Questions for Theists by Apetivist
Original Post: 02/02/2020
Revised Version: 05/04/2020
Preface:
Hello to all. You can call me "Ape" (It is okay, I
do not mind as I happen to be one.) I hope you get something useful from my
website. I will explain more about myself
below too so you can better understand where I'm coming from. Now onto the
purpose of this site.
First, let us get this basic Q & A stuff resolved
before we continue:
Q. Do I mean to attack believers?
A. No, I am only addressing beliefs not the people
who hold them.
Q. Do I think I am more intelligent than
believers?
A. No, making a case for my or a reader's
intelligence is not the point for my website. Intelligence is rather evenly
spread throughout groups of people. There are no peer-reviewed scientific
studies that indicate intelligence being a factor that is sufficient to make
any difference between believers or unbelievers. We must be careful and kind to
not make snap judgments on the intelligence of others based upon a belief or
absence of belief. I will make another post regarding this subject later.
Q. Do I hate believers?
A. No, I was once a believer, and I have many in my
present life whom I dearly love. I don't like certain personality types or
perhaps specific people, but that is due to their behaviors and not due to
professed belief or absence of belief (unless such beliefs encourage violence
or the marginalization of others through bigotry or force of law). Regarding
these types of people, I admit I feel disgusted, but would not go so far and call
it to hate. In a way, I pity them more than anything as they are missing out on
the joys of diversity and understanding people personally as they are and that
goes beyond labels.
Q. Do I hate any deities?
A. No, it is hard to hate what you do not believe
exists. Do you hate Leprechauns or Bigfoot? That is the way I see this question
as it is framed toward atheists. If one or many deities existed, it would not
have any bearing on my points, as I will point out later in the site.
Q. Do I have a personal ax to grind?
A. To be honest? Yes, I do. I think it’s unfair
to indoctrinate children before they’re experienced and informed enough to come
from a background of education and understanding to know what if any evidence
supports the claims and whether they have good enough reasons to accept them.
Q. Do I have questions to ask for believers about
their beliefs?
A. Yes, I do. More than this page is soon to follow!
Q. Do I wish for everyone to leave their belief?
A. Not always, depending on the faith and how it
manifests I take little issue at all with people holding to faith if it isn’t
an inflexible Literalist faith reflecting negativity towards people that
believe differently or that promotes violence, hatred, and marginalization
either by personal or collective behavior either by dogma and/or by force of
law.
Q. Do I wish for some believers to become less
literal in their beliefs and become more flexible and open-minded about life?
A. Yes! I think this is the goal of many liberal or
moderate believers too.
Q. Do I wish for some believers (as well as other
unbelievers) to become less judgmental of others?
A. Yes. We are all in the same boat together. Unless
we interact kindly and treat each other with a reasonable measure of respect we
are just making life worse for ourselves and others.
Q. Do I hope to show why all believers can accept the
efficiency, effectiveness, and findings of the scientific method?
A. Yes. In fact, many religious people see the value
in Science and do not reject its many findings.
Q. Do I wish believers to have a more mature
understanding of Philosophy?
A. Yes. If anything, it will help them understand
their beliefs even better and whether their beliefs stand up to logic or examination from various perspectives.
Okay, here we go.
About me:
As a former believer and minister (I deconverted 31 years
ago as of 2020) of the Southern
Baptist flavor of Christianity,
I became interested in Philosophy that
was primarily introduced to me through studies in Theology and Christian Apologetics.
This led me to the basic principles of Critical Thinking
(by accident, of course, and I found myself startled that this concept was so foreign to me as I incorrectly thought that thinking about the important stuff was "critical thinking") and as a by-product of
applying Critical Thinking toward the claims of my Christian faith I came to
realize (through a great amount of research, as well) that they were no longer
tenable.
This was not a happy discovery! I became incredibly sad as
it resulted in me leaving not just the belief but also the ministry and church
members I cared for. They did not meet my deconversion with understanding or
open arms at all. I was callously rejected by many close friends and even some
family members. Yet eventually this all led to even greater happiness and
fulfillment in my life (by saying this I am not saying the same results happen
for other people). As a result of my deconversion, I understood that I should
try my best to apply critical thinking and skepticism about important claims
and not accept anything based on faith, Appeals from Authority, or Appeals to Emotion.
Note that to do this took a lot of practice and sometimes I
failed in (and at times still do) in doing so and did get caught up in some odd
beliefs that were popular at the time (Ancient Aliens anyone?). We must remain
vigilant. It is a process and I admit I was not even nominally good at it until
around 2013 due to attentively listening to the thoughts and ideas as expounded
by greater thinkers than myself. Great thanks to Matt Dillahunty, Aron Ra,
Tracie Harris, Seth Andrews, Dr. Richard Dawkins, Dr. Hector Avalos, Dr.
Richard Carrier, and especially through direct communication with John W.
Loftus and David Madison, Ph.D. True, I'm a self-designated Agnostic Atheist,
however, I am even more so a Humanist. People who
personally know me can attest that I care for others, no matter their beliefs.
I admit we can all be correct or incorrect in our views and beliefs upon a
multitude of different subjects. As a result of becoming more deeply involved
in Humanism, I sincerely wish that we all could live in a more peaceful and
caring society.
In Regards to Religious Beliefs:
Religion permeates much of the world and has done so for
possibly 400,000
years ago up to 40,000 years ago and comes in thousands
of forms, many that are lost to prehistory and history. Depending on where
you live you may see one religion more prolific than another. Have you ever
asked why this is the case?
Here are some basic questions popularized by author John W. Loftus known as
The
Outsider Test for Faith. I will use the acronym OTF throughout to
abbreviate the term as also used by John W. Loftus. This is a brief summation
of OTF, yet I highly suggest reading Loftus' entire book for greater details
and nuance.
Ask yourself, "Why are religions predominately popular
based upon geographic locations?"
In North America, you will find Christianity as the
predominant religion, in Saudi Arabia it's Islam, in India, it's Hinduism, etc.
Please make note that there is no such thing as a belief being wholly monolithic among people within the above-mentioned religions, but many variations of the
religions that we can call subsets. With all this in mind ask yourself, “How
can people know with reasonable certainty they are born into or talked into the
"one true
religion"?”
Are we all fated by an accident of birth
to make our way through life? All the while there is only "one true religion"
that is indicative of a Creator's or Creators' plan for us and must we search
through the pages of every religious book to make sure we are in the "one
true religion"?
If we hear or see this "one true religion" how can
we distinguish it from other "false religions"? What method do we use
to make this determination? If you are a believer in any god or gods or
subscribe to any religious views have you ever asked yourself these questions?
If not, please ask yourself, “Why is this the case?"
Now ask yourself, "Why is there religious
diversity at all?" If there were one true Creator or Creators, then
would not there be only one religion? Wouldn't a responsible Creator or Creators
make sure that everyone understood this divine plan? Why do religions blame
humans for a poorly designed plan that does not do what a Creator or Creators
intended it to do? If the plan is that all people be saved, then why aren't all
people saved?
Divine Plans Collapse:
If a bridge collapses, do bridge designers blame the
pedestrians that walk on the bridge? Shouldn't the blame, if there be any, be
hoisted upon the designers of the bridge itself? Especially if the result
of the failure was a poor job of engineering? Many legal experts would reply
with a big, "Yes!"
If this is the case, ask yourself, "Why is it that Divine Creator’s or
Creators, that supposedly have knowledge and abilities far beyond humans are not
being held responsible for their designs or plans for failing?"
Ironically, many religious people will talk all about the value of personal
responsibility but will excuse their Creator or Creators from taking personal
responsibility for the lack of insight. Why the *double
standard?
*Humans doing something irresponsible equals bad and perhaps
deserves some punishment. A god or gods do something irresponsible equals them
being given excuses or a pass from theists. There are professional
apologists (defenders of a belief) that exist solely for this purpose.
Dear reader, I wish to expose you to various thoughts and
ideas that may aid in answering these questions and many others that I have
planned for this website. If you think you have the "one true
religion" or the proper relationship with the one true Creator or Creators
of the Universe, then you should not feel challenged at all by these and
upcoming questions. Correct?
Please, read on and subscribe to the blog to get new posts
if you wish. Please leave comments below yet also be civil as uncivil comments
will be deleted. Feel free to email me at apetivist@gmail.com or DM me on
Twitter at @apetivist; however, I no longer do the public side of Twitter (Also
please be civil there, too).
Thank you for your readership and please understand all I'm
doing is asking questions and asking you to ask questions I am doing this to
not only challenge theists and their claims but also to invite others to
consider how they come about any belief and how they can think about them and
perhaps confirm or disconfirm them with well-reasoned answers. Please,
especially with more than mundane claims, question everything!
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