Sarah Cy
Sarah Cy
Aug 31, 2018 · 15 min read

Dear Dusty,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate how much effort you put into it, and into trying to deal with finnicky technology. Although I am not sure what <VBG> is? I am only aware of the acronym that stands for “venous blood gas” although I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant to say. Was it in place of an emoticon?

My apologies for the delay. I wanted to carefully read your response a few times, and put together a coherent reply :) After doing that, the biggest thing I noticed was: It appears that we have some misunderstandings caused by different ways of using words. For example:

It looks like we are operating from different definitions of the word “atheist.”

For me, I use the broader definition, that an atheist is one who does not believe in the existence of God, in any way, shape, or form.

It is a broad term that encompasses all kinds of people who do not believe in God — including and not limited to anti-theists (those who don’t believe in God and are upset that others do) and apatheists (those who don’t care whether or not there is a God, though if you ask them, they’ll say there isn’t).

But it looks like you are using a definition that only includes a small segment of atheists (the apatheists). You call them “true atheists,” but that’s creating a definition for a term that is different from the original.

To be clear, it’s probably best to use the terms as they were originally defined. We have to be on the same page regarding terms so that we don’t waste time arguing points that arise from unclear word definitions/misunderstandings rather than true differences in opinion.

Actually, we probably should clarify ALL of our terms.

Here’s my proposal:

Atheists: Non-theists. People who do not believe in the existence of God, gods, or any power beyond the physical/material world.

Apatheists: A subtype of non-theist. People who don’t think believe is a God, but don’t care one way or another, and are not actively against theists/theism.

Antitheists/anti-religionists: A subtype of non-theist. People who are actively against theism and theists.

Theists: People who DO believe in the existence of God (or gods).

Christians: A subtype of theist. People who believe Jesus Christ is God and desire to/do their best to live in a way that follows His teachings and example, as recorded in the Bible.

Also:

Difference between -IST and -ISM: words that end with “-ist” refers to the people. Words that end with “-ism” refers to the system of belief, aka the worldview.

Let me know if there’s anything you don’t agree with/don’t understand/want to change about these definitions. If we can agree on basic terms, I think we can continue the discussion.

But if we are using different definitions or changing definitions, the discussion won’t be productive. Because, in a sense, we won’t be speaking the same language.

That said, allow me to address your specific concerns:

“Atheism is not a belief. Belief is not an opinion. A difference of opinion is…a thought about a statement that conflicts with one’s own opinions.”

I’m afraid I got a bit lost trying to understand what you mean. I don’t know how you are using the words “opinion” or “belief.”

To help me clarify, I looked up Google’s definitions.

Opinion: view/judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Belief: an acceptance that a statement is true.

Are you saying atheism is an opinion, not a belief? But from what you say, you believe that atheism is true, right? You don’t think it’s a matter of opinion in the sense that “I like chocolate better than vanilla” is an opinion? Correct me if I’m wrong.

I think I understand you as saying, you don’t like it when someone else’s view of how the world works causes them to write laws or influence you to do something you don’t want to do.

For instance, if you were a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country you’d be put off by the idea of having to fast during Ramadan—you wouldn’t like it that restaurants are closed during the day on Ramadan, or that people would look down on you (or maybe even push you against a wall?) for eating during the day and not fasting like them.

I understand that feeling for sure. But it looks like there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it generally…we just take it case by case.

For example, I know some theists who have sacrificed jobs, education, etc., in order to keep the Sabbath in “non-Sabbath-friendly” societies. They knew the consequences, they knew that society and the laws were against them, but they believed that the Sabbath was important enough for them to bear the consequences.

Perhaps that is the best you and I can do. Of course we can attempt to change the laws, and many people do — but that is a long, slow process, and there are many people pushing at the issue from all sides, it’s hard to say who will win.

But again, that’s why a commitment to truthful, respectful debate is so critical for a healthy society.

If you really have a truthful idea about the best thing for society, you should try to convince people to see things your way, the right way.

But at the same time, you must have the humility to know that you may not be right — and be open to changing your mind if someone else present better evidence.

“Atheists don’t push their views, in general, on others unless pushed.”

“Impose” and “push” are words with negative connotations, so perhaps they aren’t the best words to use, but I was quoting you that first time. “Influence” might be a better word. Or “Impact.” But it often amounts to the same thing.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that “live and let live” is an ideal that is impossible to fully realize in our world. The whole point of a society is that we influence each other with our words and actions. We can help each other, or we can hurt each other. There isn’t really a true neutral ground. We can’t truly leave each other alone. We share a planet. It’s inevitable that we will impact each other.

You mentioned that atheists don’t have churches, but actually, some do. Or that atheists don’t shirk their duty but of course some do. Another problem is, what you call “shirking duty” is not seen as such by the people to whom you’re referring.

Because: what do you define as duty? Going back to the earlier example of Jewish people who want to keep the Sabbath in a non-Jewish society: by not going to work on the Sabbath, they are viewed as “shirking their duty” to their employers. But in their minds, they are “upholding their duty to God” who, remember, they believe exists. And if God exists, then your duty to Him obviously supercedes your duty to your employer.

So you see, there is no way for people not to “impose” their views on each other, in the sense that a person or group of people’s beliefs will always influence others. Therefore, it is not fair to say that only “religious people” impose views on atheists and not the other way around. There are many cases where atheists actively impose their ideas on theists as well —

For example: atheists do not allow intelligent design to be taught in classrooms, which is a way of pushing their view (that there is definitely no God, there cannot be a God) on people who may disagree with them. They believe they are doing the right thing, of course, but from the theist perspective, that is “pushing.” Why should not children be taught both ideas (evolution and intelligent design), be given the evidence for both, and be allowed to choose which makes the most sense to them?

You see, your worldview affects the way you act in the public sphere, and that always affects other people, significantly.

It seems you are trying to say belief in God is one thing, and atheism is totally different, like comparing an apple to a software program. But they’re not. They’re actually both worldviews. They are both “ways of looking at the world,” and they are in the same category — like comparing a Gala apple to a Red Delicious, which is more doable.

You have to be consistent when you compare.

If you want to look at ways in which theists “push” atheists, you must also look at the ways atheists (and not just the anti-religionists/anti-theists) also “push” theists. In fact, everyone pushes everyone — just to different degrees and in different ways.

Even if one group may not consider it “pushing,” from the perspective of those they are impacting, that is what it is.

This statement is true from both perspectives, by the way. People who don’t want to hear about God feel “pushed” when someone tries to preach to them. People who want to talk about God feel “pushed” when someone tries to silence them. People who don’t want to be taught that there is no God feel “pushed” when their teachers tell them that. People who want to teach there is no God feel “pushed” when people say they can’t teach that. And so it goes.

“Based on my unscientific poll of actual believers…all 8 said exactly the same thing: The Bible is the actual word(s) of God, and as such, are not open to either interpertation, nor disobedience.”

That statement does not at all conflict with my previous point that “Just because something is recorded in the Bible does not mean it is approved by God.”

Because what I’m talking about are historical events, whereas your friends are referring to commands.

If God says “love your neighbor,” then yep, you basically need to do that if you are a real Christian (because Jesus did really say that—Mark 12:31).

But when the Bible records something like “King Herod killed James, the brother of Jesus.” (Acts 12:2) It is obviously not saying that this is a good thing or that you should do that. It’s only saying that the event happened. Records and commands are two different things.

“[The Bible] is a book, written, and rewritten, and subject to so much reinterpretation…”

Acutally, this is a common fallacy that needs to be debunked. The Bible has not been re-written. It has been copied (because there were no printing presess back then, hand-copying was the only way to spread messages) but exactly, and precisely (There were entire societies that dedicated their lives and existence to copying the Bible perfectly, using excessive measures to ensure accuracy).

There are thousands of fragments and copies of it in various languages, from different eras and geographical locations. And even more letters and manuscripts that quoted it in various languages, from different time periods. All you need to do to check the Bible’s authenticity and consistency is to compare the versions and you can reconstruct the entire Bible. If the Bible was rewritten at any point in time or in any place, you would see huge, irreconcilable discrepancies between all these different versions. Which you don’t.

I promise I’m not just saying that off the top of my head because it sounds good. There is evidence to back this statement:

I’ve actually done a bit of research in this area, and shared some results with another reader in this article. See subtitle “A Note on Biblical Reliability”)

Re: “Location influences but does not determine your beliefs”

No worries, I’m not offended! Because we are actually saying the same thing.

You wrote “where you were born determines both the majority faith and the particular sect of that faith will MOST LIKELY be the faith you will be indoctrinated into.” And I agree with that.

I never said, “geography hasn’t much to do with your choice of faith.” I said: It has a lot to do with your faith (influence), but it is not determinate.

I think the problem, again, is word usage misunderstandings.

When I said that location “influences but does not determine,” a person’s beliefs, I chose those words deliberately. “Influence” means that something has some ability to change something else, but “determine” means that something FORCES something else to be a certain way.

Being born in, say, India, does increase your probability of being Hindu, or of speaking Hindi. But it does not FORCE you to — there are people of other religions and languages in India. That’s all I was saying, because your original comment was, “had you been born elsewhere you’d have faith in a different god.” which indicates a determinaistic view (eg: if I were born in India, I would DEFINITELY HAVE TO ABSOLUTELY be a Hindu) and I was trying to gently point out that there are always exceptions.

Re: “I’ll start dismantling that by defining the word “find”, which I likely used incorrectly, or rather, poorly, not for the first time: To discover, or perceive; to recognize or discover…The beauty of science is that it does observe, say, a leaf.”

Hmm. I’m not sure that clarifies things much, I’m afraid.

Verbs such as “find, observe, etc” can only be done by sentient nouns. In other words, a person can observe, a dog can find. But science, which is not a sentient being, cannot do those things.

Using the words “find, observe” in a figurative manner, the way someone would say “the sun smiled at me,” is anthropomorphizing — giving human traits to non-human things.

Science is a system of thinking, a way of discovering and organizing knowledge. In other words, it’s a tool, like a shovel. You use it to dig up stuff, but YOU are the one who determines where and what to dig, and what to do with the stuff you dig up…the shovel doesn’t do that.

Science is also not “okay with it, usually” when it is “proven wrong,” because science is not a person and does not have feelings.

If you are talking about scientists, however, this statement is still not true. Even Einstein, for instance, once invented a cosmological constant (lambda) because he wanted to believe that the universe is eternal, but his research and math were not agreeing with his personal preferences. So instead of changing his ideas to fit reality, he tried to change reality to fit his ideas.

Science sets parameters for data to be interpreted, and outliers are investigated and either added to the data set, or the data set is changed, if the outlier is proven correct.

Ideally that is what happens. But like the Einstein example above: people who do not want to know things can set their “skeptometers” to astronomic levels and refuse to believe what they see.

It’s like a child of a Holocaust perpetrator can come face to face with evidence that their beloved parent has done horrible things — documents, photos, even visits from actual Holocaust survivors — and still deny that the Holocaust happened.

Not because there isn’t enough evidence, but that they refuse to believe the evidence. The problem isn’t science, the problem is people practicing science. And this stubborn blindness is not unique to theists. If you are a human, you have a penchant for doing this.

All I am saying is that evidence is not enough. A systematic method of thinking and gathering and organizing facts (aka science) is not enough. People believe what they want to, sometimes IN SPITE OF scientific evidence. Even so-called scientists themselves do this.

So when it comes to people like you and me and what we believe, we can’t rely blindly on the conclusions drawn by authorities. They can be wrong, not just because they’re fallible, but because they’re prejudiced. We all are.

We really have to dig into the evidence ourselves and make our own conclusions based on best practices (that is, if we care enough to).

Murder is wrong, both morally and ethically. I’d pass this along to the real scientists for comment, because neither of us is really qualified to explain how that isn’t really the case.

I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but scientists aren’t qualified to tell us what is or is not moral either. Are you saying that people who are not scientists and who have not studied science DON’T know moral right from wrong?

You say murder is wrong, but why? You feel like it is right, I assume? But where does that feeling come from? Were you taught it, or did it come from, say, your genes? If you were taught it, how do you know what you were taught was “right?” If it came from your genes, how do you know your genes are “right”? What does that word, “right” even mean for you? And what about sociopaths, who don’t feel emotions the way the rest of us do? Is it morally okay for them to murder, because they don’t “feel” that it is wrong?

I, too, feel that murder is wrong. But even if I didn’t feel that way, I KNOW it is wrong, based on my belief system/worldview.

Most people don’t actually have a ‘worldview’, at least not as you are defining it here.

Hmm. I don’t know if you fully understood what I meant by “worldview.” It’s very simple. All I mean by “worldview” is “a way of looking at the world.” By that definition, ALL people have a worldview.

It has nothing to do with finding Australia on a map. As you said, “most people’s world consists of what they can see…within a few miles of their house.”

True. That is their worldview. It’s different from the well-traveled international backpacker, but it’s still a worldview.

“How exactly was atheism supposed to stop Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Chavez, any of those murderous dictators? We don’t and didn’t have the numbers.”

This quote reveals another word usage problem. My point was not about atheISTS, it was about atheISM.

I’m not saying atheist people should have stopped Hitler et al. I was pointing out that atheISM, the worldview, has no moral foundation, nothing to stand on to say that Hitler was most definitely wrong.

Because in the atheist perspective, there is no one who can say what is right or wrong for everybody. You and I think Hitler was wrong, but in his mind, he was right. We think he was crazy, he thinks he was sane. Who’s right?

If God created us, He does have the right to define right/wrong, and we have a duty to follow that. But if atheism is true, we human beings do not have a higher authority to appeal to, or anything to say that we are right and Hitler was wrong. There is no one and nothing to judge between us and him.

That’s the problem with the atheist worldview. Not atheISTS, but atheISM.

WE know [murder is] wrong. We don’t lack morals. We have ethics, common sense and empathy.

I absolutely agree. Most atheists do NOT lack morals. The question is, though, where do those morals come from?

Parents? But we all know some parents teach their kids bad things. Or they’re not even in the picture. (Where were Hitler’s parents?)

Society? But there are things about society that we all know aren’t what they should be.

Your genes? But what if you were born with different genes than other people? If your genes make you a murderer and other people’s genes do not, who is to say that YOU have the defective gene and everyone else has the normal one? What if the murderers have the “right gene” and the rest of us are wrong? How do you even define right and wrong?

(I recommend David Wood’s story as an illustration. He was a sociopath who tried to use patricide to confirm his understanding of Evolutionary Theory, until he met a guy in prison who challenged his worldview. Today, he still has trouble experiencing emotions we take for granted like sadness and guilt, but now he uses it to debate, rather than to attempt murder)

Other stuff

I like how you said:

“if you want someone to listen to you, whisper.”

Good advice, in most situations :) And also:

“I would rather not say anything if I know that I’m gonna make someone hurt or angry. I don’t always succeed, but…that’s part of being a human.”

Agreed. Same here. We can only try our best!

Last thing: “The three things in life you should not really be debating are politics, religion and someone’s cooking skills. Get you into trouble all day long, and in the end, no one agrees with you anyway.”

This made me smile 😃

I think you’re generally right, although there are a few exceptions.

One thing I learned from David Wood, who spent six years debating worldview issues with his best friend, was this:

The first question you need to settle before debating “politics, religion, or someone’s cooking skills” is whether or not that person is willing to hear the truth, even if it’s not a truth they may not want to hear.

Because if both debaters are truth-seekers, are honest with themselves and others, and are lovingly respectful rather than combative and easily offended, then they will have a productive conversation that will eventually lead to elucidation (at least on the most important things).

Which really brings me to the most important question of this response, even more important than my first question of getting on the same page regarding our terms (atheist, theist, Christian) —

Dear Dusty,

IF — and please notice I made that word out in italics, out of respect for you — if you are wrong about atheism/your worldview, would you want to know it?

And if you find out you are wrong, would you be willing to acknowledge it and try out other ideas?

For my part, if you’d asked me this question a few years ago, I would probably have said “Of course! Duh!” although in my heart, the real answer would be NO. I was comfortable where I was, I didn’t want to question everything I thought I believed.

But if you’ve been following my writing for a while now, you probably know that a while ago, I was hit with a real “adverse life event” and that has forced me to reconsider my beliefs. I am definitely more open to having my thoughts/beliefs challenged now. But like you, I want good, solid evidence based on the truth…not emotionalism or flimsy arguments.

If you are right about all this, Dusty, I am open to being corrected by you. But only if you feel the same way about being willing to change your mind if wrong. (I know you said you don’t like to argue with folks because they won’t change their minds, but I welcome you to give it an honest try with me, if you like, as long as we can both be equally honest/open).

Otherwise, this has been an interesting conversation, and I am glad we were able to chat like this, but we may not need to continue this specific conversation further. What do you think?

(Though I am always open to hearing from you on anything you like, of course!)

Warmly,

Sarah

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Sarah Cy

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Sarah Cy

Writer, musician, daughter. Publishes ~2x per week. Learn how to dazzle your readers by becoming a brilliant writer! http://www.beabrilliantwriter.com/welcome

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