Diatribes 謾罵 : Why I am an Atheist 為什麼我是個無神論者

I. Introduction

This essay is not an argument for atheism in the form of: a conception of god is not necessary. Such an argument would probably proceed along the lines that, given our current understanding of the universe, there is no need to invoke some kind of supernatural being that actively interferes in the natural world. Therefore, this type of argument would probably be, at its core, a defense of evolution. Indeed, as Richard Dawkins wrote in The Blind Watchmaker, "although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

I don't think there's anything wrong with this kind of argument, but I don't think it will convince a lot of people. For one thing, if you don't already believe in evolution, then, well, god help you. To be less facetious, I feel that a lot of people logically and scientifically understand that something is wrong with religion, but still cling to it out of a naive belief that, even if a world without god is possible, a world with god would be better, in that it would have more meaning, morals would be absolute, and everyone would get their just rewards in the afterlife.

Therefore, I want to make an argument for atheism that I believe will have a stronger impact by turning this intuition on its head, and instead argue that a world with god is not merely not needed, but in fact worse: one where morals are arbitrary and life is meaningless. To a certain extent, I think Christopher Hitchens may have beaten me to the punch with his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, but given that he's more eloquent than I am and is on my side for a change, I'm happy to let him take the lead.

II. Pascal's Wager

As a warm up exercise, I'd like to take on Pascal's Wager. With all due respect to Blaise Pascal, this is a rather stupid argument, and I wouldn't bother with it at all, except that people still seem to cling to it, for example I have heard it used at a certain institution of higher education where people really ought to know better, and in the April 9, 2007 issue of Newsweek, in a debate between Christian pastor Rick Warren and atheist Sam Harris, Warren even sees fit to use it as his closing remark.

Pascal's Wager says, essentially, either god exists or he doesn't, and one can either believe in him or not. If you believe, either you gain everything if you are right and lose nothing if you are wrong, whereas if you don't believe, at best you gain nothing if you are right and end up someplace bad if you are wrong. I think this is silly for two reasons.

First, this argument doesn't take into account the entire probability space, as it says nothing about what form god may take if god exists. As a simple example, what if Islam is right and you happen to be Christian? There are an infinite number of possible forms god may take. Perhaps god doesn't really even care whether you believe in him or not. Or maybe god is perverse and only punishes believers who bother him with their prayers. This isn't that far-fetched. After all, in a recent study on the effect of prayer on surgery recovery, those who were prayed for without their knowledge had more complications than those who were not. Or maybe god is a giant chicken and you happen to like eating KFC. The point is, given all these possibilities, it is impossible to say that believing in god is a safer bet than not believing in god.

It gets worse for Pascal. Let's not consider the multiplicity of other forms god could take. Even still, I wouldn't want to bet on god, because I hardly think that, believing in god and being wrong about it doesn't have any negative effects. For instance, what if you were gay, and stumbled across this bit of the Bible: "And with a man you shall not lie with as a man lies with a woman; it is an abomination." So that's one simple case where you would have something to lose in believing god existed when he doesn't. (For those who think homosexuality is a choice, what about gay sheep? Do you really believe that being gay is a lifestyle choice for them?) Further examples are limitless. Just think of the ramifications of believing that all abortion is wrong, or that stem cell research is wrong, or that contraception is wrong, even if it help prevent the spread of AIDS.

I could go on and on. Just take a look at how screwed up the situation in the Middle East is, and tell me that believing in god can have no negative effects. Or tell this Kurdish girl, "dragged into a crowd in a headlock..., kicked, beaten, and stoned to death" by her family, for being suspected of being with a Sunni Muslim man. (I think this also addresses a minor technical point some people might raise, which is that divine rewards and punishments in the afterlife are infinite while those in the present are not. Well, I think being stoned to death, prematurely cutting off the only life you'll ever know, is pretty close to being infinitely bad.)

III. Morality

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate in physics

This quote gets to the central point of the issue I want to raise. One of the most common responses to atheism I have heard is, if there is no god, how can there be any morals? What's interesting is, the way people usually phrase this line is as follows: If there's no god, what's stopping you (the atheist) from going around killing, stealing, raping, pillaging, etc? When you think about it, that's both a funny and disturbing question.

Funny because, even primates such as chimpanzees show moral behavior, for example, "Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days." So, what do these chimps know that these religious types don't? In fact, in the debate in Newsweek, Warren said that, if there were no promise of afterlife for being well behaved, he wouldn't waste any time being altruistic. Maybe I'm just being strange, but in my mind that places him lower than a rhesus monkey.

The disturbing part of the question is that, one would have to assume that the questioner both desires to go around killing, stealing, raping, etc, and sees nothing wrong with doing so if god doesn't exist. Otherwise, if this were not true, then why would the questioner even bother asking the question? This is an important point, so I'll belabor it by saying it again. The very question presumes that the questioner desires to kill, otherwise why would the point even come up? And the question also presumes that the questioner can't see any reason not to kill in the absence of god, otherwise he would be able to answer his own question. So, I would stay away from those people, since if they come to the realization that god doesn't exist, one would have to presume that they will begin their murderous rampage.

Again, call me crazy, but I don't desire to go around killing other people, god or no god. And I think that a world in which everyone cooperated is going to be better than a world dominated by the strong and ruthless, god or no god. As Christopher Hitchens writes in his book God is Not Great: Why were the Ten Commandments such a great gift? Didn't the Jews already know murder and adultery were wrong? As another example, Confucius didn't need god or Jesus to tell him: "never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself" (Analects XV.24).

In my mind, for these reasons, it is unsurprising that we would see beginnings of moral behavior in animals, and suggestive that one could formulate a theory of ethics on a completely secular basis. [add Pinker reference]

However, as I mentioned in the beginning, I don't just want to argue that the case for atheism makes sense, and that it would be nice if god really existed. In fact, I think just the opposite. Religious people question how you can have ethics without god, I ask, how can you have ethics with god? If an action A is "good", is it good because of some inherent standard or only because god says it is "good"? Clearly, if it is the former, then we can have our ethics as before without needing to invoke god. If it is the latter, then everything in life is completely arbitrary. Homosexuality is "wrong" because the Bible says its wrong. Killing infidels could be "moral", and land you 72 virgins. Crazy arbitrary stuff, like agreeing to kill your first born in the name of god, could equally well be "good". Polygamy could be "virtuous". Worshipping other gods could be legitimately punished by stoning. Again, ethics based on religion leads to a world in which it's "moral" to kill women for being with men not of the same faith. The morality of god is a vision of the world where Falwell may actually be right in blaming "abortionists", gays, lesbians, and the ACLU for causing "God to lift the veil of protection" on the United States. To take another case, a 9 year old girl in Brazil was raped by her stepfather, but Catholics in the country were more concerned with the subsequent abortion rather than the rape, leading to the doctors, and everyone else involved in the abortion, being excommunicated from the church. Of course, since the stepfather didn't have anything to do with the abortion, he was not excommunicated, go figure.

IV. God is a Tyrant

When you think about it, god isn't a very nice guy. In fact, I would classify him as something of a jealous, egotistical tyrant. I mean, supposedly all the ills and problems with the world, all the reasons why it is not a paradise, is all because two people ate some fruit he told them not to. My point isn't to take potshots at specific Christian beliefs, so let's consider any religion that posits that its adherents gain some positive benefit over non-adherents (it would be a strange religion that did not have this property), and a separate issue of religions that posit the power of prayer. I argue that either of these properties imply a mean-spirited god with self-esteem issues.

Let's consider the first proposition: take a religion that assumes its adherents have some positive benefit that non-believers do not gain. What I'm trying to get at is this: take two people who are exactly the same in every way, in particular, the same "goodness" or morality, except that one believes in a certain religion and one does not. Two things need to be clarified here: First, I'm assuming that morality is independent of god, which, given what I argued above, I think is a safe assumption to make unless you want arbitrary acts to be considered moral. Second, I'm not including certain beliefs or rules such as Confucianism or certain forms of Buddhism, that prescribe some ways of living a moral life but do not provide a deity to enforce them, a deity that requires worshipping; such belief systems I have less of a problem with, unless one dogmatically accepts them even in the face of contradictory evidence, which is less of an issue than when dealing with religions of the type that have this property above.

So we have two people, identical in their moral fiber, except that one believes in god and one doesn't. A rational god, a non-jealous god devoid of self-esteem problems, one would think, would treat these two people the same, since they are equally "good". Yet religions don't work this way, or there would be no reason to follow them, one could be equally moral without needing to subjugate one's self to god. Instead, the god of religion is a jealous god, who punishes moral people for no fault other than worshipping other gods or simply not worshipping any gods at all. Especially disturbing is the concept of hell. Some liberal Christians might try to whitewash the issue by saying something of the form, hell is simply not being close to God in the afterlife, but the overwhelming way it has been interpreted through history and I believe by many Christians today is a place of eternal flame and torture. Now, why would an all-loving god feel the need to punish moral people who don't believe in him, unless he had some serious self-esteem issues, and took it out on non-believers in a tyrannical fasion?

Prayer is a rather puzzling thing to me, and one that I think demonstrates god's jealousy and childishness in a different light. When you pray, you're telling god what you want and invoking his name and hoping he'll help you. Now, if god is omniscient, he ought to already know what you want, as well as how moral of a person you are and how deserving you are getting what you asked for. So really, prayer serves no purpose at all, since it's not like god doesn't already know everything you're about to say. So what's the point? It seems clear to me, the only thing god gets from this is hearing you beseech yourself to him and praise him, in other words, more evidence of god's self-esteem issues.

Christopher Hitchens made this point in humorous but fitting way in his debate with Al Sharpton. He said, he's seen what a country founded on absolute religion and god looks like, he's been to North Korea. That's a world where everything, including your thoughts, are under the subjugation of the "supreme leader". Except, at least in North Korea you can die, unlike Christianity, where you're punished for eternity.

A. Asian Christians

This is a short addendum on the subject of Asian Christians. I just completely fail to understand why any Asians are Christians. Especially for Chinese Christians, prior to some point not that long ago in your family line, perhaps even at your parents level or else grandparents level, nobody was Christian, and probably didn't even know anything about Christianity. Now, if you believe that through Jesus is the sole path to eternal salvation, are you condemning everyone in your family line above this point, all the ancestors that eventually led to you, to eternal damnation, or at best, some kind of weird limbo for Asians? And what about all your ancestors who did nothing wrong except worship Buddhist or Taoist gods and goddesses? The Bible is pretty clear on the subject of worshipping false idols, so I guess you're condemning all of them to hell as well? That seems rather ungrateful.

Perhaps you think Christianity just helps you find inner peace or harmony and be a more moral person, and ignore all the issues I just raised. Well, first I suggest you look up the term cognitive dissonance. Second, ask yourself, if Christianity is true, and helps you be a moral person and achieve happiness and peace through prayer and whatnot, then what kind of god would deny all these benefits to a huge portion of the world simply because they didn't know about it? Chances are, your ancestors didn't know about Christianity, even after the point at which missionaries started trying to introduce it in Asia. That seems like a pretty narrow sighted thing for an omniscient god to do.