I was sent a link to a blog post, an excerpt form an upcoming book by one Mr. Trent Horn, proud owner of a Master’s Degree in Theology. A Catholic who is an apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers…
The post is here: http://www.catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/is-atheism-a-belief-or-a-lack-of-belief
I generally wouldn’t bother writing (or indeed reading for that matter) about a random Catholic’s opinion on atheism – it’s a pretty simple concept to grasp after all – but this piece is so bad, the quality of thinking so low that I feel compelled to write something. I know I probably shouldn’t judge all holders of “Master’s degrees in Theology” by the standard of a single blog post but it does a pretty depressing picture paint.
But the problem with defining atheism as simply “the lack of belief in God” is that there are already another group of people who fall under that definition: agnostics.
It seems like the man is insinuating that agnostics have a monopoly on “the lack of belief in God”? Strange. Let’s see what the Oxford English dictionary defines atheism as:
atheism
Pronunciation: /ˈeɪθɪɪz(ə)m/noun
[mass noun]
disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
Perhaps Mr. Horn feels he can redefine the meaning of the word?
An illustration might help explain the burden of proof both sides share. In a murder trial the prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the murder. But if the prosecution isn’t able to make its case, then the defendant is found “not guilty.” Notice the defendant isn’t found “innocent.”
I think that perhaps Mr. Horn hasn’t heard of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence. Which would be strange, since its the basis of the secular legal system he operates under. It’s a pretty fundamental principle… “innocent until proven guilty”. Sort of says you don’t need to be found innocent since you are innocent until proven otherwise.
“Presumption of innocence” serves to emphasize that the prosecution has the obligation to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt (or some other level of proof depending on the criminal justice system) and that the accused bears no burden of proof.
He goes on:
Likewise, even if the theist isn’t able to make his case that God exists that doesn’t show God does not exist and therefore that atheism is true. As atheists Austin Dacey and Lewis Vaughn write, “What if these arguments purporting to establish that God exists are failures? That is, what if they offer no justification for theistic belief? Must we then conclude that God does not exist? No. Lack of supporting reasons or evidence for a proposition does not show that the proposition is false.”
You see, Mr. Horn completely and strangely misunderstands how reality works. If a theist isn’t able to make his case that his god exists then one is entirely justified in concluding that god doesn’t exist. If I claim that a pink invisible dragon lives in my garage but can’t prove it then clearly one is justified in concluding it doesn’t exist. Under Mr. Horn’s system of thinking, I can claim anything, literally anything without evidence and the only valid conclusion must be suspension of judgement and that is patently absurd.
If you claim something fundamentally ridiculous – fairies in the garden, leprechauns and gold at the end of the rainbow, talking donkeys, global floods, deities who care where about the location of your penis – without evidence, it can be dismissed, without evidence. And the more ridiculous your claim – Yahweh created a man-god out of himself to sacrifice to himself to change his own opinion, for example – the more evidence you’re going to need to prop up the proposition.
The primary mistake in Mr. Horn’s thinking is that he feels his claim that Yahweh and Jesus Christ exists is somehow different, more important or somehow more special than a claim that flying pigs exist, great big invisible farm llamas live behind Jupiter or that Krishna is real. It is not. Once Mr. Horn and the religious in general understand this fundamental point, their world view will change.
If he wants to demonstrate that atheism is true, an atheist would have to provide additional evidence that there is no God just as a defense attorney would have to provide further evidence to show his client is innocent as opposed to being just “not guilty.” He can’t simply say the arguments for the existence of God are failures and then rest his case.
I don’t need to demonstrate that atheism is true. See the Oxford English definition for the word. Atheism is the default position on god: there isn’t one since I have no reason to believe there is one and never have. Before the invention of Christianity, every living person was an atheist with regards to Jesus Christ since that’s the default position. Before the invention of religion, everybody was an atheist with respect to every god invented since. Why? Because atheism is the default position. Innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable.
The religious try to change the default position of non-belief with a claim and that claim either has evidence or it doesn’t. If it has convincing evidence, the position changes. The religious have yet to provide any evidence what so ever. For any of the thousands of deities invented by men in history.
Mr. Horn’s religion is one of many. It’s mutually exclusive to all other religions. His only evidence is a book, compiled by a committee of men with an agenda, written by anonymous authors with agendas, from second or third hand accounts, translated over and over by scribes with agendas who were prone to mistakes and no originals remain at all. As far as evidence goes, it’s more than little thin I would say.
I might give an illustration of my own to show what Mr. Horn thinks is a viable legal trial:
In a murder trial a man is accused of killing another man. There is no body, no murder weapon, no witnesses. There is no proof the murdered man even existed. In fact, the only evidence the prosecution brings is a hand written note. The note claims the accused murdered a man. Nobody knows who wrote the note, when it was written and to make matters worse, the note was originally written in a language nobody understands. The note presented to the court isn’t the original, it’s a copy of a copy of a translation. Nobody knows who did the translation or when the translation was done. There are also other notes – similarly translated from copies of copies – which contradict the note that the prosecution has chosen to make their case.
Tell me again, Mr. Horn, how we should suspend judgement on the veracity and truth of the claim instead of summarily dismissing it for the garbage that it is.
One Furious Llama 
Christians, the billboard at the church and very human discord
Yesterday morning while I was having my morning shower I found myself wondering about the atheist and the skeptic movements. In particular, I was pondering why we tend to disagree so vehemently on so many subjects. In fact, there is very little we agree on. Fundamentally, atheism is a lack of belief in any god right? But us atheist don’t really even agree on that point. Some of us are quite convinced that there is no god, never was, never will be. Others insist that there probably is no god but you can’t really know. Others reckon you don’t have enough information to make up your mind either way. I think the closest we do come to agreeing on anything is the idea that it is much less likely that a god exists than the converse.
One of the things I find most trying about dealing with other atheists, especially in groups, is that you have to defend every single point you make since very few people ever agree with you completely. You very infrequently experience agreement purely for the sake of a feeling of community. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it forces you to avoid making statements for the sake of making statements and to seriously consider what it is you want to relay; your logic, thought process and conclusions will be questioned and best you be prepared to back everything up with some convincing evidence. This can sometimes makes informal conversation… exhausting.
“How much easier the religious have it”, I briefly thought with a pang of self-pity, “the Christians especially get to go to church and everybody just gets along and agrees…”.
Then I laughed. Hard.
I’m going to pick on Christians now because they’re in the news again. You see, at the core, Christians have something fundamental in common. They all read the same manual, the unchanging perfect words of the almighty creator of the universe; the super being who can do no wrong. You’d think, then, that they all agree and get along.
Christians do not agree and they do not get along and I find this hilarious to say the least.
There is a church in Auckland city that puts up some pretty risqué billboards; you can check out their site here: http://stmatthews.org.nz/. Now, I can appreciate this, at least they’re trying to get their Christians to think about what they’re doing a bit. The latest billboard was of the virgin Mary with a positive pregnancy test.
You might not think there’s much to that. Christians do, after all, believe a virgin, Mary, was impregnated by the almighty creator of the universe and bore its son whom they called Jesus Christ. Mary, virgin, pregnant. If you’re a Christian, that’s what you believe and that’s what the poster shows: Mary, surprised, pregnant.
Apparently not. One Mr. Arthur Skinner from the Catholic Action Group took great exception to this poster. “Blasphemy!” cried Mr. Arthur Skinner. He was, in fact, so pissed off with this blasphemous affront to his personal version of Christianity that he took to the poster and cut the positive pregnancy test right off. Clearly, the poster is now much less blasphemous since the removal of the proof of pregnancy… or something.
The "blasphemous" billboard - Before
The "blasphemous" billboard - After
From the New Zealand Herald article at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10773887
Strange, it was put up by Christians who obviously didn’t find it blasphemous… I guess Mr. Arthur Skinner must have a different line to the almighty that says something else. Which, too, is a little strange, no?
Let us consider this situation for a moment. Both Skinner and Cardy claim to worship Jesus Christ. Both of them claim to have Jesus as their personal lord and saviour, to have a personal relationship with him. Seems to me somebody should just ask Jesus if he has a problem with the poster or not. Get an answer and have the deity in question settle the dispute. Seems pretty damn straightforward to me. Pray, get Jesus to tell each of them at the same time if the poster is ok or not. Simple right?
“It doesn’t work like that”, I hear them say. No? Then how the fuck does it work if you both speak to the same freaking god? If your god can’t even settle this one little dispute between devout followers amicably, what, precisely, can he do?
You see, here’s the problem with religion, Christianity in particular. They all (mostly – the Mormons had to go write their own addition to the unchanging words of the almighty) read from the same (by ‘same’ I really mean ‘similar’ since some of them took liberties in the many translations…) unchanging perfect word of the almighty creator of the universe. They all have a direct line to Jesus Christ who personally saved them and with whom they have a relationship with. And yet there are over 38,000 Christian denominations.
I shit you not. Thirty eight thousand different denominations. Thirty eight thousand different interpretations of what, exactly, it is, that Jesus Christ and his dad want from the world.
Some of the major Christian disagreements
Look, Christians, if you people can’t even agree on the basics, how the fuck do you expect to convince us unbelievers of The Truth (… as you currently see it anyway…). Tell me, which one of you has it right at the moment? Yea, of course…
Some of the major Protestant disagreements. Seriously. They even read the same holy book.
Disagreement and discord, those are very human characteristics. It is normal for human beings to disagree, to see every little thing differently. The way you view the world is shaped by unimaginably complex processes. Things like physical brain structure, brain, body and environmental chemical levels, hormone levels, altitude, electrical signals, external stimuli, culture, family, surroundings, the food you eat, the stuff you drink, the gasses you breathe, the things you’ve read, heard, watched, the parasites you carry, the diseases you’ve had, the diseases you currently have and all of this over the span of your entire life.
How could we NOT disagree? We are so fundamentally different, we have to disagree. If there was no disagreement what so ever, that would go a long way towards proving the alleged divine origins of religion since it would take a massive miracle and an almighty super being to get humanity to agree completely on any given point unquestioningly. That there is disagreement among the faithful says everything that needs to be said about that ‘faith’.
You Christians do not have a personal relationship with the same deity. You, fucking, do, not. It’s clear as daylight to anybody who looks. Grow up, accept that. There is no god. You’re making that shit up.
We do not agree on anything and we never will. The ability to compromise and work together despite our disagreements, that is what sets us apart. That is what makes us special.
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