An Open Letter to my Secular Humanist Colleagues

So if we're allowed neither reason nor emotion, what is left, exactly? Suicide? I read your entire polemic, where you criticize atheist luminaries for taking the same tone you just did, and I see neither where you explain exactly how those figures are wrong, nor how we're supposed to fix whatever problem you think we have.And I find it hilarious that, while you fault others for a misplaced emphasis on reason, it's clear that you believe you've used reason to arrive at your own position. How does that work, exactly?

But that's exactly what you're faulting people like Dawkins and Harris for saying. These are people who are saying that religion is irrational because its based on emotions rather than on evidence and facts - and you're saying those guys are being authoritarian.I don't get it. You're criticizing them for what they're saying, and then you're turning around and saying the exact same thing.Yes unbridled emotion is bad. Yes the results of doing things based on emotions rather than reason is usually bad. Harris's point is that having faith in God is just one more thing people do because of emotion rather than reason. Nobody who believes in God does so except because they have a feeling that they should.Isn't that what you're saying is negative? Why are you saying Harris and others are out in left field when they're saying the same thing you are?Do you understand my puzzlement? Is it just that you have no idea what Harris and Dawkins are trying to tell people, perhaps?

They can make their own arguments, I suppose, but since I'm familiar with both their arguments allow me to try to summarize.Both Dawkins and Harris make it abundantly clear that not only is religion fundamentally founded on believing in lies for all kinds of bad reasons, but religion in society functions to give legitimate cover to bad reasoning. If a doctor were to say that the clitoris of young women should be cut off, sans anesthesia, because, personally, he didn't like the idea of a woman having sexual pleasure, he would be roundly condemned. If a politician were to make a law that that procedure should be done because, personally, he didn't like the idea of a woman having sexual pleasure, he would be impeached.But an imam is allowed to say that, because he's involved in religion and his command is a part of that religion. Indeed, he's praised for doing so.Religion gives cover to ridiculous beliefs. Most of them are founded on emotions; typically, emotions powerful people have about what the less powerful might do or feel.Neither Harris nor Dawkins have said that the elimination of religion would solve the world's problems, so on that point you're arguing with a strawman. It's undeniable, though, that religion makes it a lot harder to solve the problems you're talking about. People have understood the negative cost of religion for centuries. Dawkins and Harris are not the first by any stretch of the imagination.But temperate rhetoric designed to step around the sensibilities of the believers has gotten us to where we are today - a world completely dominated by religious belief and sectarian violence. It's demonstratively true that being polite about this issue, as you would have us do, is what has done more harm than good. We're precisely in the position we are because of people like you who won't dare to oppose religion in no uncertain terms. We can't force people to be irreligious, but I think we can convince a lot of people with reasoned arguments, particularly if we don't act afraid of the conclusion.And quite frankly we're perfectly happy to do it without people like you holding us back - people who ridiculously characterize any plain-spoken, non-deferential statement about the bankruptcy of religion as "arrogant" and "condescending." Well, we tried it your way for about 400 years, and look where it got us. Is it ok with you is maybe some of us stop waiting for the religious to figure it out all on their own?

If they believed based on reason, they wouldn't have to call it "faith," now would they?Ultimately every single believer will tell you one of the same two stories - either they believe now as they always have, and the thought of unbelief is something they can't countenance; or they were intellectually unimpressed by the arguments of faith until, one day, they just had a feeling it was true.Neither one of those is a good reasonable reason to believe the claims of religions. There are no intellectually sound justifications for belief in the existence of God. There aren't even any that convince philosophers, and those are people you can convince of nearly anything with a half-assed argument.

You believe now what you've always believed. Like I said.

Mere Christianity is based on the fallacy of the false dichotomy (well, trichotomy, actually.) It's not a valid justification. It's probably the single worst attempt at Christian apologetics you're likely to encounter, but it's written well enough that you don't notice unless you read it with a critical eye.You, of course, didn't, because you were already sympathetic to his clap-trap. That's how Christianity persists in otherwise intelligent minds. There are, in fact, none whatsoever. But you're free to open a new thread with the best ones. I recommend before you do that you Wikipedia the ones you think are best and at least be familiar with what people consider the fatal flaws of each one.

Not everybody agrees that's what "rational" means, friend. I, for instance, would call that a "logical" argument, but an irrational one - because of its obviously false premise.Rational is not synonymous with logical. Indeed, if it were, we would be forced to conclude that all science (empiricism being illogical) was irrational.There are no arguments supporting the existence of God that follow as valid deductions from true premises. None whatsoever. It is irrational to believe in God.

Um, in fact, I stated the exact opposite - that you had read it, but that you didn't perceive the flaws because you had no incentive to look for them.Apparently, though, you assumed I had never read it, or heard of it. Let me tell you something you might not have expected - I read it, and I'm still an atheist. They're not, though. That's the point. They contain abundant logical fallacies.Like his famous "Liar, lunatic, lord" trichotomy. It fails on at least two levels in three different ways, but I bet you didn't even notice:1) that it's a false trichotomy; there are other options besides those three, or
2) that it's predicated on the historical Jesus actually having made the claims specified in the Bible, when there's absolutely no historical reason to believe he did. The first written record of any part of the New Testament doesn't appear until seven decades - at least, possibly as many as twelve - after Jesus was supposed to have lived.Did you? You've yet to give one, though, and I've never, ever seen one - and I've been looking for some time, now. I'm just supposed to take your word for it? The problem for you is that this wasn't the process Lewis used. His conclusions don't follow rationally from his examples and his premises. His arguments aren't reasonable. Sure. Lewis was no dummy. He was a skilled, engaging writer with a familiar voice and a great deal of notoriety from his Narnia books and a great deal of authority from his status as an Oxford don. He conceals the logical flaws in his arguments remarkably well, but they're still there, and you can see them if you know what you're looking for.People unfamiliar with what fallacious logic looks like are pulled in by Mere Christianity. Serious theologians dismiss the book as trash. It doesn't convince anybody who isn't ignorant of logic and/or already sympathetic to its claims. Lewis's arguments do not represent reasonable defenses of Christianity, despite the fact that they appear reasonable to you.That's why they call them fallacies. Most of the time, they're failures in logic that we miss because they look reasonable. Read through the list I linked. They have examples of each fallacy and you can see how each one can be made to look like a reasonable thing to say - even though the argument is completely invalid.

So write more books. That's all the other side did - once we were able to convince the rest of you to let us.The shoe is really on the other foot. It used to be that the "co-existence humanists" were the ones who determined acceptable dogma, and squelched any attempt to speak out about the horror religion predictably visited on society.We did it your way for 400 years, Grizz. Why should we waste any more time on your failed philosophies?

Might I suggest that you use the "QS" tags to make it a little clearer where your remarks begin and the remarks you're quoting end. Read the dBcodes help page for more info, I guess.

I agree; but don't accuse us of "speaking for you" when all that's going on right now is that more people are listening to us.Like I said, if you object to the "new atheism" being all the rage, then write more books.

I guess I'm somewhat curious how you come to have any knowledge of the philosophy of Jesus the man, since Jesus left us absolutely no writings of any kind, and none were produced contemporary to his ministry.If you're talking about the content of the Bible, then the Jesus you're familiar with would be best described as "Jesus the fictional character."

That's fair enough. I felt I was addressing an inconsistency in your statement - the inconsistency being between "I reject Christian Theology" and "I cleave to the philosophy of Jesus." The inconsistency is that, if you affirm that the material in the Bible is actually the words of a historical man called Jesus, you're accepting a point supported only by Christian theological tradition.Your statement didn't make me uncomfortable. That it's logically inconsistent to claim to reject Christian theology but embrace the Christian theological position that the Bible records words spoken by Jesus should make you a little uncomfortable, I think.

That's easy enough. Open to any random page and you'll see something untrue. The entire book is factually in error on every substantial point.But that's not the topic of this thread. Nor is the fact that you could invent literally any story whatsoever and claim that it was the reason you came into belief.None of that would change the fact that, eventually, I would have proven that every claim in Genesis was counterfactual, and you would still maintain its truth - not because you had a reasonable argument that it was but because you just had a feeling that it was.We can do that, if you like; but that's not what this thread is about.