What Should Atheists Evangelize?

Something I've noticed about myself since getting involved with atheist social groups is that I have an insistent desire to "spread the word." The dilemma I find myself facing is simple on its face, but leads to much bigger questions: what word should I be spreading?

Maybe it's something hanging over from when I evangelized the Christian gospel. I feel like I want to grab someone by the shoulders, shake them, and say, "Listen, have you heard this? Isn't this amazing? Don't you feel like you should do something?" The problem is that there's just so much to address; our world is in dangerously short supply of rational thinkers, especially in positions of authority, and credulity is practically being bred into us. Unreasoning, unskeptical thinking is encouraged, even promoted as a value under the guise of faith – and thus expected to receive some inherent level of respect from all and sundry.

The major problem with the idea of "atheist evangelism" is that atheism really isn't something that can be promoted, per se. It's not a product; it doesn't offer any benefits; it's not a quick and dirty solution to difficult problems. These are the sorts of things people tend to be looking for. Atheism is typically defined as either a lack of belief in gods or rejection of claims made about gods. That's basically it; it's a conclusion drawn about a single subject. Pure atheism doesn't really give us much to work with. There's also the problem that the fact that someone is an atheist doesn't necessarily mean that they've got their head on straight. Atheists aren't always rational, any more than religious people are. Rational thought goes well with atheism, but atheism certainly doesn't require it. (Just look at the Raelians, for example...)

So what should atheists evangelize, if anything? I'd put my money on critical thinking, skepticism, reason, the scientific method, and open-mindedness. From what I've seen, these things tend to lead people to become atheists more than anything else, especially when they're applied to concepts that believers take for granted. Properly applied, these tools can help us find the best solutions for just about any problems we face. If, in the process of using them, a believer becomes an atheist, so be it; in my mind, it's more important just to get them using the tools in the first place. Better to be religious and a critical thinker than an atheist and gullible.

I don't think atheists should evangelize simple doubt or disbelief in claims made by religion. Any fool can doubt religious beliefs; it takes reasoning and critical thinking to figure out why something should be doubted. Simply going around telling people that religious claims probably aren't true isn't good enough. For one thing, it's very difficult to reason people out of positions that they didn't arrive at through reason; for another, it doesn't really address the core of the problem, which is a lack of critical thinking. Let's say you manage to dissuade a devout believer of all their supernatural beliefs. Does this really accomplish anything? Instilling disbelief isn't the same as planting the seeds of analytical thinking and skepticism about faith-based claims. You can believe a lot of true things for the wrong reasons; you can also disbelieve a lot of false things for the wrong reasons as well.

The ability to critically analyze claims based on their evidential merits is one of the central strengths of freethought. By employing the contents of a basic skeptical toolbox – a better knowledge of logic and fallacies, an understanding of the scientific method, and other parts of Carl Sagan's "baloney detection kit" – we're able to figure out whether or not something is true, typically with a better likelihood of being right than if we had just gone with our gut or accepted what we were told. I believe that, if we help people build their own toolboxes, we'll stand a better chance of turning the tide in reason's favor.

Now that we've got an idea of what to promote, the big question is how we promote it. Faith and unscientific credulity are strong forces to contend with, and it's easy for a believer to block out any skepticism about their sacred cows if the skeptics come about the discussion in the wrong way. Popular culture also has a tendency to promote bad science, through TV shows that promote pseudoscience, news reports that give an undue amount of respect to fringe claims (in the name of "balance"), celebrity endorsements of new-age mysticism, and so on. The "woo" has a long head start in this race, but there are a few ways we can fight back.

First, get vocal. If you see something you think is fishy (in the news, on a TV show, etc.), do a little investigation. If you can, find out what the scientific consensus on the subject is. Write a letter to the editor in response to sketchy journalism, or pen an opinion piece critiquing the scientific or logical flaws in the rhetoric of pseudoscientists. If you think someone is using good science to promote bad ideas or bad politics, make your voice heard. If you feel it's necessary, contact your congressional representatives and speak your mind.

Second, get excited. Part of what's so fantastic about science is that there's so much awe-inspiring mystery in the natural world alone that we don't really need all the mystical supernatural stuff. Share your love of science and your fascination with science news with your friends and family. Let them know why it's important to you and why you're so hyped up about it. Promote the idea that science is open to everybody. Unlike what we see on some TV shows and in movies, science isn't some arcane, mystical process that is inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have an inborn special talent for it. Anyone can be a scientist, as long as they keep asking questions. If you've got kids, encourage their curiosity; if they keep asking "why, why, why," don't just give up when you don't know the answer – look for the answers with them, and help them learn how to find things out for themselves (rather than just accept it "because we said so"). Lighting the spark of investigative curiosity and critical thinking is essential for helping make the next generation more freethinking than the current one.

Third, get invested in the future. When it comes to science and critical thinking, much of the American educational system is in dire need of an overhaul. Kids are taught to memorize formulas and to try to get predetermined results for their science experiments. Find out what can be done locally to influence the science curriculum. Demand that kids get the education they deserve. For example, you could suggest that, rather than follow a strict plan for doing an experiment, the kids are told to design their own experiments and justify their methods by explaining why the science supports their ideas. Anything we can do to promote "teaching to understand" rather than "teaching to memorize" is worth pursuing.

Fourth, get suggestive (rather than combative). There's no better way to push away a believer in any irrational claim than to just tell them that they're wrong. Instead, get them to question their presuppositions in a way that makes it seem like it was their idea in the first place. If you hear someone talking about a pseudoscientific belief, ask loaded questions that are intended to guide them into critically examining their ideas. For example, if you're talking to someone who suddenly brings up astrology and how their horoscope said that such-and-such a thing would happen today, ask them if it doesn't sound like a pretty safe guess, or if it makes sense to think that it would happen to everyone born during the same period of time (and nobody else). In other words, rather than throwing a brick wall up in front of them, quietly slip in a roadblock that makes them pause and reflect upon what it is they've accepted as true. Passively planting seeds of doubt this way is a sort of kinder, gentler skepticism that usually doesn't come of as dismissive or disrespectful.

Finally, get skeptical! Skeptics are a major part of our front line in the battle against nonsense, no matter where it comes from. The more positive we are as skeptics, the more likely other people will be to pick it up as well. Get familiar with logical fallacies, the scientific method, and the flaws in human judgment (faulty memories, sensory misinterpretation, cognitive biases, etc). Familiarize yourself with common rhetorical techniques that the woo crowd will use to trick people into credulity, and try to figure out their potential ulterior motives. Most importantly, don't jump to conclusions. Just because you're a skeptic and a claim sounds unbelievable doesn't mean you're necessarily right; you've still got some hard work to do to find out what's most likely to be true. After all, skepticism of a claim is just the beginning of the investigation, not the conclusion. Besides, human beings are often self-deceived about their abilities or the depth and validity of their understanding of a subject (something called the Dunning-Kruger effect).

I'm sure some people will disagree with my analysis. They're welcome to do so; after all, what kind of freethinker would I be if I demanded that everyone agree with me? Regardless, I hope that at least something I've said here will inspire all freethinkers to evangelize what really matters: science, reason, critical thinking, and skepticism. Given time, I'm sure that these will do more to fight against the old dogmas than anything else.

Science may be hard to understand. It may challenge cherished beliefs. When its products are placed at the disposal of politicians or industrialists, it may lead to weapons of mass destruction and grave threats to the environment. But one thing you have to say about it: It delivers the goods.

-- Carl Sagan, from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Church Visit: Trinity Baptist Church

Today I managed to wrangle a couple of co-heathens from my atheist/agnostic meetup group into going to church with me. We went to Trinity Baptist, which is affiliated with (among other groups) the extremely conservative Southern Baptist Convention. It was quite an experience.

Though the congregants had a wide range of ages and ethnicities, the church was also very, very conservative, and it appeared that they took the Bible literally. What I find fascinating about this is that, despite that fact that I took it literally at one point, the conclusions they reached about a lot of things were entirely different. I suppose this isn't really all that surprising; Christians have been debating the finer points of doctrinal differences for centuries. But the differences weren't entirely minor. For example, in the church I attended in college, we were taught that this was a fallen world that God had turned his back on, and that our only chance of salvation was to turn toward Jesus and away from worldly needs. "Mission work" had nothing to do with going to impoverished countries and helping people; it was entirely focused on spreading the gospel and 'winning souls for Christ'. In this church, however, they felt it was important to nourish both body and soul. And though they do emphasize the idea that spiritual needs trump material needs, they recognize that material needs can be important as well. Their approach is to say that God will provide for any material needs, going so far as to say that they don't need to worry about the recession because God will get us through. (Remind me not to hire one of them as a financial consultant.)

They seemed to be a congregation of global warming deniers. The minister made a joke about how this was "the year without summer," and asked where Al Gore was this year. It was nice not to be the only one rolling my eyes at that; bringing friends along has its benefits.

The minister said a lot about what people should be praying about. He said that "God is not a go-fer", and that our "external, felt needs" aren't the sort of things we should be praying for - rather, that we should pray for increased faith and spiritual knowledge. That's pretty convenient, really; if we don't pray for tangible things, there's no way anyone can say our prayers weren't answered.

Honestly, the service itself didn't intrigue me all that much. Their theology was your basic evangelical Christianity: Jesus is the only way to escape punishment in hell for your sins, all other faiths (they specifically mentioned Buddhism and Islam) are false and futile, and anyone who doesn't know Jesus is 'lost'. There were a couple of high points. For example, someone must've seen my 'Atheist' bumper sticker, and reported it to the higher-ups. They spent about five minutes praying for "anyone out there who doesn't know the Lord", asking them (me) to recite a Sinner's Prayer (i.e. the whole "I admit I'm a sinner and I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior" bit), to give up my religion for a relationship with Jesus, and to empty the anger out of my hateful heart. He asked that the whole congregation pray for this, which was an interesting test of scripture, since Matthew 18:19-20 says:

Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.

Apparently the combined prayers of the entire congregation don't count as either two or three gathered together in Jesus' name, or as "anything that they ask," because... lo and behold... still an atheist.

The minister, in this little bit of targeted prayer, made mention of the idea that "[I] never knew anything about a relationship like [one with Jesus]." I couldn't help but shake my head; the assumptions that they make in this sort of statement are mind-boggling. Behind the friendly, inviting faces we saw in the church was the idea that anyone who isn't a Christian is still somehow afraid of their hell, knows absolutely nothing about Christianity, is angry and hateful, and believes in their God and his authority over things. What a weird mindset to work from.

Another high point was when a girl came up and told a story about how her parents, who had separated, got together again because of events in their lives that brought them back to Jesus. Her parents weren't present; they apparently go to another church. Most interestingly, she mentioned that her mother was an alcoholic who was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and that that's where she had her moment of 'revelation'. (AA, of course, is a strongly evangelical Christian - or, at least, evangelically theistic - organization, promoting the idea that the only way to overcome alcoholism is through submission to a higher power.) I was shocked that this girl was willing to say something so personal and embarrassing in front of this group of people, including (obviously) some people she didn't know. It reminded me of the way the Church of Scientology keeps records on all the confessions people make during their 'auditing' sessions, so they can use them to coerce anyone who wants to leave. I was also unsurprised to hear the girl say that God had been behind the whole chain of events that led to her parents' reunion; is she saying that she thinks it's what God planned all along, or that God intervened and controlled people in a way such that things would work out? Neither sounds very appealing to me; it's predestination versus the suspension of free will. One thing that gave me a chuckle was that she talked about how her dad was worrying for a long time about a lot of things, and then he heard a sermon about worry, and saw it as a sign. What a surprise! A sermon about one of the most prevalent elements of the common human experience. Must be divinely inspired.

After the service, my friends and I did a little "post-mortem" discussion of our experiences. Of the three of us, I was the only one who'd ever been deeply religious, so it was interesting to hear their perspectives on things. I'd spent much of the service thinking about their interpretations of scripture, and constantly coming up with other parts of the Bible that went almost directly opposite of what they were saying. For example, they talked about how you should love your life, but John 12:25 says that if you love your life in this world, you'll lose it - you have to hate your life here to gain eternal life. My accomplices, on the other hand, were considering much broader concepts. One brought up that the friendly exterior they put up reminded them of grizzlies - they may seem cuddly and playful, but if you step out of line even the slightest bit they'll disembowel you. She found it odd that in one breath they were condemning people for having a judgmental spirit and not being loving of their fellow man, and then in the next they were talking about how anyone who isn't a Christian has a futile faith and will spend eternity roasting in hell. Our discussion turned to the subject of our various religious backgrounds, the influence of supernatural thinking on rational inquiry, ways we can work to promote reason and logic in society, why we think science is losing ground in America, and dozens of other things.

Then I went home, and I opened the 'goodie bag' the church had given us as visitors. It's really pretty bizarre stuff. There's a booklet about Awana, which I'd never heard of before, but from the sounds of it it seems to be a hardcore evangelical fundamentalist "camp" for kids. From the back of the booklet:

"[Awana] is built on rock-solid ministry principles: clearly presenting the gospel, focusing on Scripture memory, and applying the unchanging truth of the Bible to the changes and challenges of life."

Some of the things the booklet mentions make me very uneasy; mostly the fact that it targets kids as young as two years old, but also that they play on a child's need for positive reinforcement by rewarding different levels of indoctrination with trophies and awards. It talks about teaching kids about "God's love," which isn't surprising. If you teach a kid that God's love is really a sacrifice aimed at saving them from eternal torture, you're going to lose them, but if you just give them the candy-coated, feel-good theology, you've got them in the palm of your hand. Hit them with the soft, nice, warm and fuzzy stuff when they're young, then gradually dial up the crazy-nasty, and they'll never notice. It'll all seem like a natural progression.

The goodie bag also included a directory of local Christian businesses (the Shepherd's Guide). It contains some absolutely hilarious ads, such as one for "Biblical Hygine [sic] for Health & Protection," a Christian chiropractor ("Gentle Chiropractic Using Activator Technique"), some company selling "Earth-frindly [sic] cleaning products" (which is apparently a multi-level marketing scheme), and a "Christ-Centered Internet Network Data Center (Guaranteed pornography-free web hosting!):"

Nehemiah had a burden to rebuild the walls and post watchmen at the gates of Jerusalem to control invaders, prevent attacks on God's people and provide security. The Christian Interactive Network has followed that vision to secure God's data and ministry networks. Protecting God's people and the Gospel from the digital warfare that we face today.

They also included a couple of daily devotional books, a list of church service opportunities, a bookmark listing (some) of the names used for God and Jesus in the Bible, a pen with their church's name and address on it, a notepad and pen with a Bible verse on them, a booklet describing the plan of salvation ("How to Live Forever," which I can't seem to find anywhere online), and a votive candle.

All in all, the whole visit went really well, and our discussion afterward was easily as long as the service. I'll have to plan this earlier next time, so more than just three of us can go.

Good Ol' Family Values

I can't say that I take pleasure in seeing a prominent religious public figure crash and burn under the weight of their own hypocrisy.

Wait a minute... yes I can!

Poor Sarah Palin. Everything seemed to be going so well for her. She was living a truly Christian life - getting pregnant out of wedlock and (likely) rushing into marriage to try to cover it up, promoting abstinence while living with proof that it doesn't work (and teaching her kids to do the same), inspiring fear and hatred in the 'Other' who was running for president, attacking liberal comedians as pedophiles who shouldn't be trusted around children because she couldn't figure out a joke, firing public safety commissioners out of personal vendettas, and sparking rumors of federal indictments for embezzlement.

You know... the sort of pious moral superiority that can only come with a proper religious background. Oh, well; at least she'll soon be mostly out of the limelight and won't have to face that darn liberal media for a while.

This isn't anything new. Religious leaders and religious politicians who tout their values as a sign of just how gosh-darn genuinely religious they are have a bad habit of violating their values in a very, very public way. Larry Craig, anti-homosexuality polemicist; Ted Haggard, megachurch preacher and moral role model; John Ensign, who said Bill Clinton had "no integrity left" after the whole Lewinsky deal; Mark Sanford, who loves to hike the Appalachian trail; Mark Foley, outspoken opponent of child pornography and the exploitation of children and part-time pen pal of underage Congressional pages; Jimmy Swaggart, who made a habit of exposing the indiscretions of his fellow evangelical leaders; and many other religious and political leaders.

Must be very convenient that you can go out and sin all throughout the week, then come back to church on Sunday and get saved all over again!

Church visit: Niskayuna Wesleyan

On March 8, I visited Niskayuna Wesleyan Church. This was my first time in a Wesleyan church, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

The first thing I noticed was the style - very "new evangelical", complete with the praise band (including guitars and a drum kit), the progressive songs, the clapping and dancing, the raising of hands to heaven, the moderate-conservative message, and the big projection screen that displays the scripture and song lyrics. There was a response card in the bulletin that asked you to let them know if you've been saved, as well as a guide to the "ABCs of Salvation" (admit you're a sinner, believe in Christ, confess your sins).

There was a very relaxed atmosphere. Most people were in jeans and polos, though a few people were dressed up. The congregation of about 70-80 people was relatively ethnically diverse, and very vocal - lots of people would speak up in response to scripture, saying "amen", "yes lord", "thank you jesus", et cetera. They were very warm and friendly to newcomers. It was definitely not a fundamentalist church. The service was pretty open-ended; though the bulletin gave an outline of what was going to happen, the details weren't set in stone, and they did a lot more than just what was written.

Near the beginning of the service, they spent about ten minutes discussing an upcoming mission to the Dominican Republic, ending with a laying-on-of-hands prayer for the people who would be going and lots of requests for the ongoing prayers of the congregation.

The scripture reading was the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, which I found incredibly ironic as it's widely agreed to be nothing more than a forgery added after the original text was written. The entire sermon, in fact, was based on this story, and the minister talked about how Jesus had to preach "A simple sermon for a hostile audience" (the name of the sermon). He tried to allude to modern Christians having to give the gospel to people who want to hear it, but he didn't really make that point, instead spending a lot of his time talking about an apocryphal myth about how Charles Wesley brought the gospel to a hostile crowd (complete with the throwing of tomatoes) by changing the lyrics to bar songs so they talked about Jesus - making it a point to say "That's true! It's a true story!" (Oops.) He also talked a lot about the situations Christians live in around the world, never really drawing any parallels to modern America - apart from saying that a city with a big gay and lesbian community was a hostile environment.

Here's a note I took while listening to the sermon, on the subject of the forged story which the minister took as a good guide for moral judgment:

John 8:1-11 talks of Jesus ignoring people's accusations against a sinner, then acting like the people were never there! How does ignoring a problem solve it? Where, in this, is justice? The person who was wronged has no satisfaction. How do people accept a moral standard based on ignoring the real victims and forgiving the sinner?

Also, in the story, Jesus stoops twice to write in the dirt. Why was this important enough to mention, but not what he wrote? A bunch of pointless speculation on what Jesus drew - twice suggesting that they were depictions of miracles.

The minister actually had the gall to say that "Jesus was willing to address the tough questions." Sorry, no. Jesus avoided them completely, or just made something up that sounded wise. The minister also said that, when it came to Jesus and his message of forgiveness and love, "his whole life was an illustration of his message." Does this guy even know anything about the Bible? There are several years of Jesus' life that are eerily absent. How can he claim to know anything about them? Also, how did Jesus' attack on the moneychangers in the temple show forgiveness and love? How about his order that his disciples go out and buy swords?

The sermon was a mixture of shallow thinking on the concept of morality and a bunch of platitudes, such as "leave your burdens at the cross" - which is nice and all, but it doesn't get anything done and doesn't solve anyone's real problems.

He mentioned seeing a kid with an "Outlaw Straight Marriage" sign and said some silly thing about how his heart broke for the kid. (Why are these people incapable of recognizing humor?) This led into a discussion of the recent appearance of Fred Phelps' crew in a nearby town. The projection screen displayed some photos - one of Phelps' signs reading "God Hates Fags" and another reading "God Hates Hateful Christians." The minister equated the two, and made a point of calling Westboro Baptist Church a cult. How ironic. He also talked about how the New Testament means Christians don't have to follow the laws of the Old Testament, quoting the verse about Jesus not coming to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He conveniently left out the very next verse, in which Jesus says - surprise, surprise - the old laws still apply, and will apply until the second coming.

The minister said something to the effect of "Before you go around saying God hates someone, you better make sure he doesn't hate you." Then he later claimed that anyone accusing Christians of un-Christian behavior is doing the devil's work. Clearly he doesn't think the WBC are Christians, but who is he to judge?

Here's a bunch of other notes I took, which I can't form into any kind of coherent narrative...

• Said that a sermon is successful if just one life is changed - "Just one more... at any cost!" So what's the limit of "at any cost"?


• "they are all sinners, and they are all dying in their sin, and they are all going to spend an eternity away from God if they're not born again." They think ANYONE would find this positive??


• (speaking of kids on a college campus) "Look in their faces, and they're empty, and you can see the lostness." Wonder how many of those kids were Christians? He said this about college kids in general because of the trend toward liberalism in college. Nothing like good old fashioned Christian prejudice.


• Conscience is evidence of the knowledge of the truth of your sin? i.e. Feeling guilty is evidence of being worthy of eternal separation from unconditional love? Wow.


• He compared natural gay tendencies to "natural" tendencies to drive off the road or try to jump off a building and fly. *What*? "I have a desire to sin. But I know that breaking that law of God has consequences." More whispered prayer - yes yes, that's right, yes it does, amen, praise god, etc.


• We're all sinners, so we're no better than anyone else (... you just called WBC a cult.)


• Some inane comment about how the three crosses of Calvary were symbols of the three step salvation process (ABC)

I'm simply astonished that these people don't realize how polarizing their message is, and how utterly incapable it is of attracting nonbelievers How many times must they try to convince me that I'm a terrible, evil, sinful, unworthy person? Have they never heard the adage about attracting flies with honey instead of vinegar?

What I found most interesting about this service was that people didn't really seem all that into it unless they were singing. They were most "praiseful" when the music was playing, which makes me wonder if they equated the singing and dancing with worship, and if it isn't just the beat and rhythm making them move instead of the "holy spirit".

I also couldn't get over the feeling that, if they knew I was an atheist, the "friendly neighbor" mode I saw the congregation in would quickly devolve into a "convert the infidel" mode. Part of me felt the old indoctrination stirring, but now that I'm able to recognize it for what it is I can ignore it.

After the service, I couldn't help but think about how much more I knew about the Bible and Christian traditions than even the minister appeared to. They truly, deeply believe, but they clearly don't give any serious critical thought to their beliefs (nor do I think they would ever want to). Though the service was invigorating (inasmuch as the music made me want to dance and the people were warm), I don't see any reason to return. The message was nothing but how disgustingly unworthy of God's love we are, but how he's such a nice guy that he's going to love us anyways.

I'm not a fan of that kind of emotional abuse.