![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastSome days ago, a Christian website, TodayChristian.net posted a list of questions. In the sites own words, "Some Questions Atheist Cannot Truly and Honestly REALLY Answer! Which leads to some interesting conclusions…"
Here is the page if you want to look at the questions yourself. http://todaychristian.net/10-questions-every-atheist/
One item of note about that particular page is that the comments section is off. Other articles on the same website have comments sections, even when they aren't questions directed specifically at a demographic. So, in the interest of improving the conversation and, hopefully, making it so that the same claims don't get repeated, contacted them with a list of answers. Here they are for you to consider.
I encourage both posting your own answers in comments and critiquing my own.
These are the ten questions that your site claims I cannot honestly answer. That particular page does not allow for comments, which I find disturbing. Other pages and other articles do allow for comments, but not the one in which you actually ask questions of someone like myself. Still, here are my answers.
1. How Did You Become an Atheist?
I learned that it was an option. Really, that was it. I had learned, at about the age of 12, that such a thing as not holding a belief that God exists was a thing and, from there on, it was a lack of evidence for God that cinched it.
2. What happens when we die?
By my best understanding, we stop. The body continues, but it is no longer "me" because "me" is a process, something that is happening and that particular process stops.
3. What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a HELL!
I want to be clear on this one. You're not just asking what if I found myself, despite my expectations, declared good enough for Heaven. (I know, there's no good enough, everybody has to be forgiven, that's the point, not what you believe.)
Instead, you are asking what if I'm wrong and you are right that not only does God exist, not only has he created a realm of absolute and eternal torment, but that he has established that the dividing line between those who get there and those who don't is whether or not you believe in him in the right way and love him more than anybody else, to the point where you wouldn't feel any injustice done by anybody being in Hell forever.
In that case, you will have been a collaborator with an infinite evil, but said evil wins, so good for you.
4. Without God, where do you get your morality from?
I care. I think you'll find that's the starting point for everybody. At some point, you have to start by caring about something without philosophical justification. If that thing you care about is pleasing God, so be it. IF that thing you care about is the well-being of people, that's closer to my starting point.
5. If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?
I'll translate this into another question. Without God are there no consequences? The answer is that there are, indeed, consequences. Not all of them fall upon the one who acts them out, and that's life.
6. If there is no god, how does your life have any meaning?
My life means itself. I do with that what I feel has meaning to me.
I'm sure you believe that God makes it so that your life has a deeper meaning beyond itself and even achieves an ultimate meaning. But, in order for that to be satisfying, that deeper meaning has to have a deeper meaning has to have a deeper meaning ad infinitum. That ultimate meaning, whatever it is, by definition of the word "ultimate", cannot have any deeper meaning to it.
If that ultimate meaning is okay meaning itself, why not a human life?
7. Where did the universe come from?
Dunno.
I've been asked that before and, when I respond that I don't know, I'm often asked if I find that satisfactory. Well, I'm satisfied with the accuracy of the answer. If you imagine that my lack of satisfaction with my ignorance somehow grants me some additional information, however, I think you're just not thinking that through.
8. What about miracles? What all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?
If you want specific answers, I'll have to ask for specific cases with documentation. Otherwise, there are a host of reasons people can come to believe they have any of the above. The list of reasons includes, but is not limited to misinterpreting data, dreams/hallucinations, people remembering, and people saying/believing what gets them social rewards to say/believe (money, attention, cultural legitimacy, etc.). And, then there are rumors, believing what you're told without documentation, exaggeration, etc.
That doesn't get into the matter of outright lying.
9. What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris?
Depending on the topic, they can be worth listening to and considering or worth rolling one's eyes.
10. If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?
Let me ask you this, when you factor in religions other than your own, where is the dividing line between a religion and a set of myths, legends, and superstitions?
Where do you draw that line? Can you even draw that line? I don't think you can. And, where we can answer myths, legends, and superstitions with stories, misinterpreted data, etc. there's the answer for religions.
Here is the page if you want to look at the questions yourself. http://todaychristian.net/10-questions-every-atheist/
One item of note about that particular page is that the comments section is off. Other articles on the same website have comments sections, even when they aren't questions directed specifically at a demographic. So, in the interest of improving the conversation and, hopefully, making it so that the same claims don't get repeated, contacted them with a list of answers. Here they are for you to consider.
I encourage both posting your own answers in comments and critiquing my own.
These are the ten questions that your site claims I cannot honestly answer. That particular page does not allow for comments, which I find disturbing. Other pages and other articles do allow for comments, but not the one in which you actually ask questions of someone like myself. Still, here are my answers.
1. How Did You Become an Atheist?
I learned that it was an option. Really, that was it. I had learned, at about the age of 12, that such a thing as not holding a belief that God exists was a thing and, from there on, it was a lack of evidence for God that cinched it.
2. What happens when we die?
By my best understanding, we stop. The body continues, but it is no longer "me" because "me" is a process, something that is happening and that particular process stops.
3. What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a HELL!
I want to be clear on this one. You're not just asking what if I found myself, despite my expectations, declared good enough for Heaven. (I know, there's no good enough, everybody has to be forgiven, that's the point, not what you believe.)
Instead, you are asking what if I'm wrong and you are right that not only does God exist, not only has he created a realm of absolute and eternal torment, but that he has established that the dividing line between those who get there and those who don't is whether or not you believe in him in the right way and love him more than anybody else, to the point where you wouldn't feel any injustice done by anybody being in Hell forever.
In that case, you will have been a collaborator with an infinite evil, but said evil wins, so good for you.
4. Without God, where do you get your morality from?
I care. I think you'll find that's the starting point for everybody. At some point, you have to start by caring about something without philosophical justification. If that thing you care about is pleasing God, so be it. IF that thing you care about is the well-being of people, that's closer to my starting point.
5. If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?
I'll translate this into another question. Without God are there no consequences? The answer is that there are, indeed, consequences. Not all of them fall upon the one who acts them out, and that's life.
6. If there is no god, how does your life have any meaning?
My life means itself. I do with that what I feel has meaning to me.
I'm sure you believe that God makes it so that your life has a deeper meaning beyond itself and even achieves an ultimate meaning. But, in order for that to be satisfying, that deeper meaning has to have a deeper meaning has to have a deeper meaning ad infinitum. That ultimate meaning, whatever it is, by definition of the word "ultimate", cannot have any deeper meaning to it.
If that ultimate meaning is okay meaning itself, why not a human life?
7. Where did the universe come from?
Dunno.
I've been asked that before and, when I respond that I don't know, I'm often asked if I find that satisfactory. Well, I'm satisfied with the accuracy of the answer. If you imagine that my lack of satisfaction with my ignorance somehow grants me some additional information, however, I think you're just not thinking that through.
8. What about miracles? What all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?
If you want specific answers, I'll have to ask for specific cases with documentation. Otherwise, there are a host of reasons people can come to believe they have any of the above. The list of reasons includes, but is not limited to misinterpreting data, dreams/hallucinations, people remembering, and people saying/believing what gets them social rewards to say/believe (money, attention, cultural legitimacy, etc.). And, then there are rumors, believing what you're told without documentation, exaggeration, etc.
That doesn't get into the matter of outright lying.
9. What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris?
Depending on the topic, they can be worth listening to and considering or worth rolling one's eyes.
10. If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?
Let me ask you this, when you factor in religions other than your own, where is the dividing line between a religion and a set of myths, legends, and superstitions?
Where do you draw that line? Can you even draw that line? I don't think you can. And, where we can answer myths, legends, and superstitions with stories, misinterpreted data, etc. there's the answer for religions.
