Atheism: Why God Does Not Exist: Atheism Explained

Description

Atheism is a subject that draws a lot of controversy into today’s society. People are now starting to doubt the existence of God because of all the advancements in modern science and technology that explain many of life’s questions. With that being said, there is still a lot of confusion out there about atheism and what its belief system actually is. The only thing that people seem to know is that it is the disbelief in God, but it actually goes much deeper than that. In fact, there are different types of atheists who don’t all act the same way about their disbelief. Some of them are open to new scientific evidence that proves them wrong while others are simply determined to not believe in God no matter what. In this book you will not only learn about the general concept of atheism and its effect on the world, but you will also learn about the different types of atheists as well. Religious followers tend to think of atheists as “devil worshippers” and other nonsensical things. The reality is atheists are just people who believe is something that is not supernatural or superhuman. The religious community only holds their “devil” belief about atheists because it contradicts their own religion. But what the religious community fails to realize is that there are many different religions and faiths in the world that all have their own belief system. The actions a person commits in one religion will be offensive to some other religion in the world. Therefore, there is no way to make people of all faiths happy and satisfied. There will always be some group of people out there who gets offended by what you belief and what you do. So if you want to be an atheist then no one should feel afraid to be open about it. Atheism won’t even take much time out of your day because there are no churches or group organizations to go to worship atheist beliefs. Another reason this book was written was because atheists travel a very lonely road. Sure there are some forums on the internet where you can chat with other atheists, but in your regular life there is nowhere you can go to meet up with other atheists. After all, how many atheists do you know in your regular life? You could probably count the number on one hand. Fortunately, anyone can celebrate being an atheist by simply waking up in the morning and asking themselves what is real to them and what is not. If they are still convinced that God is not real then they will be satisfied with that belief and go about their day. This book on Atheism is not meant to ridicule or put down anyone else’s faith. Instead, it was written to actually help people of all faiths to better understand atheism and the viewpoints of atheists around the world. The world is very diverse as it pertains to people’s religious beliefs. Many of the wars taking place around the world are formed from the basis of these beliefs. Hopefully, this book will show people of all religions that there is another belief system out there that does not indoctrinate or persecute anyone. Contents: -Preface -My experience with god-What is atheism -Types of atheism -Atheist philosophies -Why god is evil -Morality vs. religion -Do you need religion to be nice -Atheist criticisms of religion -Proof that there is no god -Religious people are less intelligent than atheists -Nonsense from the bible -Reasons for being an atheist! Why choose atheism -Atheism in the USA -Conclusion Review: Great transaction! - Detailed information about atheism. Appreciated the info about agnosticism as well. Review: Atheism, Secular Humanism or just opinion and assertions - Atheism Why God does not exist Atheism Explained by Dan Steel A Review This book is a series of short essays (most only a few paragraphs) about his views on God and atheism. A better way to look at the book would be to think of it as more of his opinion on secular humanism. To be fair, after reading the book I do not get the impression that Mr. Steel has spent any real time attempting to understand why people believe in God, or why people do not think much of atheism or secular humanism. His explanation of philosophy that secular humanists use is somewhat shallow, and even worse is his understanding of the holy texts that Christians and other theists use. On the back cover of the book Dan starts off with the statement “Religious followers tend to think of atheists as “devil worshipers” and other nonsensical things.” We can ask several things about this statement. Who is it that actually feels that way and how many “religious followers” believe this about atheists? Is this just based off of his interactions with Christians or some sort of empirical evidence/study he has read? This book seems to be more based off of impressions that Dan Steel gets from Christians than any real interactions with theists of any sort. He takes the examples that he has with theists and judges all (or, the vast majority of) theists based off of these interactions. There is little evidence of any study or contemplative reasoning or thinking about Christianity or the reasons why Christians think the way they do. In the preface he makes the statement “Remember that science and technology has only been in rapid use for the past 100 years.”, which I am sure will come as a surprise to those who have studied history and science. So, what exactly were Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Michael Faraday and Max Plank doing in the early years before science and technology had been in rapid use? This statement from Dan Steel is the type that seems to indicate he knows little of the subject he seeks to show is false (theism). He then goes on to state how we now have discovered scientifically that God and heaven did not exist above the clouds and no one is watching down over us (again, a basic misunderstanding of what Christian theism taught and teaches). This pattern is displayed throughout the book. Again, to be fair, this book is not really meant to be a deep study of atheism, more like the passing musings of an amateur writer who wanted to share some anecdotal views of Christians and their misunderstandings of atheism. And it is almost assuredly not meant for a philosopher (atheist or Christian) or theologian or Bible scholar. From what I can tell, it is simply a way for Mr Steel to show theists what atheists (more specifically secular humanists) are actually like and what they believe. And even this is a bit of a problem. Not all atheists are secular humanists. Reading some of the classic scholarship of the early 20th century one would be hard pressed to find a great deal of secular humanism that Dan Steel advocates here. He says he wants to set the record straight as to what atheists think (a bit presumptuous to claim to speak for all or even the majority of atheists, this book is just his views on his belief system, little more). He starts off insulting theists and basically keeps it up throughout the book “These people {atheists} are finally putting science and logic ahead of superstitious fairy tales that have no factual evidence whatsoever to back them up.” So, he is not familiar with the field of Christian apologetics? Christians have been defending the Bible, the faith and Christ's love for quite some time now. To suggest that somehow we missed science, logic or evidence (or the lack thereof) is not only silly but lacks evidence in of itself. Why assume that science somehow proves the proposition ~God? Or that we all should assume the same standard of evidence (is empirical evidence the only evidence allowed?)? He states (again in the preface) that religion provides no fact based evidence to support stories in our holy book (the Bible). I guess it is possible to say that, if one ignores all the fact based evidence Christians use to support the stories in the Bible. Are we to assume that Jesus did not exist, or are we not to notice that historicity of the Hittites, the Horites, the Edomites, and various other peoples, nations, and cities mentioned in the Bible that have been shown to be true and accurate? Just one example, archaeologists have found the seal of the scribe to the prophet Jeremiah as mentioned in Jeremiah 36. Is this the fact based evidence that Dan Steel believe Christians do not use to support the stories in our Holy Book? One positive in the book is his section about his own personal experience with God. This is what draws me personally to read and study what others think about faith, God and religion in general. I do enjoy religious epistemology and learning why people believe and think as they do is quite enlightening, and this section is well worth the read. I have no interest in accusing him of strawmanning the arguments of Christians but the way he refers to the Christians he speaks to and about seems to me to be somewhat absurd. He makes the point that God never spoke to him and as he tells his Christian friends they simply tell him he pray harder or God will speak to him when God is ready, that sort of thing. Now I do think this is something that happens, I also assume that whoever told him this did not have a deep understanding of the nature of God and how He communicates with us. To think that God is supposed to answer us as if He were some sort of cosmic Google seems rather silly to me (and not what the Bible actually teaches). Again, he seems to get all of his knowledge from his limited interactions with his Christian friends. But again, I get no real sense that Dan Steel here has spent any real time trying to understand what Christians (or theists n general) really mean when they speak of God. He then goes into the story of how his mother got terminal cancer and how this seems to have driven him to atheism (after all, he prayed to God to save his mom, and God did not save her, so therefore He does not exist). While sad (I feel bad for anyone who loses a loved one) this seems rather faulty reasoning. After all, 100% of the people on earth will one day die, it was just his mom's turn, so why are we to conclude God's nonexistence due to a death in the family? But at this point I will share some additional sympathy with Mr. Steel here. As he tells it, he tells his Christian friends what happened, they blamed his lack of faith. Assuming this is true (I have no reason to doubt this, I just find it absurd that a Christian would actually say something like this) he has my sympathies as this is tragic (not only the death of his mom, but in the cold and un-loving way his Christian friends treated him). Now, as he says he did not accept this reasoning (nor should he as it is nonsense) and for this reason he finally stopped believing in God. He then makes the rather bad point that “logic dictates that if there was a God, He would prevent these bad things from happening”. This is simply a way to make the problem of evil argument (since evil exists in the world, and God is all loving then evil should not exist). We can think of it like this. 1. An omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exists. and 2. Evil exists. are logically incompatible. Men like Hume did not believe there could be an answer to this (logical problem of evil) and J.L. Mackie has made criticisms of the problem however Alvin Plantinga has made an argument countering the Problem of Evil. Now, Dan Steel here (or you dear reader) might not find these arguments or counter arguments convincing, but they have been made and at least I think are quite interesting. Does Mr Steel even know about them or is aware of these arguments (I do not see any evidence of this in the book). And this is one of the things that is missing in the book. As I have stated, I see no evidence that Dan here has done even the most basic study of anything relating to theism or why people actually might believe in God. If he has studied faith and the reasons behind it, a few notes might have been helpful (where did he study philosophy or religion, a wiki page, or something more substantial?). Many of the essays are too short to be of much use (even as an introduction, it is rather shallow in form and substance). His understanding of “Atheist philosophies” is one of the section that could have used some additional notes or even time to review the great amount of literature available. There are far better books that can serve as an introduction to atheism (I will go over one in the conclusion of this review). In the essay “Atheist philosophies” he makes the rather silly claim that “... the theories about the universe and about the age of the earth can only be explained through scientific investigation and not through supernatural opinions”, and “a naturalist is not allowed to use God as any factor in their hypothesis.” Now I hope the fallacy is obvious (even to those with little philosophy training). That scientists make no mention to God in their equations or hypothesis does not mean that God does not actually exist. He (Dan) later states that “naturalism will also lead into the theory of rationalism”. Well of course it will, but so what. Are we supposed to accept this question begging argument as rational? Why start off assuming naturalism? Or even that science will somehow prove much of anything besides what is known empirically? Are we supposed to believe that science shows all of reality? And if so, why? What empirical evidence are we supposed to base this on? Saying we do not need to believe in God because of science I suppose is similar to saying we do not need to believe in engineers because of bridges. This is just one of many examples of the amateurish explanations in the book (again to be polite and somewhat fair, he shows no evidence of being a philosopher so I should go a bit easy on him as he knows little of the faith or philosophy in general). In the essay about God and why He is evil he makes the problem of evil argument again. This time he tries to make the case that in the Bible God orders bad things to happen to people who do things He does not approve of (Exodus 35:2 You must do your work in six days. But the seventh day will be your holy day. It will be a day of sabbath rest to honor the Lord. You must rest on it. Anyone who does any work on it must be put to death. NIRV). We can set aside Dan Steel's failure to understand how the justice of God works in an Ancient Near Easter culture like that of Ancient Israel (in a theocracy, exactly how should God act when He tells people not to do something, and they do it anyway? Did the ancient Hebrews live in modern day America?) however is the point that God does not exist because He does things we in modern day society might find objectionable and mean? So, by this reasoning, does that mean Dan thinks that being a jerk means one does not exist? Does not living up to our modern day standards of decency mean ~God? Why is that a rational question? Again the problem of evil has been answered by some great theologians and philosophers. If Dan Steel does not agree with them then fine, but has he even read any of their work (Augustine of Aquinas)? In this book Dan Steel has the habit of conflating anecdotal evidence of common beliefs of people and assuming this is how, as he puts it, that Christians believe “that atheists are unhappy and miserable people because they don't believe in God or follow any sort of religion” (page 19 section titled Do You Need Religion To Be Nice). Now again, I am curious as to who says this? I may speak to a different sort of Christian or theist in general than Mr. Steel but this is not my experience nor is it really the experience of the studies I have read concerning the general feelings of believers and nonbelievers. “The only reason atheists appear to be unhappier is because they are truthful about the world and the events that take place in it” (again, page 19 Do You Need Religion To Be Nice). Besides this sentence being rather insulting (Christians in general are not truthful about the world somehow, they do not recognize the sinful nature of man and how depraved the world really is?) it is also rather odd that Mr. Steel thinks so highly of himself that he can speak for the majority or all of atheism. The Only Reason? Really? Or, could it be that simply some people are unhappy in general, some people get depressed, some are bitter and angry and perhaps even a bit irrational. One does not need to be a theist to see how silly his argument really is. People are different and do not often need to be lumped into these neat little groups that Mr. Steel seems to do. Christians can get depressed, just like everyone else, atheists can be angry, just like everyone else. Atheism is not some magical thinking that allows someone to start thinking rationally or logically (as if it turns someone into a Vulcan from Star Trek). People are emotional creatures, and with that they tend to have biases and can in fact not think rationally at times and at other times seem perfectly normal and logical. Atheist Criticisms of Religion. In this section, Mr. Steel tries to explain some basic arguments that atheists use against the existence of God. These next few chapters (this one and Proof there is no God and Religious people are less intelligent than atheists) were chapters I was most looking forward to reading, since I do find it interesting how people think they can disprove God's existence. Of course Mr. Steel fails in this. It starts off rather bad and does not get much better. Mr. Steel states that religious philosophies are not based upon any factual evidence (a claim, I notice, that he does not actually back up with any, you know, Factual Evidence). This is of course a surprise to those who believe in the various factual evidence that many Christians do follow. Intelligent Design advocates certainly would suggest that they have plenty of evidence of the creative works of God (this is not meant to be an apologetic device for any particular view of Christianity) and certainly there are other views (logical moral evidence, cosmological arguments etc.) that I wonder why are not counted as evidence. It is possible that Dan Steel knows nothing of these arguments (as this book seems to indicate he is not well versed in reasons theists believe in God). In Proof that there is no God (yes, he seems to think that he has disproved God's existence). He makes the rather silly argument that since there is no proof of His existence, one can (and should) conclude His nonexistence. Now as should be obvious, this is the ignorantiam fallacy (or argumentum ad ignorantiam) which in its simple form we can restates as such: There is insufficient evidence to establish that God exists. Therefore, God does not exist. Now clearly this is somewhat silly. Philosophers know that to show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show that the conclusion of the argument is Automatically false (it might be wrong, it might not be, but it is not automatic). All the proofs of God's existence may fail, but it still may be the case that God exists. In short, to show that the proofs do not work is not enough by itself. It may still be the case that God exists. While he does ask the question “But does the lack of proof mean He does not exist or that proof doesn't exist?” but then follows up with the non sequitur “have you ever tried to pray to God for something really important like finding a job or or finding a romantic partner?” Again, placing aside the idea that God is supposed to give us what we want like some sort of cosmic genie is not a possible answer NO? Perhaps God simply says no, since He knows what your future holds and he knows it might not be the best thing for you, why should He succumb to your every will, whim and wish? He then makes the error of bringing up the fact that there are multiple faiths around the world and each has a differing view of God. While obviously true, so what? There are many differing philosophical traditions, such as analytic, Aristotelian, Existentialism, Platonic, Scholastic, Eastern, Western, Secular Humanism, etc. Are they all wrong? Does the abundance of philosophies negate the premise that we can know truth or knowledge or beliefs and understanding? If not, then how does the abundance of religions negate the existence of God as creator of the universe? He also mentions the belief (again, an assertion without any factual evidence to back up the claim) that God does not speak to us today. How does he know this? God did not speak to him so He must not speak to anyone else? This is supposed to be proof of God's nonexistence? Religious people are less intelligent than atheists. Well, dang, that was a bold claim, wonder what evidence he has to back up this claim. Well, not much (he has trouble mentioning sources for his beliefs or facts he brings up in this book). Professors Miron Zuckerman and Jordan Silberman, from the University of Rochester, looked at 63 studies in the field carried out between 1938 and 2012, (Dan Steel does not actually cite the paper in full, I do as a courtesy). In their paper, entitled“The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations,” Zuckerman and Silberman drew the conclusion that the majority of studies found that more intelligent people were less likely to subscribe to organized religion. There were several problems with the study, it only takes into account analytical intelligence, disregarding creative and emotional intelligence. It only looks at Western cultures and the Protestant faith. And of course this quote - “It is truly the wrong message to take from here that if I believe in God I must be stupid,” he said. “I would not want to bet any money on that because I would have a very good chance of losing a lot of money.” Miron Zuckerman https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/are-atheists-smarter-than-believers-not-exactly/2013/08/16/34393a2c-069b-11e3-bfc5-406b928603b2_story.html (see Dan, it is OK to cite some references). We should be somewhat cautious in relying on self reporting data, as is typical in many of these types of studies. Did Mr. Steel actually take the time to read the research itself, or just read a blog posting on the topic and decided to put this info in his book. If he did not read them, then that is just lazy and sad, but not all that rational and logical in my opinion. In the section Nonsense from the Bible he demonstrates his lack of understanding of the contextual basis for the passages he mentions. This review is already getting quite long so I will simply point out how irrational it seems to me to point to an ancient text and not have much of an idea of the meaning behind the passages. Dan here seems to be reading the texts in a rather wooden literalism sort of way. Now, is this how Christians actually read and understand the Bible? Well, no, it is not (even some fundamentalists do not assume the entire text is read this way, even if they read the Genesis creation account this way). Obviously I can ask why should we read the text this way? Do Christians actually read the Bible in this manner? If not, why does Mr. Steel here? In the section titled Atheism in the USA he mentions some numbers (citation? Of course not!) that show how many people in differing demographics (African American, Hispanics etc.) that show % of people who are, as he says, are “unaffiliated with religion”. Now, the obvious question to be asked is does unaffiliated mean atheist? Are there people who do not choose to be a part of a formal structure (church or religious institution) but who never the less still believe in or assume God exists. To make the claim that somehow atheism is the same as unaffiliated seems to be misreading the studies (which admittedly, we have no real idea what studies he has read since he makes scant mention of it). Is this because he has not actually read the studies or simply feels no need to state where he gets his facts (again I ask, how rational is it to just make these assertions instead of providing evidence to back them up in this book)? His conclusion starts off with this statement - “This book has talked a lot about atheism and how other religions can appear nonsensical to atheists. No matter what belief or religion you may hold, remember that there is no right or wrong belief system.” And yet, what exactly has Mr. Steel here been trying to tell us? How wrong it is to believe something, as he says, without factual evidence? How atheism is rational and reasonable and how faith is wrong. So, what sense does this make? At the end of the conclusion he states “When you go to rate this book online, please base your opinion on the experience you had learning about atheism and not your personal viewpoints towards it.” OK, so let's do just that. The basic experience I had from reading this book was one of dismay at reading something I found to be of such little value. Instead of actually teaching something about atheism Mr. Steel just gives us his view of non-belief. While this in of itself is not bad he makes several obvious errors in thought (like seeming to speak for all atheists or completely misunderstanding what theists like Christians actually believe and think). He makes few arguments and instead just assertions (like saying atheists are rational thinkers and theists are not, what empirical evidence does he show for this? Atheists do not believe in God, theists do?). The book itself is just not all well written or thought out. It is basically just a series of short blog postings in book form. I gave the book 2 stars (I was being generous, 1 might have been better) as it lacked any real backing or substance. While there were some good points in the book the negative far outweigh the positives. And I see one obvious problem is how Mr. Steel lacks any real interesting in studying theism or why people believe in God (or gods). It is understandable that Mr. Steel has not really developed any idea or sense of why Christians believe as they do. It seems to me that if one were to conclude that God (and the belief in Him) is irrational then why bother to take the time to understand the faith? If belief in God is irrational, then how much time should we expect one to understand the actual arguments for theism (not the silly ones presented in this book). Is it fair to reject a position unless one first understands it (it might be, but it might not be). This seems little more than a self-righteous intellectual superiority on the part of Mr. Steel (yet it is the theist who is irrational because we believe in God?). Mr. Steel's rationalism consists not in actually being rational (or making rational arguments) in this book but in sounding rational, and constantly putting down the irrational believer. How this is rational is beyond me. If you are interested in reading a good introductory manual on atheism I would suggest Michael Ruse Atheism: What everyone needs to know. While I did not care for it (you can read my review here on desertcart) it is a good place to start if you want to learn about atheism. But here is a novel thought. Why not just ask Christians (or theists) what they think and why? This book is OK as an introductory book on the topic but I hope no one would take it as more than one persons opinion (not one based on any facts from what I can tell) and not take this too seriously. If Dan Steel has anything better in terms of his writing I might be interested in reading it, but this book does little to promote a dialog between atheists and theists, and very little to help theists understand atheists.