ movement are in favour of social equality.  When I registered the irony of this - that based on my refusal to label myself according to other people's definition of an acceptable person, I am assumed to be a bigot - on Twitter, I was met with comments like this:

@Jitterysquirrel: "When you fight against social progress and equality, you are a bigot. When you shit on those who don't, you're an asshole too."

What?! I'm not fighting against social progress, that's just ridiculous! All I'm doing is arguing that A+ does not equal good person, and that good person does not equal A+.  I'm in favour of equality and progress as I hope other posts in this blog illustrate; I'm just not going to buy into the mentality that one must wordlessly submit to the A+ movement and promise never to disagree with any other member ever again in order to be a decent person. You know, because that's ridiculous.

I think the thing that bothers me most about the A+ movement, though, is how needlessly pessimistic - even plain cynical - it is.  When I meet a new person, be it online or IRL, I assume they're NOT a dick until they give me reason to think otherwise (and occasionally, they do, of course). I would like to have the same courtesy extended to me, that's all.  If I say something that betrays prejudice, bigotry or even just thoughtlessness, by all means call me on that because I don't want to be that kind of person - I want to know about my mistake and learn from it... but at least wait until I've actually cocked up before you start calling me an arsehole.

Atheism Plus is in many ways very deserving of praise. I am completely behind most of its values and aims. But by adopting the attitude of "if you're not with us, you're against us, against our values and therefore a bigot", they've shot themselves in the - well, not even in the foot. They've shot themselves in the head. I'm an A+ by everything except the label - but give me a ridiculously unnecessary (and hilariously melodramatic) ultimatum like that, and I'm out on principle.  If that kind of bullying mob mentality worked, I'd still be a christian.

Tony Nicklinson takes the control he was denied by a cruel and outdated legal system.

This morning, Right-to-Die campaigner Tony Nicklinson died less than a week after losing his challenge to the UK's existing law.  He sought to make sure that any doctor willing to assist him in ending his own life - an act he couldn't perform without assistance - would not face prosecution for murder for doing so.  His plea was denied on the grounds that the court was worried about setting a "dangerous precedent" for future cases.

Within hours of the verdict's being announced, Tony's wife Jane established a petition on change.org; that can be found here: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/tony-nicklinson-s-right-to-die-change-the-law

Now here's something else that I almost didn't post; it felt almost indecent to watch this at the time the appeal was denied, and in a way it feels even more so now.  But this is a case that's all about people valuing legal familiarity and moral tradition over compassion; it's important that people know exactly how this decision affects real people.  This was the reaction of Tony and his wife when they heard the news (warning; I still can't watch this without being very upset. It is not pleasant viewing. But it's necessary.):

It is a mystery to me how anyone can watch this poor man's reaction to the outcome of his case and NOT feel utterly, utterly gutted for him.

This morning's news puts the above into a new light for me, too.  When I first watched this footage, I saw a man realising he now has no choice but to continue with a miserable, blighted existence, unable to escape from it without risking another person's freedom.  NOW when I watch it, I see a man realising that he has no resort but to commit slow, painful suicide by the only means at his disposal - by starving himself.

The Guardian and others report that Tony refused food after the verdict was delivered, and that as he weakened he succumbed to pneumonia, which finally killed him.

I am glad for Tony, happy for him that his misery is over.  I'm angry and sad that the end had to come about as it did.  Tony's decision to take his own life in the only way left to him is proof of the futility - leaving aside for a moment the cruelty and cowardice - in denying him his right to die. By handing down the verdict they did, all the court ensured was that Tony's death would not be painless and dignified but would be protracted, painful and miserable.  And although one feels desperately sorry for Tony, one can't help feeling almost worse for his family, who had to watch him suffer so terribly.



Follow up: While I've been writing this, I've been having a discussion on Twitter with some chaplain up North somewhere who (obviously) thinks the law's fine as it is.  It went on for a while and we reached a point where everyone in the world was allowed an opinion on a person's request to die (as long as they were against it, obviously) EXCEPT the person whose life was in question, but this tweet sums it up for me (spelling etc. corrected): "Desperately sad, but he effectively took his own life by refusing food and treatment. Law need not be changed, nor should it be."

There are people so ideologically opposed to compassionately ending suffering that they consider forcing someone to starve himself to death is better - and even then, it's a fair bet that even THAT's only because they can't stop it. I'll leave that one with you. I'm not sure what's going to happen to the petition now since it was specific to Tony, but if anyone knows of a more general one to change the law please tell me in the comments!

Conservatism, tradition, and ownership of the female body

As you probably know, US Congressman Todd Akin has invited a shitstorm this week with the following statement in the context of a debate about abortion:

"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

And in case you haven't already heard about this; yes, he really said that. So if you're one of the significant number of women who have been raped and WERE unfortunate enough to get pregnant as a result... well, you must have wanted it reeeally, mustn't you?  I mean really, really deep down. Or something.  'Cause there's got to be something called "illegitimate rape" if there's "legitimate rape", hasn't there? Maybe you were just unconscious. Or underage. Maybe you just didn't fight hard enough. Whatever the case, it must not really have been proper "rapey rape" if you got pregnant.

For the hard of thinking, yes the above is sarcastic.

But what about the context, while we're at it?  Does that matter? Well, yes, as it happens - though maybe not for the reasons you think.

Congressman Akin wants to block access to safe and legal abortion, even in cases where the woman seeking it has been raped.  He is under the impression that his own half-baked notions about the "sanctity" of a cluster of undifferentiated insensate cells takes precedent over our right to control our own bodies. Why? Because he says so, and because... well, you know. You're only a woman. It's not like you're a real person, or anything.

It's long been my opinion that we pro-choice people play right into the hands of the "pro-lifers" (who're rarely pro-life about anything other than foetuses, have you noticed? When was the last time you met an anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-healthcare, anti-hunting, fruitarian pro-lifer?) when we ask that tired old question "what if she's been raped?".

Why?

Well, it's related to my post from yesterday, in a sense - it's making an excuse that isn't necessary, it's tacitly assenting to the allegation that there's something about abortion that needs to be justified to other people.

If I get pregnant by ANY means, I am allowed as an adult and as my own person to decide what I want to do about that fact. It is no one's. Goddamn. Business. But mine. In fact, one might argue that my decision NOT to abort an unplanned pregnancy might require more justification, since that would affect other people than myself.

Pro-choice people are not "pro-abortion", whatever our opponents may say. None of us are going around telling people an abortion is a fun thing to do on a Saturday night, that they should invite some friends round, have a bottle of wine and make a night of it. We're not encouraging it, recommending it, we're not necessarily even saying we as individuals think abortion's ethically OK or that we'd do it ourselves; we're just saying that it's up to the individual to decide for herself. That's all.

So what's the opposing position to the pro-choice one? Well, let's face it - it's "anti-choice", isn't it? Let's be honest.

As I've already said, "pro-life" people are often - perhaps even usually - only pro-life when it comes to a foetus. Conservatives in the States are significantly "pro-life" and also significantly opposed to giving people the right to healthcare. Wait, what?

When a person says they are "pro-life", what they really mean is that they are anti-choice. What they're saying is that they want to take away your legal right, as a human, to make a choice different to the one they believe they would make in your place.  If someone is morally opposed to abortion, they  have every right to maintain an unplanned pregnancy, no one's trying to take that away from them. But if they make the mistake of thinking that their personal moral stance should be forcibly applied by legal means to everyone else in the country because they believe it... that must be opposed.  If it is not, and if the right to safe and legal abortion is repealed, what that will mean is that every other person in the USA has more rights over your body than you do. Because you can get pregnant, ergo because you're a woman.

You are not a second-class citizen. You are not the property of men in Congress. You are not a slave to the conservative anti-choicers. You are not an incubator. And you do not need to have been raped - "legitimate rape" or otherwise - to win the right to control your own body.

So yes, you should be angry about what Akin said. But you should probably be more angry about the fact that people like him have forced the pro-choice movement into a position where we have to plead special circumstances to maintain our right to make our own decisions.  So please, PLEASE - stop asking the "what if she was raped?" question.

How the media misses the point where religion is concerned

It's time I returned to my much-neglected blog. For some time now, I've been trying to care a little less about religion because it was beginning to affect other areas of my life too much; now, however, something's happened about which I cannot NOT comment.

Yesterday, the 19th of August 2012, many news outlets around the world reported that a child in Pakistan - part of a small, Christian community - had been arrested on suspicion of burning pages from the qur'an.  The girl in question is reported to be eleven years of age, and the mob's reaction to the "crime" she's accused of has led to hundreds of people being forced from their homes.  It is alleged that the child was beaten before being arrested, and that she may even face the death penalty for "blasphemy".

Now, I hope I don't need to point out to anyone all that's wrong with the idea of "blasphemy" as a crime - free speech, right to dissent etc. etc.. And I hope I don't need to explain why executing anyone for anything is a brutal and backwards way to run your country. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Here's what's pissing me off.  There are reports that the child may be mentally disabled; some outlets are saying she has Down's syndrome, others that she has an unspecified mental illness.  The BBC, in particular, seem to be making a big thing of this, as can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19311098

Here's my question. HOW IS HER MENTAL HEALTH STATUS RELEVANT?!

What does it matter?! In any sane society, any person has the right to burn any damn book they like (as long as it's not rare or someone elses property), and little as we may like it we can't punish them for it.  The BBC and others, by making such a fuss of the possibility that this child is mentally disabled, are making an excuse for her that simply IS NOT REQUIRED.

If a mentally disabled person commits a crime, we quite rightly assess whether they were able to appreciate the wrongness and/or ramifications of what they were doing before we decide whether to punish them. If it is found that they could not understand why what they were doing was wrong, we don't imprison them although we may detain them for their own and others' safety.

Here's the catch; "blasphemy", by any non-insane definition, is not a crime. If this poor child DID burn a book, no one was harmed by that action. By being at such pains to point out that she may not have understood what she was doing, the BBC is lending credence to the ludicrous notion that what she did was wrong and in need of excusing.  This attitude is not only factually laughable, it's dangerous too since it carries the implication that threatening to execute this little girl would somehow be acceptable and reasonable were she not disabled.

Sickening.

Interview with an Atheist: Part Three

Do you like being an atheist?

My own answer: "Well, the first thing to explain with reference to this question is that whether a position is pleasant or not is not any comment on the accuracy of the position. It wouldn't matter if being an atheist made me unbearably, suicidally miserable, it would not affect the likelihood of a deity or deities existing (actually, having to accept that the stories of the Harry Potter novels – and especially Severus Snape – are not real can make me pretty blue at times).

That aside, I am in general a lot happier as a non-believer than I was as a christian; my memory of believing in Jahweh is dominated by guilt, confusion and feelings of inadequacy, so it's nice to be free of that. This isn't to say I don't still feel guilty when I do something wrong, or confused when confronted with a difficult moral decision – in fact, moral questions have become if anything more troublesome now that I can't just refer to a book to tell me what I should do – but there's a lot less fear and a lot more honesty in knowing that the person I answer to is me, not some invisible and baffling entity I can't hope to understand.

This is probably as good a moment as any to make a confession that I think could leave me open to criticism from believers; I don't think I'm intellectually capable, with the evidence we have to date, of believing in a deity. Unless something dramatic turns up – and obviously I don't think it will, or I wouldn't be an atheist – I don't think I could believe if I wanted to. I am incapable of the kind of double-think religious faith requires. The beauty of atheism, for me, lies in the blissful absence of cognitive dissonance. There is nothing about NOT believing in deities that doesn't make sense or requires apologetics and mental cartwheels, because atheism is just the null hypothesis maintained in the absence of a reason to deviate. Intellectually and morally, atheism is completely satisfying.

There are aspects of atheism that bother me at times, though. The most obvious of these is the way other people look at you; “atheism” is a word that simply states one non-belief I have out of a near-infinite number of non-beliefs, yet people can hear or read that word and think they know everything about me from it – and most of what they think they know is unpleasant. I also know that my mum's not thrilled about my being an atheist – more to do with my outspokenness than with my actual lack of belief, I suspect – and that troubles me because it's an invisible barrier between my mum and me, a topic to be skirted around. The one and only thing, though, that I truly dislike about having become an atheist is actually attributable to my having been religious first; and that is the loss of an afterlife, the complete and final loss of loved ones in death.
 

I've said before in this blog that I think indoctrinating children into a belief in hell is little short of child abuse, but actually in my case the long-term damage has been done by my indoctrination into believing in heaven. Hell was a threat, and once I realised it was an idle one I was nothing but glad that it wasn't real; however, the idea of meeting loved ones again after death took longer to shake off, and I sincerely wish I'd never had it. For ages – years and years – after I shook of christianity, I still had a kind of half-formed, unexamined assumption that something in our consciousness survives death; that idea is everywhere, I remember reading Wuthering Heights at school and finding genuine solace in the idea of Cathy and Heathcliff being buried in a shared grave. Even after the concept of any specific afterlife was gone, I still sort of assumed that at the moment of death all this stuff we don't know in life – why we're here, what happens to us after death, the nature of consciousness etc. - would become clear... as an atheist, of course, I now know this will not be the case, I will never know that stuff, I will simply return to non-being. That realisation doesn't bother me anymore, but the fact that I now have to accept that people I love are just gone when they die – which I didn't have to face before – still stings. Overall it's probably good for me in the sense that it makes me reluctant to hurt people or argue with them, but it does mean I'm denied a source of solace in certain situations that was available to me when I was a believer.

Having said all that, I prefer on principle now to learn the truth whether I think I will like it or not; there's a fascination and a thrill in being free to consider all the options without having to fret about whether they're compatible with stuff I want or feel obliged to believe. I'm free to learn as much as I can in the fields of science (although those who know me will confirm that my education is informal and my understanding patchy at best), and I regularly learn things that make me feel almost giddy. There are some incredible, bizarre and wonderful facts to be understood about the universe and our place in it that is very sadly unavailable to religious people. I can sit and contemplate the huge unlikelihood of my own existence – although I can't hope to actually grasp it – or muse of the vastness of space and time, or try to work out what Hawking and Einstein are going on about with all those dimensions, or how the hell quantum theory can possibly be correct (the maths tells us that it is, at least partly, but that doesn't mean we can understand it yet!). Or at the other end of the scale, I can pick up my cat, look at her paws and reflect on the fact that they're really very little different from my own hands in their basic structure (seriously – if you have a cat take a look!). I can marvel at the ingenious and improbable animals and plants thrown up by the process of evolution, and I can be humbled by the reflection that the only reason I'm able to think about all this is that I happen by pure chance to belong to a species of ape whose big survival characteristic, developed over aeons by uncaring and implacable processes of evolution, is not long claws or big teeth or strong legs but a large brain which has gradually become capable of abstract thought and which may yet prove to be our species' undoing.
 

So, short version; there's one or two aspects that are hard for me to swallow and things can certainly be more complicated without a handy book to tell me what to do, but overall I find non-belief suits me just fine and leaves me free to do what I want to do (within the limits of my own moral code) and learn what I can. And as I said, I don't think I could now be anything but an atheist on the available evidence."

Ryan's answer: "I'm not sure I would say "like" or "dislike" being an atheist.  It is just an arbitrary description based on my non-belief.  If there were no notion of gods, there would be no notion of atheism.

Personally, I do have a small sense of "pride", (if that's the right word) in that I am not disillusioned by nonsensical belief systems.  The only aspect of being an atheist that "I don't like" would be the misconceptions about, and demonization of, atheists and atheism.
 

I prefer the truth I don't like, to the lie I do like; not matter what that truth may be.
That is not to say that I don't like the apparent fact that there are no gods, for if there are gods, they are almost surely heartless, masochistic, incompetent, and unworthy of praise.
The suffering and evil in the world, and the lack of any appearance of "intelligent direction", I feel, justifies this statement; regardless of some "divine, means-to-an-end, plan"."

Leah's answer: "I find it intellectually liberating to not believe in gods. I am happy to be my own 'master of fate', to take responsibility for my own actions, and at the same time not to sweat over the notions that some of the actions (or even thoughts!) that are perfectly human, healthy, wonderful or necessary would be deemed as 'not cool' by some invisible sky fairy or another. I am glad I have no dogma dictating to me whom to hate and discriminate against. And skepticism overall is a great tool to see through scams and shams of all sorts.

Seeking the truth and appreciating the REAL beauty of this world are worth ANY 'sticks', even though I'm lucky to only get lame attempts at 'excuses for god' and a few predictable labels from the 'loving' believers online, not where I live. Those discussions are funny, although at times a bit annoying, as it's all same old b.s. and lack of ANY knowledge of the most basic science...

As to not liking anything... It may have been a bit discomforting when I had to let go of the fuzzy 'soul' notion (I was never a believer in anything else, but for some reason thought there may be one :D), but frankly, it's all the better push to live THIS life the best way possible every day, for any day can be the last and when it's over - it's over..."


Lance's answer: "I do like being an atheist. Exposure to the atheist community has driven me towards a more rigorous style of thought about everything in my life, and has made me more willing to consider that some of my dearly held beliefs could be wrong. The experience of being on the wrong side of social privilege has also opened my eyes a bit to what it must be like to be on the receiving end of the injustices of sexism, racism, and homophobia. My atheistic worldview that has brought me to a place of greater intellectual humility, and has helped me grow in my compassion for others. Sometimes what's right and what feels right are not the same thing, and without skepticism I was not able to entertain that what felt right to me might actually be wrong. Much injustice is perpetuated in that fashion.

I also enjoy the company I find in the atheistic community.

It is worth the threat of the stick, but not because of intellectual satisfaction. I could have that and be in the closet. It's worth it because of the internal consistency I experience, and because of the intellectual honesty. It's worth it because I believe sincerely that the world will be a better place when belief in a god is no longer able to distort our values away from what truly matters - the well-being of human beings in this one precious life. I think that Secularism and Feminism go hand-in-hand, and that these two ideas together could do enormous good for humanity. That is why I have become outspoken; the social movement is worth the threat of the stick.

I think the thing that I most dislike about being an atheist is how frustrating it is to have ideological clashes with people who are, almost be definition, unwilling to consider that they might be in error. I'm an idealist and an optimist. I don't argue for its own sake, but to change minds and thereby improve our world, and I have mostly met with frustration in this regard. Some days, my idealism barely survives contact with the internet.

I don't wish I was a believer of false things, but I do wish we lived in a universe where reincarnation or some other form of afterlife was true. Life is beautiful, and I will be loathe to surrender it when my time comes."

(Incidentally, I heartily recommend Lance's own blog, which can be found here: heartheretic.blogspot.com)

Interview with an Atheist: Part Two

How does it feel to be an atheist?

My own answer: "This is an awkward question because it sort of has two answers, one personal and one in relation to the rest of the world.

Going about my business in everyday life, my non-belief in gods affects me in exactly the same way that your non-belief in the Loch Ness Monster or aliens that probe people in Nevada affects you; not at all. It doesn't take any effort on your part to disbelieve in Odin, Ba'al or Antevorta; it's even possible you haven't heard of all of these, and even if you're familiar with them there'll be thousands of other gods and deities you've never come across. How does it feel to not believe in them?

 

In this sense, asking what it feels like to be an atheist is almost a moot question, because the answer's the same as how it feels to not believe in magic or fairies or astrology; you don't believe it's real so it doesn't matter to you. However, the reality of being an atheist in this age is that you're a minority and that people form all sorts of strange opinions of you based on a non-belief that – to you – is no more significant than their disbelief in ghosts or voodoo curses or unicorns is to them.

Reactions I get when I tell people I'm an atheist vary hugely, but complete acceptance is rare.  Even among other non-believers, my open declaration of disbelief can be seen as reckless, aggressive, unnecessary or undiplomatic - although most arguments I've had about religion have been with believers, a fair few have been with atheists who think I'm being obdurate or disrespectful just by stating, in effect, that I think religion's a load of rubbish.   In a weird sort of way, some religious people can actually be more accepting than other non-believers; I'd love to think that's because they feel less patronised by an atheist willing to have the discussion than by an atheist who thinks their position so foolish it would be mean to examine it, but in truth I don't really know what causes this disparity; it could simply be a personality thing.

There are more negative reactions from believers, though, and those can range from defensive and outraged to outright hostile.  I've been called everything from "whore" to "murderer" just for stating I don't believe in gods - sometimes without even getting into a discussion about it at all.  Some religious people think I'm inherently evil, unfeeling, joyless, loveless, nihilistic, even dangerous - and they get all that from the word "atheist".

Unfortunately, religious people are still a majority over non-religious people, which means that in some ways the rationale of my position doesn't matter; it doesn't matter how intellectually and factually defensible atheism is, it's still unusual and therefore weird.  The best way for me to sum up how it "feels" to be an atheist - at least in relation to such matters as politics, ethics, education etc. - is an unattributed quote I read on facebook a little while ago; being an atheist feels like being the only sober one in the car, and no one will let you drive."

Tim's Answer: "I guess I've always been a little mistrustful and skeptical of religion, and I HATED religious classes as a child. Then again, I hated school, period. In first grade (catholic school) the nun told us we had to squeeze ourselves over in our chairs to make room for our "guardian angels." That was the beginning of a long, drawn out, fall from grace.

Realizing that I was gay years later did little to endear me to this "god" concept, but I never really declared myself an atheist outright until I was well into my thirties. Before that I would have called myself "spiritual" and left it at that.

I can't really say it FEELS anything at all. It aggravates me when people - either in my family or in public - say stupid shit that I feel obliged NOT to comment on. It's also good to know I don't have to worry about an afterlife.

Sometimes it aggravates me to get into arguments between atheists and theists where the theists have the stronger point. I feel almost obligated to support the atheist even when they're wrong.

Also, sometimes I get tired of the so-called debates. I spend months at a time wishing people would discuss anything BUT religion."

A New Series: Interview with an Atheist

As some of you know, I've been working for a while now on what I thought was going to be a long blog post about the more common questions and objections atheists from believers - obviously I've been compiling my own thoughts on the matters, but I've been asking for contributions from other atheists as well because it's always valuable to have other insights.  And as we all must get sick of saying, all atheists have in common is a single unbelief - one can no more speak for another than one unbeliever in pink unicorns can speak for another unbeliever in pink unicorns.  It's become clear that this project is going to be a lot longer than anticipated, so rather than leave my blog for any longer than I already have (I am ashamed), I'm going to post it in stages.  Comments, as always, are welcome, and if there's a question or objection you get all the time that I haven't covered yet, feel free to mention it; I can either move it up the list for inclusion, or write it if it's a new one, or repost your own take on answering it.

I'll start with a simple one, but will add more in days to come.

Questions for Atheists: Part One: "How did you become an atheist?"

 
My own answer: "This is a question that will elicit a different answer from every atheist you ask, and some might not even understand the question as they may simply never have been otherwise. Very shortly I'll pass on a couple of accounts I got from other non-believers, but for the time being here's a brief outline of my personal experience so that's out of the way and you know where I'm coming from.

I was brought up to be a Christian; my parents weren't very devout but they sent me to a Church of England primary school because it was the best in the area. It was a small and slightly posh school, and we sung hymns and said prayers every morning at assembly as well as learning about Jahweh and Jesus in our lessons; to me, this stuff was simply fact just as I was learning that 2 + 2 = 4 was fact, it just wasn't in my makeup to question what adults were teaching me. We also had regular trips to the parish church, so although one thinks of the C of E as a rather moderate and undemanding organisation there was quite a lot to take in and a lot more saturation than you might think looking at it from the outside.

At home, my parents didn't exactly reinforce what I was learning at school but they didn't contradict it either; I was allowed to conclude that what my teachers and the vicar were telling me must be right. I was also, of course, exposed to the belief of my friends and their parents; these ranged from people who made no reference at all to Jesus or to the Bible in my presence through to one family in particular – the matriarch of which taught me to play the flute – that was so severely religious as to be genuinely very intimidating to me. The lady who taught me to play the flute troubled me especially. because from what I had been taught a Christian was inherently a good, kind person and the more Christian the better; this woman was the most devout Christian I had ever encountered, but she scared the crap out of me and not for no reason. Bluntly, she was not a kind or even a pleasant person, and I became thoroughly confused trying to reconcile this with the notion that because she prayed a lot and spent half her life in church she must be; I ended up trying desperately to ingratiate myself to her, probably only irritating her and making her more impatient and hectoring towards me.

Anyway, partly because I grew up in a small, almost exclusively white and Christian town in Yorkshire and partly because my memories of my childhood incline me to be astonished that I didn't bounce off walls through sheer doziness, I had not the smallest inkling until I was about halfway through primary school that there was any debate at all about the accuracy of Christianity – or, in fact, that there were any other options available or any other ways of thinking.

 

When I was in year three (that's seven to eight years old) we studied a module on the Hindu faith and on Diwali, the festival of light. As this was only primary school it was not, of course, a detailed or particularly nuanced examination of the topic, but nevertheless the revelation that other people in other countries (yah – that was how Olde Worlde this little town was) believed in other gods was to me a bolt from the blue. Even as a rather dopy and pitifully naïve child I was taken aback by the condescending tone with which my teachers taught us about this new and strange religion; there was a distinct air of “of course we know better because we're clever and educated, but we have to be nice to these backwards people who believe these things and not laugh at them”.* As any reasonable person would, I started to wonder why what I “knew” to be true was intrinsically any better or more true than what another person “knew” to be true. After all, until this point it had been my understanding that everything I'd been taught about Jahweh and about Jesus was simply empirical fact – and yet here I was learning that there were people in the world who didn't believe a word of it, and in fact who believed something completely different and contradictory.

 

My thoughts on the subject didn't progress much further at that point; this new idea that perhaps believing in Jesus wasn't quite as concrete and universal as I had thought just sort of lingered in the back of my mind, but I didn't have the intellectual capacity or the world knowledge to do much with it at that age.

 

When I was about nine something happened that was utterly trivial on the surface but which had mental and emotional effects on me that – eventually – changed everything. There was a game that my younger brothers and I liked to play in which one rolled a die and selected a piece of a cardboard fish according to which number came up (this sounds a lot stranger now I come to describe it than it did at the time). There were several fish of different colours, and each was made up of four parts; when all the parts had been chosen, the player with the most whole fish of one colour won. On the occasion in question, I was playing the game with my mum and the younger of my two brothers; the game was almost over and I needed just one more roll of a particular number – I can't remember which – to complete a fish and win the game. We were playing on the carpet and when it came to my turn, the die rolled under a cupboard; I chased after it and picked it up before anyone else had chance to see it. It hadn't landed on the number I wanted, but I lied and said it had; I've never been a good liar, and my mum obviously picked up on some “tell” I was displaying because she looked at me very closely and, after a moment's pause, asked if I swore to God that the number was as I said it was. I didn't know what that meant, so she explained that swearing to God was the same as making a promise to God, and that to lie or to break a promise to God was a terrible thing. Looking back I don't know quite what made me do it – given that at the time I still believed in Jahweh and all that – but after a brief moment of indecision I told mum that I was willing to swear to God that the number I rolled was the one I needed. She accepted this promise and I won the game.

That night, though, when I went to bed, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd done. I was frantic with worry and guilt, and I remember praying so God would hear me and just apologising again and again and again. I couldn't even tell you exactly what I thought was going to happen to me, but as a child my imagination was both vivid and literal and the possibility of being burned alive forever and ever was definitely a concern. Looking back on the misery I felt that night and for some time afterwards, I cannot understand how religious people can know that a certain deed or activity – be it theft, or adultery, or drinking alcohol or eating certain foods – is against the rules laid down by the god/s in whom they believe, know that there are penalties for doing those things... and then do them anyway. To me, this seems no less unaccountable than knowing about gravity and then stepping off a tall building and expecting to hover or fly.

For a long time after this (my memory of the experience suggests it was months, but common sense tells me that I was a child and it was probably mere weeks at most – the truth is that I can't be sure) I prayed a lot more than had been my habit, and eventually my apologies and self-recrimination changed to agonised pleas to God just to give me some sign that he was there and that he could see my suffering. For a while I thought the lack of response meant that God had seen what I'd done and abandoned me, then I thought that maybe he just didn't care, but gradually this changed and I began to think that maybe he wasn't answering me because he just wasn't there despite what I'd been taught.

Over this same period I was, as you might expect, thinking a great deal more about Jahweh and Jesus and heaven and hell than I had in the past. I also tried to ask some of the adults I trusted about it, although I never dared confess to anyone the lie I had told to God. At this point my faith was seriously crumbling and I felt like a complete freak, like there was something wrong with me; I honestly thought I was the only person in the world who had ever experienced this, it was the loneliest feeling imaginable. It seemed from my perspective at the time – and it's a difficult concept to put into words – that what I had been taught was no less true just because I was struggling to believe it and that the problem was with me, that there was something wrong with me; my own thoughts had turned traitor against me, and there were moments when I felt I was going mad. On one occasion I worked up the courage to speak to the Vicar when he was visiting the school – a very bold act on my part, as he appeared in my eyes a terribly revered and important person. I tried to explain that I didn't understand how everyone was so sure about Jesus and God, and although he listened patiently enough I cannot imagine what would compel an adult to give the reply he did to a frightened child. He told me that if I didn't believe what I'd been told, I would be separated from my parents and from my brothers, that I would be cast into hell all alone and that I would never see any of them again. He didn't specify that this would happen when I died, and I managed to get the impression – which I assume he didn't mean to create – that this exile was imminent, that I might be torn away from my family at any moment if I continued to let my faith waver. Here, again, was someone telling me that to believe was a simple act of will, that I could simply choose to believe what I'd been told regardless of whether it made sense to me – and now I knew the punishment for failing to do so, because the vicar of all people ought to know how God would punish me for my disloyalty.

Not long after all this happened, my family moved to another part of the country and I spent my final year of primary education in a new and far less religious school. In retrospect this was a good thing for me as it provided a distraction; I was quite a shy child, and this bashfulness combined with my funny accent and general failure to be in any way cool meant that I had a lot of trouble fitting in – it wasn't pleasant at the time, but I wouldn't change it because it taught me a lot. After a year at my new primary school I went onto a very large and almost totally secular secondary school, and without the daily ritual Christianity finally lost its hold on me and I stopped worrying about it.

For many years after this – well into my teens – I was, I suppose, agnostic; I no longer believed in the Christian god but I sort of thought there might be a god of some sort out there somewhere, although I didn't feel the need to worship it or even try to understand it. I couldn't tell you when this finally changed to outright atheism because I don't know myself; as I got older though, and more inclined to look around the world and think about how things are, I've found that more and more bad stuff and less and less good stuff can be attributed to religion. If you're religious as I once was, the positive or negative effects of religion on the world are almost of secondary importance because they don't change what you perceive as the fact of God's existence; but to me, because I no longer believe anything in religious scripture has any basis in fact, it can be difficult at times not to become depressed by the amount of influence those scriptures have on our lives, even on those of us who don't share the beliefs."

*Incidentally, I feel this is a good time to mention that I am not old and we're not talking about a “different era” here. I left school in 2002.

David's answer: “I came out of an evangelical Christan upbringing, and was a pretty strong believer until around my late 20's or early 30's. But there were always things about it that I was either not comfortable with, or that I felt were flat-out wrong. In retrospect, I think that I was almost destined to end up as an atheist eventually.
I think the fact that I was never all that emotionally attached to Christianity probably made me a lot more receptive to new ideas and realizations as they came along. I was one of those more "logical" Christians who felt that their beliefs had a solid rational basis. And since I thought it was all true, I followed it as best I could (which was not terribly well.)
 

At some point, as my new realizations began to pile up, I decided that I would settle the matter and I bought and read tons of books about science and religion in order to educate myself. And I came out an atheist about 4 or 5 years ago.”

 

Mike's answer: “If there was a “Eureka!” moment that started the ball rolling it was around 5th grade in parochial school when the religion teacher drew a circle on the board to illustrate the continuity and eternity of god. For some reason it just did not make sense. I asked her why what she drew was supposed to be continuous when she clearly had a start and end point in drawing a circle on the board. Rather than a satisfactory answer and after some discussion this earned me a trip to the principal’s office and a meeting with the paddle.

 

The lecture on how scientists buried fossils in order to fool the masses and test the faith of believers did not help much. Particularly since it came shortly after my first trip to the Smithsonian of Natural History with my parents. I had a rather jaundiced eye toward religion from there on out. I don’t really have a moment when I finally said “I’m an atheist” but rather a confluence of events that left that as the only intellectually honest position.”