Some Tips

Here is some advice to make Christians act, well, more Christian when dealing with atheists. Another ten commandments, as it were. When dealing with atheists thou shalt not do these things. Do you think that any of them will pay any attention?

From Ten Tips for Christian Evangelists (Courtesy of Atheists) by Hemant Mehta:

5. Don’t talk about Jesus like he’s part of the conversation.

The people you’re talking to don’t share your beliefs, so they’re not going to be thrilled to hear that Jesus is listening in on their thoughts and sending messages or providing inspiration to the person talking to them.

This makes you come off as either crazy or… well, mostly crazy. I get that you actually believe that Jesus is alive and God is everywhere and all-knowing, but to non-Christians, he’s just an imaginary friend of yours, and so telling us to listen for his voice in our hearts is creepy.

6. Don’t plant literature.

We’re already stuck with Bibles in hotel rooms (thanks for that, Gideons and pushover hotels!). There’s no need to hide tracts inside books at the bookstore or leave those horrible fake $20 bill pamphlets with (or instead of) the tip at a restaurant. They don’t work. They’re impersonal, often accusatory, and extremely classless. If someone isn’t already a Christian, a pamphlet isn’t going to change that.

8. Don’t assume that we have “God-shaped holes in our hearts” and try to get us to admit it.

I certainly think that religion helps meet various psychological needs, and there are plenty of warm, fuzzy feelings (and deeper emotional experiences as well) that come along with it. But just because you have a proverbial hole-in-your-heart that only Jesus can fill doesn’t mean that all of us do.

Trying to convince us that our lives suck or are incomplete without God isn’t going to work. Stop insulting us and implying that we’re secretly miserable. We’re getting along just fine without any gods, so this line of strategy won’t work.

9. Don’t compare your past experiences to our present.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard Christians enthusiastically share their stories of horrible, sinful lives that left them feeling empty and lonely.

These “sinful” lives usually consisted of such shockers as swearing, going to R-rated movies, looking at porn, drinking, partying, smoking, and occasionally doing drugs. Oh — and having premarital sex.

The thing is, maybe these things made you feel guilty or empty; maybe you developed addictions or other problems relating to these activities, and maybe you’re much happier now that you don’t do them. That’s great. But it doesn’t mean that hearing your story is going to shock us or convince us to change our ways. There is such a thing as a healthy balance, and it can include some (or maybe all) of those “vices.”

This tactic seems especially silly when different Christians groups and denominations can’t seem to decide what’s sinful and what’s not.

10. Don’t talk down to us, as if we’re just not understanding something perfectly obvious.

Many of us have read the Bible, prayed, attended church for years, and still ended up as atheists. There’s no magic bullet that converts people to Christianity. Whatever experience led you to believe probably happened on a pretty personal level. We haven’t witnessed anything miraculous or heard any voices, and we don’t see anything self-evident about God in nature or humanity. So if you insist on trying to save us, at least familiarize yourself with our perspective before jumping in, because assuming we’re simply uninformed or dumb is only going to hurt your chances.

I singled out these five of the ten tips because I have had similar thoughts on these issues for many years.

It is annoying and even insulting to an atheist to have Jesus become a part of a conversation or greeting when he has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It pisses me off that God is all over the place. No, I suddenly did not start to believe in God. What I mean by God being all over the place is that he is on our money, in our mottos, our Pledge of Allegiance, our swearing in ceremonies, at the end of Presidential speeches, etc. I find all of these things to be ridiculous and insulting, as well as illegal. (I know that the courts don't agree with me on the illegal part. However, they've been wrong before, you know.) And yes, God's book is in my hotel room, even though I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t want it there.

I would be miserable if I tried to be religious. It’s not the other way around. I would always know that I was lying to myself if I pretended to believe in God. I allow you your belief, please allow me my non-belief. Let’s leave it at that. The problems come when you try to convert me. The problems come when you try to inject your beliefs into the public dialog and pretend that they are facts. I am not trying to stop you from believing. I just think that you are being stupid by believing. I think that you are being stupid giving your money away. I think you are being stupid when you elect George W. Bush because of his values.

I don’t need God to make me be a moral person. I don’t need to be born again. There is nothing wrong with me in that department. I’ve got plenty of other flaws that need working on, and no imaginary monarch (good Lord!) is going to help me there. Oh, and by the way, it would be a little bit easier to even think about believing in God if he himself was a little bit more moral. Not to mention his sexually abusive priests.

Yes! Please don’t talk down to us. I've been down the religious road. I reject it. I’ve read (and still do read) chunks of the Bible. It hasn’t made me believe. If God’s own words don’t make me believe, why are you so arrogant to think that you have something to add?

Not all religious people are arrogant and rude. It’s just that the ones who are arrogant and rude happen to be especially so. I find it most irritating to have someone place their need to convert me above my existence as a fellow human being. If you are going to try to convert me, you should, at the very least, try to get to know me first.

Religious people seem to be the least empathic people on the planet. It is unfortunate that there are so many of them.

Religion As A Nonissue

Perhaps I should move to Scandinavia. (Why is the New York Times misspelling Scandinavian?)

From Scandanavian Nonbelievers, Which Is Not to Say Atheists by Peter Steinfels:

Phil Zuckerman spent 14 months in Scandinavia, talking to hundreds of Danes and Swedes about religion. It wasn’t easy.

Anyone who has paid attention knows that Denmark and Sweden are among the least religious nations in the world. Polls asking about belief in God, the importance of religion in people’s lives, belief in life after death or church attendance consistently bear this out.

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.

Well documented though they may be, these two sets of facts run up against the assumption of many Americans that a society where religion is minimal would be, in Mr. Zuckerman’s words, “rampant with immorality, full of evil and teeming with depravity.”

Which is why he insists at some length that what he and his wife and children experienced was quite the opposite: “a society — a markedly irreligious society — that was, above all, moral, stable, humane and deeply good.”

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t move to Scandinavia. Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The idea of living somewhere where religion is unimportant is appealing, but the idea of living among people who think that the Bible "is full of nice stories and good morals" is scary.

Beyond reticence, Mr. Zuckerman found what he terms “benign indifference” and even “utter obliviousness.” The key word in his description of their benign indifference is “nice.” Religion, in their view, is “nice.” Jesus “was a nice man who taught some nice things.” The Bible “is full of nice stories and good morals, isn’t it?”

Beyond niceness came utter obliviousness.

Thoughtful, well-educated Danes and Swedes reacted to Mr. Zuckerman’s basic questions about God, Jesus, death and so on as completely novel. “I really have never thought about that,” one of his interviewees answered, adding, “It’s been fun to get these kinds of questions that I never, never think about.”

This indifference or obliviousness to religious matters was sometimes subtly enforced. “In Denmark,” a pastor told Mr. Zuckerman, “the word ‘God’ is one of the most embarrassing words you can say. You would rather go naked through the city than talk about God.”

Then again, maybe I should move to Scandinavia.

Social conformity or not, Mr. Zuckerman was deeply impressed with the matter-of-fact way in which many of his interviewees spoke of death, without fear or anxiety, and their notable lack of existential searching for any ultimate meaning of life.

A long list of thinkers, both believers and nonbelievers, have posited something like an innate religious instinct. Confronted by the mystery of death or the puzzle of life’s ultimate meaning, humans are said to be hard-wired to turn to religion or something like it. Based on his experience in Scandinavia, Mr. Zuckerman disagrees.

“It is possible for a society to exist in which most people don’t really fear death all that much,” he concluded, “and simultaneously don’t give a great deal of thought to the meaning of life.”

At one point, he queries Jens, a 68-year-old nonbeliever, about the sources of Denmark’s very ethical culture. Jens replies: “We are Lutherans in our souls — I’m an atheist, but still have the Lutheran perceptions of many: to help your neighbor. Yeah. It’s an old, good, moral thought.”

I have never understood how believing in fairy tales and lies makes death more tolerable. I have never understood why life must have meaning. I have never understood why the universe must have a beginning. If God always was and always will be, why can’t the universe? Atheists can be moral people. Religious believers can be immoral people. God does not make any difference.

I believe in helping my neighbor. I do not believe in God.

Lumping Together

Personal Religulosity, Part One

Update:
Meanwhile, over at the Multiplexcomic forum many words have been written about Personal Religulosity.