50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (17 page)

Believe it or not, those ladies helped me feel better, a lot better. In no time I was back on my feet, bruised and scraped, but okay. To this
day, I am grateful to those kind church ladies for their concern. I am
sure I would have been down and out much longer without their
efforts. But does this mean that a god magically cleared my head and
soothed my wounds? No, more likely I benefited from the psychological boost of feeling loved. I was also under a bit of pressure to please
the ladies and bystanders by showing them that I was going to be okay.
They prayed so hard for me, I didn't want to let them down. I was
highly motivated to get up and smile so I did.

It's likely that something similar to this goes on many times at
faith healing events. The sick people know how the script is supposed
to go and nobody wants to be the jerk that a god doesn't like enough
to heal. So, chances are, many people are going to say they feel better
no matter what.

The bottom line on faith healing is that, although it could be a real
phenomenon, no one has ever been able to show that it is. If the scientific method can show that penicillin works, for example, shouldn't it
have shown by now that faith healing works for millions of people all
around the world? But it hasn't. Given the huge payoff if faith healing
actually did cure people, it is very likely that we would have recognized it by now and fully incorporated it into modern healthcare
accordingly. There would be no resistance if it worked. The fact that
faith healing is still on the fringes and often used only as a last resort
by virtually all believers who can afford the services of medical science indicates that it almost certainly does not work as advertised.
Therefore, at this time, faith healing cannot be considered a good
reason to believe in a god.

Randi, James. The Faith Healers. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989.

"Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" WWGHA Web site, 2006. http://www
.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god5.htm.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They
are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is
none that does good.

-Psalms 14:1

I don't know that atheists should be considered as
citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.

-President George H. W. Bush

ne of the reasons people say they hold tight to their belief in
a god or gods is that they think atheism is a fate to be avoided
at all costs. Many believers won't even consider the possibility that
their god does not exist because an atheist, in their view, is not much
better than a serial killer or child molester.

It should be no surprise that many people think this way considering how nonbelief is so often mocked, discouraged, and forbidden
by religious leaders as well as within holy books. Some belief systems
declare that atheism is an offense worthy of execution. It sounds like
somebody is a little insecure about their beliefs.

Why are believers so uptight about atheism? These feelings run so
deep and so strong that many people trust nonbelievers less than
people who believe in rival gods. This is odd to say the least. Why, for
example, do so many Christians feel more comfortable with Muslims than atheists, given the bloody history and current tensions between
those two belief systems? Why do many Muslims feel more at ease
around a Hindu than an atheist? Why is belief in any gods preferable
to belief in no gods? Perhaps this is because it is seen as being better
to at least play the game even if it is for a different team. Atheists,
however, refuse to play ball at all and therefore may be a little disorienting to believers. My suspicion is that believers tend to feel this way
because the mere existence of an atheist casts doubt on their assumptions that signs of a god are all around us and that belief is somehow
necessary to live a normal life.

The popular notion among believers that nonbelievers are bad
people by definition is so out of line with the facts that it is comical. I
try to be understanding about it even though it is terribly insulting. I
have been in churches and heard Christian preachers talk about their
god being the only possible source of morality and how turning your
back on this god leads to crime, drug addiction, wife-beating, gambling, pornography, jaywalking, and so forth. Not believing in a god
can even lead to genocide and world wars, according to many
believers. They love to cite examples of evil atheists in an attempt to
prove that nonbelief really does make moral behavior impossible.

Adolf Hitler is almost always the first name believers drop to
demonstrate the inevitable horrors of atheism. We will see later in this
chapter why Hitler is the wrong choice for atheism's poster boy. But
first it is important to understand that linking atheism to despicable
people does not prove anything. The fact that some bad people in the
past didn't believe in gods does not prove that gods exist any more
than history's many religious tyrants and pious mass murders prove
that gods don't exist. Furthermore, believers should not try to play the
guilt-by-association game because they will lose every time. Over the
last few thousand years religion has directly motivated far more hatred
and violence than atheism. Remember, atheism is the absence of
belief, nothing more. Many have killed for gods throughout history
but few have killed for nothing. Believers often cite the twentieth century's "godless communism" and the horrific death tolls of atheists Stalin, Mao Zedung, and Pol Pot as a strike against nonbelief, but the
fact is those dictators were primarily motivated by power and politics,
not an agenda of critical thinking and skepticism. They didn't have
millions of people killed in order to make the world safe for free
thinkers. They killed to gain and maintain social, economic, military,
and political power. By stressing Stalin's atheism, believers seem to
suggest that he would have been a much nicer fellow if only he had
believed in a god. My hunch is that this former church choir boy and
seminary student might have been even worse if he believed a god was
on his side while he ruled the Soviet Union. Religious belief could
have provided Stalin with even more motivation to murder just as
easily as it might have cooled him down. Given its record, religion
certainly cannot be counted on to always bring out the best in people.

Since Adolf Hitler lives on as the most notorious atheist in the
minds of so many believers today, it is important to point out that he
was not an atheist. Yes, Hitler was a believer-at least he was according
to his own written and spoken words. Hitler was raised a Christian and
was active in his local church as a boy. As an adult he quoted the Bible
and drew upon religion for inspiration. Consider these lines from his
book Mein Kampf. "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself
against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord" (Hitler 1999,
65). And, "For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their
abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's
creation, the divine will" (Hitler 1999, 562).

Even more significant, virtually every one of Hitler's enthusiastic
supporters were believers too, from most of his generals right down to
the Third Reich's street sweepers. Millions of German troops marched
off to battle in World War II wearing belt buckles with "Gott Mit Uns"
("God is with us") engraved on them. Christian crosses were prominent
features at many Nazi rallies. There are many photos of Hitler praying
and attending ceremonial events with Christian leaders. Atheists were
not the ones forcing Jews to board trains bound for death camps.
Believers did that. Anyone who knows anything about Germany under Hitler would never call it an atheistic society. Of course it is possible
that Hitler, an astute politician, simply pretended to be a believer when
it suited his purposes. Maybe he secretly was an atheist, but that is
impossible to know. Anyone who claims that would have to also agree
that Stalin could have been a devout Christian secretly and only pretended to be an atheist to serve his political purposes. We can never
know for sure what anyone really believes because belief happens in
the privacy of the mind. Words and actions are all we can go by and
Hitler's words and actions indicate that he was a believer in a god.

It is reasonable to assume that most believers, like most atheists,
just want to be good people and live a good life. The thought of taking
on the atheist label is scary for many believers because it carries with
it suggestions of immorality, general creepiness, and perhaps even the
sinister hand of Satan at work. But it doesn't take too much effort to
think through the false idea that atheists are bad people. For example,
if nonbelief leads to a less moral life than belief, then wouldn't atheists be convicted of crimes at a disproportionately higher rate than
believers? But this is not how it plays out in the real world. Jails and
prisons are filled with many believers and very few atheists. And what
about the many obviously immoral wars fought exclusively between
believers? For example, there are very few atheists in sub-Saharan
Africa yet that region is plagued with numerous wars decade after
decade. Who can be blamed but believers? Anyone who reviews history and surveys the world today cannot honestly claim that atheists
deserve to be thought of as untrustworthy or dangerous people.

Regardless of the facts, sadly, someone who lives their life without
believing in a god is still too suspicious for many believers to embrace
as a friend and equal. As a result, atheists face significant prejudice,
even in modern times and even in some developed and democratic
countries that should know better. In the United States, for example,
despite all the talk about tolerance, diversity, and freedom, there is a
shockingly high level of prejudice against atheists. A 2006 University
of Minnesota study asked people to identify the group that "does not
at all agree with my vision of American society." Atheists topped the list with 39.6 percent. Muslims were second at 26.3 percent and homosexuals third with 22.6 percent.

The study also revealed that American parents are more likely to
disapprove of their children marrying atheists than any other minority
group. It wasn't even close, as 47.6 percent said an atheist is the last
person on earth they want to see their child with. Second was Muslims
(33.5 percent), followed by African Americans (27.2 percent). It must
really be tough for gay African American atheists these days.

The study's authors, Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas
Hartmann, were surprised to find such strong prejudice directed
against atheists.

Atheists are at the top of the list of groups that Americans find problematic in both public and private life, and the gap between acceptance of atheists and acceptance of other racial and religious minorities is large and persistent. It is striking that the rejection of atheists
is so much more common than rejection of other stigmatized groups.
For example, while rejection of Muslims may have spiked in post9/11 America, rejection of atheists was higher.

The possibility of same-sex marriage has widely been seen as a
threat to a biblical definition of marriage, as Massachusetts, Hawaii,
and California have tested the idea, and the debate over the ordination
of openly gay clergy has become a central point of controversy within
many churches. In our survey, however, concerns about atheists were
stronger than concerns about homosexuals. (Edgell 2006, 230)

Most atheists are well aware of this prejudice. They often keep their
nonbelief a secret, sometimes even to family members and close
friends, because they don't want to upset or disappoint people they
care about. They don't want to have to endure ridicule or rejection.
Nonbelievers even may fear becoming victims of violence or workplace discrimination. Who can blame them? When believers tie
atheism to Hitler, Stalin, and Satan, it can be a risky topic to bring up
at the family dinner table or around the water cooler at work.

Apart from the morality issue, there is another reason why many believers are more uneasy about nonbelievers than they are about
people who follow rival belief systems. Remember the classic fairy
tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes"? People can debate the king's
magical clothes and disagree over details about the workmanship, so
long as they all "see" some clothes. But if someone points out that the
clothes are not even there, the parade is in trouble. It is more comfortable, apparently, to bicker over what the gods are named, how they
want to be worshipped, who speaks for them on earth, and what their
clothes look like than it is to hear that gods might not exist at all.

Believers who dislike, mistrust, and discriminate against atheists
base their decision to think and behave this way on nothing but plain,
old, shallow-minded prejudice. This is precisely the kind of blind
ignorance that is stupid, immoral, and usually harmful to everyone in
the end. Atheism is not a club and atheists are not necessarily united
by anything other than their lack of belief in a god. Atheism simply
means no belief and that nets a diverse group of people. Just as it is
with believers, there are good and bad atheists. Just as it is with religious people, there are kind atheists and there are atheists who are
jerks. Deciding to dislike all nonbelievers rather than judge them as
individuals is indefensible.