Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless (17 page)

Some people will be upset by this. Some people will be offended by this. Some people will even be insulted by this. People often get upset and offended and insulted when their deeply-held ideas and feelings are criticized, questioned, challenged, mocked, and refuted. And it’s still reasonable, and fair, and even right, for people to do that. Daniel Dennett
explained it perfectly
: “I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough.”

Most atheists could probably deal with a world that included religion, as long as it was tolerant of other beliefs and stayed the hell out of government. Some of us are skeptical about whether this is possible — see Chapter Ten, “What Do You Want, Anyway? One Atheist’s Mission Statement” — but we’d be more or less okay with it. Many of us even enjoy some of the rituals and traditions of religion, as long as they don’t involve actual religious belief. (
Secular Judaism
being the obvious example.) But yes, many atheist activists would like humanity to give up on religion. We think religion is a mistaken idea about the world. We think we can make a good case for that position. We think it’s reasonable to try to persuade people that we’re right.

And this is not an attack on diversity.

It is a defense of reality.

“But what good will any of this do? Sure, religion is a bad idea. It’s mistaken, and it does more harm than good. But you’re never going to persuade anyone out of it. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve argued with people about religion — and it never works. Why do you waste your time?”

So far, much of this book has been aimed at religious believers, as much as it is at atheists. Of course I’m talking to atheists — I want to give atheists a voice, to put into words some things they may have been feeling and haven’t been able to express. I want to give them something they can hand to believers who ask them, “Why are you so angry?” And I want to inspire them to take action. But I’m also talking to believers. I’m trying to explain why, exactly, so many atheists are so angry. I’m trying to explain why so many atheists feel so strongly about our anger that we feel compelled to speak out about it, and act on it. And I’m trying to explain why atheists are, you know, right: why we’re right about our atheism, why we’re right about our anger, why we’re right to speak and act.

This chapter is different.

This chapter is aimed almost entirely at atheists.

A lot of atheists will read this book, and will nod vigorously throughout. “Yes, yes! Religion is awful! It screws up people’s lives! It does way more harm than good! The very nature of it is inherently damaging! And besides, it’s just not true — that’s the key issue here, and that makes it harmful pretty much by definition! It’s a terrible, hurtful, bad idea!”

But when it comes to trying to persuade people out of their beliefs, they give up in frustration. “It never works,” they say. “Religious beliefs are too irrational, they’re not held for intellectual reasons, they’re held for emotional reasons — so there’s no point in making rational or intellectual arguments against them.” Or else they’ll say, “Religious beliefs are too entrenched, people hold on to them too deeply, they’ll never be persuaded out of them. It never works. Why should we waste our time trying?”

In a word: Bullshit.

It does work.

Ask any atheist writer with even a moderately sized readership. Ask me, ask Richard Dawkins, ask
Jen McCreight
, ask
PZ Myers
, ask any of us. We get emails
all the time
telling us, “I am now an atheist, in part, because of you.” We get emails
all the time
telling us, “Your writings, your arguments against religion, are a big part of why I stopped believing.” These are not isolated incidents. They’re extremely common. It happens with atheists whose style is gentle and civil; it happens with atheists whose style is snarky and harsh. And of course, atheist writers have no way of knowing how many people we helped persuade out of religion… who never bothered to tell us about it.

If you’re in any doubt about this — go to a local atheist meeting, or just go online to an atheist blog or discussion group. And ask people, “How many of you became non-believers — at least in part, not necessarily entirely, but in part — because of arguments against religion? How many of you had your minds changed, at least partly, by an atheist argument that you heard, or read, or saw on YouTube, or listened to in a podcast? How many of you had your deconversion process started, or moved forward, or had the final nail in the coffin driven in, by somebody’s argument for why religion was mistaken and atheism was correct?”

I bet you’ll be gobsmacked by the answer. The numbers are substantial. Most atheists used to be believers at one time… and many of us, maybe even most of us, were persuaded out of religion, at least in part, by arguments against it.

So why do so many people assume this never happens — to the point where they not only refuse to try, but work to persuade other atheists out of trying?

I think there are couple of reasons for this pessimism. The first is overly ambitious expectations. Yes, arguments against religion can — and do — persuade people out of their beliefs. But they rarely do so
right away
. I get lots of emails from people saying that my blog helped persuade them out of religion. But I’ve never argued someone out of their beliefs in the course of a single conversation. And I’ve never talked to an atheist who has. In fact, let’s go back to your local atheist meeting or your online atheist forum, and ask for another show of hands. Ask people to speak up if they had their religious beliefs
partly
talked out of them by arguments against religion. And then, ask people to speak up if they were persuaded into atheism in the course of
one
conversation, by reading
one
atheist book, reading
one
atheist blog post, watching
one
atheist video, etc.

The first group is pretty big. The second — not so much.

A single argument is probably not, by itself, going to convince someone that their religion is mistaken. Religious beliefs
are
often deeply held. People usually
do
have them for emotional reasons as well as intellectual ones. Many people have never seriously questioned their religious beliefs, or even thought about them carefully. And letting go of them can be scary. It can be emotionally scary: you have to think about life, death, meaning, your place in the Universe, in radically different ways. And it can be scary in more practical ways. It can mean alienating your family, your friends, risking your job, maybe risking your safety. For most people, letting go of religion is a process. It takes time. And while other people can help with that process, ultimately it’s something people need to do on their own.

So if you’re expecting to persuade someone out of their beliefs in a single conversation, you’re going to be disappointed. Don’t let that discourage you. Don’t think of it as winning or losing an argument. Think of it as helping someone along, helping them move a little further along their path. Think of it planting the seeds of doubt.

Or as nurturing seeds of doubt that are already there. This is a point that helps me be a lot more patient when I’m arguing with believers about religion. If someone is visiting an atheist blog or podcast or online forum, if they’re attending a debate between an atheist and a believer, if they’re visiting an atheist group and wanting to argue with you… chances are they’re already having doubts. People don’t visit atheist blogs or groups or debates or forums if they’re not already a little curious about atheism. You probably won’t demolish their faith in one dramatic explosion — but you may put another crack in the foundation.

I had a hard time grasping this concept in my early blogging days. I’d get into a debate with someone about their religion, and they’d seem reasonable and honestly willing to re-consider their beliefs, and I’d be positive that I could pry them out of those beliefs just with the power of my brain. I hadn’t yet encountered the slippery excuses, the moving goalposts, the awesomely bad apologetics, the contorted logic, the flat-out denial of evidence, the flat-out denial of the idea that logic and evidence should matter when you’re trying to decide what’s true, the “I just feel it in my heart and that trumps any evidence you might show me” crap, the shifting of the debate from “Does God exist?” to “Why are atheists such jerks?” It was frustrating. To put it mildly. It’s going to be frustrating to anyone who gets into these debates. And it got me wondering whether what I was doing had any point.

But then I started getting the emails, from people saying, “You helped me become an atheist.” I started getting emails saying, “Your writings, your arguments against religion, are a big part of why I stopped believing.” As my blog gets more widely read, I get more of these emails all the time. And it made me realize: Oh. This does work. It just doesn’t always work right away.

So that’s one reason many atheists are pessimistic about arguments against religion — they’ve never seen it work in the course of one argument, so they assume it never works at all. But I think there’s another reason. I think many atheists convince themselves that arguing against religion is worthless because
they, personally, don’t want to do it
. They don’t like confrontation, they’re afraid of alienating people, they want to avoid scenes.

And you know what? That’s fine. If you, personally, don’t want to argue people out of their religious beliefs, then don’t. There are lots of ways to be an atheist; there are lots of ways to be an atheist activist; and we all have to go about it in our own way. If you choose to focus your arguments on things like anti-atheist bigotry or separation of church and state, instead of on whether religion is true? Or if you choose to not argue at all, about anything, if you choose to simply to be a positive model of happy, meaningful, ethical atheism? That is great. Knock yourself out. I am entirely sincere about that. That’s all worth doing, and we need people to do that. If we’re going to pry people out of religion, we need to give them a safe place to land when they fall — and I applaud people who are doing that.

But take responsibility for that choice. Don’t say, “I don’t argue about religion because it’s always a waste of time.” That’s a cop-out. Say instead, “I don’t argue about religion because I don’t want to.” As you start saying that instead, you may find yourself re-considering your choice — or you may not. But take responsibility for that choice. And don’t get in the way of other people who are making the other choice. We are having an effect. What we’re doing works.

Okay. That mini-harangue is over. Persuading people out of religion can work. So let’s talk strategy. What, precisely, works? If persuading believers out of their beliefs isn’t a waste of time… which arguments should we be making?

I’ve actually looked into this question. I’ve done a
survey on my blog
about which ideas convinced former believers to become atheists. And here are some of the themes that cropped up.

The historical or scientific inaccuracy, internal inconsistency, lack of evidence, or just plain absurdity, of religious beliefs.

The immorality, unfairness, or other troubling aspects of religious beliefs.

The diversity of religious beliefs: different faiths with incompatible views, with no way to resolve those differences, and no reason to think one is more likely to be true.

The similarity of the Christian myth to other myths.

The lack of good evidence or arguments for religion, the failure of religion to make its case, and the bad arguments that get made for religion.

Seeing religion as rejecting intellect, reason, and reality.

Seeing science as a better explanation for X — consciousness, life, religious experiences, whatever — than religion.

Seeing that religion is more likely to be a human creation than a divine one.

Dishonest, hypocritical, or other bad behavior by religious believers or leaders.

Exposure to general skepticism, critical thinking, and the scientific method.

Exposure to specific scientific or historical ideas that contradict religion.

Simply knowing, or being exposed to, atheists or other non- believers; realizing that non-belief was an option.

Seeing that atheists not only exist, but can be happy people with moral, meaningful, non- guilt- ridden lives.

Realizing that “I only believed because it’s what I was taught or what was expected of me.”

Not getting good answers to questions about religion, or questions getting shot down.

Religion just seeming ridiculous, stupid, or pointless.

Seeing religion as based on logical fallacies or cognitive biases.