Agreed. Religions vary.

Faith itself is the problem, not religion in general. Both good and bad things can come from religion, but faith (as in "to believe something on faith") is the dangerous, awful thing (whether of the religious sort or not). It helps people convince themselves that certain cherished beliefs are true despite the fact that the evidence isn't there to support those beliefs. We should teach people to be more careful what they believe, especially given the fact that the human mind is very prone to self-deception and bias.

What do you mean by "faith?"

Many times, when people refer to faith, they mean "blind faith" or "leap of faith." I.e., holding a belief in total absence of (or even contrary to) evidence.

However, this particular notion of faith is a human construction, not a Biblical one. The Biblical idea of faith is more akin to "trust based on evidence," not "wishing." Some examples:

1. God tells Moses to perform miracles so that Egypt and the Hebrew people will see the evidence and believe. "By this you shall know that I am the Lord."

2. Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:37-39. "'O Lord, answer me, that this people may know...'"

3. Jesus healing the paralytic in Mark 2:10-12. "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven'; or to say, 'Arise, and take up your pallet and walk'?"

4. Peter's sermon in Acts 2. "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ -- this Jesus whom you crucified."

In each case, there was an appeal to knowledge in order to form belief.

That aside, and also setting aside the much larger question of what evidence exists for different worldviews, I disagree that faith itself is the problem. It's not faith, but what you have faith in, that matters. Linus's belief in the Great Pumpkin never hurt anybody. Suicide bombers hoping for dozens of virgins in the afterlife are less harmonious with society.

Hi Cliff. Thanks for the conversation! You made some good points.

I agree that there are several different meanings of "faith" floating around, and I also agree that there are some places in the Bible, as you quoted, that promote evidence-based belief as opposed to faith-based belief. That's cool.

However, there is at least one passage that explicitly promotes the blind variety of faith. For example, the story of "Doubting Thomas":
John 20:29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

I don't think it can get any clearer than this...Jesus taught that it is virtuous for people to believe blindly, at least in some cases.

But having said all that, none of these quotes actually shed any light on what the bible means by "faith" itself, since in none of those quotes is faith even mentioned. All we know from these is that in some places the bible basically says you should base your beliefs on evidence and in other places it says you should believe without evidence.

Bible quotations aside...by common usage, even religious people themselves claim to believe only some things "on faith" but not other things. If you look into what kinds of beliefs are judged as faith-based and which ones are not, it becomes abundantly clear that the distinction is how much evidence is available (or what counts as evidence). Why not hold all beliefs to the same standard of scrutiny?

I take your point that not all faith leads to badness. My point, however, is that, as a means for separating true beliefs from false ones, faith is an extremely unreliable method. Protected from the normal standards of evidence and reason that people insist on for their other beliefs, the faith-based ones get to persist whether they are consistent with reality or not. They only have to feel true to the believer. And we all know that people easily fall for wishful thinking...

Dear Mr. Guthrie:

It seems to me that you and Peter Berkowitz have gotten Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens all confused in your mind as if they were all this one big New Angry Atheist.

Anyone who's actually read their books and seen them speak on Youtube know they are different. And perhaps only Hitchens takes the view that all religions are toxic. Although they certainly share some of the same views, each author has a different approach and thinking regarding religion.

Dennet points out in his book, Breaking The Spell, that religion may be quite useful, and at present we have nothing to replace religion. Dawkins, in contrast, feels we can replace religion with brave, honest scientific inquiry. On the other hand, one of Harris' major ideas in his books and lectures is that not all religions teach the same thing, and where they do, they do not teach it equally well. Harris also make a point that none of the other authors do: people can have spiritual experiences without the need of religion. Lastly, Hitchens does not share Dennet's view that religion needs replacing at all.

I think it is highly ironic that you should accuse "angry atheist" of thinking that all religions are alike, while ignorant of the fact that these authors do not share all the same thinking on religion and do not treat all religions alike. And why do you call them "angry"? I've never seen Harris, Dennet, or Dawkins in any way except civil and polite.

Hmm... I read the "Doubting Thomas" passage quite differently.

All your friends, whom you have trusted with your life over the past many months, tell you with their utmost conviction that a wonderful miracle has occurred. But you choose to ignore their strident testimony, and demand first-hand evidence.

That's what I think Jesus was admonishing Thomas for: He wasn't saying blind faith is best, He was saying that people who don't make unreasonable demands for evidence are better off. Thomas had more than enough evidence second-hand from his comrades.

In fact, if blind faith is best, then none of the eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection were "blessed" in this regard, which seems odd. Again, I would submit the Great Pumpkin example. I am most blessed, because I believe Jesus will return as the Great Pumpkin. There's absolutely no tradition or Biblical account of this (but you know, the Roman Catholic Church removed all references to this in the third century).

I have a hard time believing that Jesus, who otherwise appeared to be a rational human being (no matter what you think of his deity), would advocate "the biggest fairy tale wins."

So I think the Bible is consistent on faith. Evidence produces knowledge. Faith is the active trust in that knowledge. Maybe Jesus wasn't resurrected. Maybe George Washington didn't really have wooden teeth. Both are questions of history in which we can have a certain amount of certainty. There's no certainty, so there's always room for faith.

Maybe "faith" was easiest for Moses, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and the early Christian church, since they had direct (or less indirect) access to actual miracles. But, arguably, there is enough remaining evidence regarding the historicity of the Bible and early church that we can reliably have "faith" in the truth of miracles and Jesus without settling for "blind" faith. And even with our evidentially-based faith, we are blessed.

I agree that modern Evangelicals often don't have the take on Biblical faith that I am offering. But that's arguably just tradition. Protestants especially are supposed to be Biblically grounded. So I think it's best to just explore what the Bible teaches.

By the way, I'm just ripping off the Stand To Reason teaching on this topic, e.g.:

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5244

Thanks for the response. :-)

Stan, the difference between Hitchen's beliefs and religious beliefs are that Hitchen's beliefs are falsifiable. He bases his beliefs on evidence and is completely willing to change his beliefs based on evidence. For example, I, as well as every other believer in evolution, would be completely willing to abandon their belief in evolution if reliable evidence were to come up showing it was false. In fact, we would praise this new discovery. However, in the face of evidence, religious belief is dogmatic. This is a serious problem.

The old testament is useless. The church doesn't even know who wrote the first five books. (no Hebrew scholar will tell you it was moses) The new testament is completely unreliable and was written decades after the actual events being described. Taking into consideration human nature and examples like Cargo Cults, it's ridiculous to believe that, if there is a god, we have any evidence to demonstrate this.

You can teach your children to be good because Santa is watching them or you can teach them to be good by utilizing rationality in support of the human interest. One teaches your children no useful skills. One teaches your children to understand the world around them.

It's time to abandon religious belief. Believing in something without evidence is naive, irresponsible, and dangerous.

Cliff wrote:
[...]That's what I think Jesus was admonishing Thomas for: He wasn't saying blind faith is best, He was saying that people who don't make unreasonable demands for evidence are better off. Thomas had more than enough evidence second-hand from his comrades.

So you're saying (among other things) that it was unreasonable for Thomas to demand physical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead? That he would not believe such an extraordinary claim (people don't normally rise from the dead) based solely on the word of his friends? What's the minimum evidence you'd require to believe your friends if they all told you that they had seen Elvis? Or, better yet, that they had seen somebody teleport themselves? With only their words, would you be more likely to think that they had all been tricked, or that what they claimed was true?

'Faith' is a fuzzy word but not in Christinanity. Abraham was prepared to murder Isaac on faith. How, pray tell, does this differe from suicide bombers who fly into buildings? The reason most religious people in the West do not act like this is because they are less faithful and follow their religion with less ardour.

The premise of atheists is that reason and verifiable evidence are presuppositions to belief. Atheists assert that if sufficient proof of religion’s basic tenants is provided they will gladly adopt those beliefs based upon the evidence – but not based upon “blind” faith. Atheists thus set preconditions that are unresponsive to the nature of religion. They want a scientific (i.e. one based upon verifiable proofs and methods) answer to an inherently unscientific subject. Atheists therefore marginalize themselves by this premise which ipso facto precludes them from real inquiry into God and religion, prevents them from authentically considering the notion of “reasoned” as opposed to “blind” faith, and renders them largely irrelevant. Whether God exists or not involves a supernatural fact not verifiable by “science” or “evidence” or “proof”...and demanding them has no impact on that fact.

When the Second Coming of Christ occurs, atheists may see Him coming down from the sky with a host of angelic beings and instantly have sufficient “evidence” to believe this is an alien visitation and “proof” of intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos. They’ll be right about the “intelligent life” part, but their a priori dependence on reason and scientific proof will imbed them in temporal explanations while the supernatural possibilities will be beyond their grasp.

It would be nice if atheists, seekers, and believers could personally stick their hands into Jesus’ wounds. Then we would have our evidence. But we can’t, and no amount of wanting “proof” will change that fact. Some of us, faced with this circumstance, are atheists. Others have faith and are believers. And many of us are like Thomas: we have doubts no matter what our friends say.

To any atheist insistent that there is "no" evidence I would suggest they read Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ.

One further point to the person that insists it is those who don't believe evolution is true to disprove it. Please correct me if I am wrong but I have never heard that evolution has been scientifically proven to be true. It seems to me that if evolution were scientifically proven there would not remain any way for it to be refuted. Could someone tell me who proved it so I can check that person's proof for myself?

"So you're saying (among other things) that it was unreasonable for Thomas to demand physical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead?"

Yes.

"That he would not believe such an extraordinary claim (people don't normally rise from the dead) based solely on the word of his friends?"

Yes. Under the circumstances, I think Thomas was unreasonable.

"What's the minimum evidence you'd require to believe your friends if they all told you that they had seen Elvis? Or, better yet, that they had seen somebody teleport themselves? With only their words, would you be more likely to think that they had all been tricked, or that what they claimed was true?"

The circumstances are different. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) said that someday the Messiah would come and accomplish His own resurrection (among other things). Jesus claimed to be this Messiah on many occasions, and performed many miracles and fulfilled many ancient prophesies to back up his claim.

Not only did Jesus claim the resurrection indirectly, He said directly that He would die and accomplish his own resurrection. "Tear down this temple and I will re-build it in three days."

Even with all this set-up, the apostles appeared surprised when the resurrection occurred, granted. However, in Thomas's case, with all the prophesy, other miracles of Jesus, and earnest testimony from not one but several of your closest friends, I think Jesus was saying, "Thomas, you are being a bit thick here."

Is it possible that each apostle separately experienced the same hallucination? Sure, anything is possible, and that has been postulated by others, but it strikes me as bogus. People generally don't dream the same exact dreams, whether they are sleep- or drug-induced or whatever. This would be a singularly-occuring phenomenon in all of history.

Would I personally demand direct evidence for a miracle in all cases? Nope. When he was still alive, my dad -- who was one of the most sober, even-tempered people I've ever known -- told me about an out-of-body experience he once had. It happened when I was in high school, he was being treated in the hospital for a minor heart attack, and they gave him some medicine that he reacted to violently. He described the experience to me in some detail.

Was he lying to me about what he experienced? No way. Was he hallucinating? Possibly, but he certainly didn't think so. And since claims of out-of-body experiences are not uncommon, and my dad was never particularly interested in such things before, I think it's quite possible that it could have happened.

The only way you can say that it definitely didn't happen is if you have an a priori prejudice against the supernatural. Without conclusive proof that the supernatural does not exist (and I don't think atheism or the like can offer one), a fair-minded individual in my circumstance would have to conclude that it quite possibly could have happened.

Now, you don't know me, and you don't know my dad, so to you it could just be so much hooey. But you asked me how I would respond to a miracle claim when I didn't have direct evidence, so I answered. :-)

On the other hand, my sister is a big Edgar Cayce fan, don't get me started on that...

I will respond to Russel first and to Jeff below.

Russell, strict proof is possible only in logic and mathematics, not science, so you are trivially true. Your confusion arises in that the colloquial meaning of proof is simply "compelling evidence", in which case scientists would indeed consider evolution "proven".

Critics of evolution frequently assert that evolution is "just a theory and not a fact." This reflects a misunderstanding of the meaning of theory in a scientific context: whereas in colloquial speech a theory is a conjecture or guess, in science a theory is an explanation or model of the world that makes testable predictions.

For example, "the Earth revolves around the Sun" and "objects fall due to gravity" is often referred to as "facts", even though these are theories. From a scientific standpoint, therefore, the theory of evolution is as much a "fact" as "the earth revolves around the sun" and "objects fall due to gravity."

Thus, evolution is widely considered both a theory and a fact by scientists.

In response to Jeff, a majority of religious people only believe in a very narrow subset of all supernatural explanations of reality. For example, the vast majority of Christians do not think that we are reincarnated and the vast majority of Hindus do not believe in heaven or hell. Since your reasoning for believing one over the other is the same reasoning used by a believer of another religion you cannot make claims about the "truth" of your own beliefs and the "untruth" of the opposing beliefs as this would not be fair and honest. Either accept all religious claims for the same reasons or reject all religious claims for the same reasons.

In contrast, if a scientist saw a bush suddenly burst out in flames, a scientist would not call this event supernatural, nor deny that this is happening. Instead, he/she would curiously examine it. Immediately assuming a supernatural explanation is a logical fallacy. It's dishonest, irresponsible, and frankly, it's just lazy.

(Apparently there is another Patrick now contributing to this liveblog. I've been using the pseudonym for months and am not about to give it up.)

Jesus' words to Thomas were at one time some of his most difficult for me to reconcile. As a rational Christian, who believes that God has given us both reason and free will and expects us to use them to serve and give glory to Him, I can only conclude that the Resurrection was such a monumental miracle that Christ knew that many of us would have a hard time believing it without seeing it. He did not condemn Thomas' doubting, nor did he even say it is "better" to believe with out seeing. I believe the exchange was included in the Gospel to reassure us who often fall prey to doubt that there are in fact some central miraculous truths in Christianity, to affirm our God-given tendency to doubt what we do not see, and to acknowledge that those who can more easily believe without external evidence in the great Truth we call the Resurrection do in fact have things a little easier.

The work of theologian D. Midbar refers strongly to texts like "The Cloud of Unknowing" and the writings of Meister Eckhart to make an interesting case for prayer that challenges both theists and atheists.

The main essay is at www.atheistprayer.blogspot.com

Also consider the Christian theology of Rev. Don Cupitt at doncupitt.com

Cliff, your story of your father's out-of-body experience is illuminating, and I think gets to the heart of something important about our different ways of looking at things.

You concede that it's possible that your father was hallucinating, but that he "certainly didn't think so". The fact that it felt real to him isn't actually reliable evidence, right? It seems more likely that it was just a really good hallucination, caused by the anaesthetic drugs he was on (which I'll guess he was previously inexperienced with). Hallucinations are a very well known side-effect of anaesthesia.

But then you go on with an argument that looks to me like "I can't say for certain that X definitely didn't happen, therefore I'm justified in believing that it did happen". This is fallacious reasoning.

The best we can ever hope to do is to draw from our experiences and reasoning to infer probabilities about things (not absolute certainty), then form more-or-less tentative beliefs accordingly. The beliefs that have the best support should have more certainty behind them, and those with less support should have less certainty.

So the question is not whether it COULD have been a true hallucination, but rather how likely is it to have been one. Given the fact that you:
1) have evidence for certain naturalistic causes for this unusual experience (the mind-altering drugs he was on)
and
2) have no evidence for supernatural causes

then right off the bat, it should (in my opinion) seem more likely (but not absolutely certain) that your father had a hallucination than that he had a true out-of-body experience.

You are correct that the only way we can say that supernatural things definitely don't happen is to base that on faith (my word for it), not on evidence. However, evidence does allow us to infer probabilities. If you have some evidence to support explanation X, but you have no evidence to support explanation Y, then the best you can conclude is that X seems more likely than Y (until new evidence comes in to change things).

In response to Patrick, if (by “narrow subset”) you are suggesting that people of different religions hold different beliefs I obviously agree. However, to make the illogical leap that my reasoning is the same reasoning used by someone of another faith tradition is to underestimate my—and their—reasoning, apparently in an effort to conveniently lump “all religious claims” into one amorphous group. Religious claims are not interchangeable, nor do they all fall even if some are wrong. (Interestingly, atheists revere the scientific method—where competing ideas get rigorously tested in a search for truth—only to brand a testing of competing beliefs among diverse religious thinkers somehow “not…fair and honest”.)

Differences among believers are irrelevant to the core issue facing atheists, i.e. “Is there a supernatural creator, or not?” For people of many faiths the answer is not a “narrow subset” it is a resounding “Yes”. Whether, in hindsight, one religious tradition or another ends up closer to the truth is no consolation for the atheist who believes that fundamentally none of them are true.

As for the burning bush comparison the scientist, steeped in his methodology of examination and measurement, might react as you suggest—after he got over his utter amazement that a bush would spontaneously combust but not burn up. Poor Moses probably didn’t think about measuring anything, although he went over to the bush to see why it wouldn’t burn up (to “curiously examine it” to use your words). I would think he had never in his long life seen such a bush, and that he might conclude that natural causes were not at work—especially when a voice spoke to him from the bush (Exodus 3: 1-4). God only knows what the scientist would have thought when the bush began talking to him.

Patrick (not the original) writes:

'In response to Jeff, a majority of religious people only believe in a very narrow subset of all supernatural explanations of reality. For example, the vast majority of Christians do not think that we are reincarnated and the vast majority of Hindus do not believe in heaven or hell.'

That sounds accurate.

'Since your reasoning for believing one over the other is the same reasoning used by a believer of another religion you cannot make claims about the "truth" of your own beliefs and the "untruth" of the opposing beliefs as this would not be fair and honest. Either accept all religious claims for the same reasons or reject all religious claims for the same reasons.'

I disagree. Christian apologists would respond that there is more evidentiary support for Christianity than any other miracle-claiming religion.

On the Christian apologist's view, the figure of Jesus and His resurrection were predicted hundreds of years in advance. There were many eyewitnesses to His miracles and resurrection. At great personal cost and no conceivable earthly gain, they recorded their testimony and proclaimed His deity, ultimately leading to their torture and death. Through extensive manuscript copying and centuries of church tradition, the genuineness of this witness by the original apostles has been preserved.

I.e., the Christian miracle claim is not being made in a evidentiary vacuum. You personally might not find it compelling, but there is enough evidence that a person could find it compelling without being thought unreasonable.

On the other hand, to my knowledge there is not corresponding evidential basis for other religions (save Judaism where it overlaps Christianity). The Hindu religious writings have arguably been corrupted and are unreliable. Islam claims only one miracle in the Quran (i.e., the origin of the Quran, supported by the testimony of one person); all other Islam miracle claims are made in tradition literature (Hadith) hundreds of years after Muhammed died. To my knowledge, most other religions, if they make miracle claims at all, do not have evidentiary support for what they claim.

Certainly, the Hindu, the Muslim, or whoever have counter-arguments for their miracle evidence versus what I've characterized here. My point is that it's inaccurate to simply say (as Hume did) that miracle claims cancel each other out. Some claims have more evidentiary support than others.

"In contrast, if a scientist saw a bush suddenly burst out in flames, a scientist would not call this event supernatural, nor deny that this is happening. Instead, he/she would curiously examine it. Immediately assuming a supernatural explanation is a logical fallacy. It's dishonest, irresponsible, and frankly, it's just lazy."

Hmm... I guess I see it differently. We are all going to spend much more time dead (to this world) than alive. There are several thousand years of collected human wisdom, and perhaps divine inspiration, in the many sacred writings of the various religions. It's laziness (and imprudent) not to at least give a cursory examination of each -- particularly their evidential basis -- in case some truth can be gleaned about where we are going to end up. You say believing in miracles is the easy way out and prevents you from challenging the natural world for better explanations -- I say a bias against the supernatural prevents you from doing sound philosophy/theology. Which area of human knowledge is more important, in the long run?

When you consider how small these books really are along with much time most people have in their lives to study them (and their evidentiary basis) and how potentially important these books could be, it's really quite shocking that hardly anybody bothers to do their homework.

In response to Mr. (Ms.?) godma:

My dad wasn't on anesthesia at the time, to my knowledge. It wasn't surgery, he was being transported from a medical plane to a research hospital. It was likely some drug like nitroglycerin or some such to thin his blood or otherwise prevent further cardiac events. The important point is that it was meant to heal in some way, but resulted in a severe allergic reaction that almost killed him. He heard the doctors/nurses say "we're losing him" and then had the (admittedly cliche) experience of seeing himself from above.

Anyway, I don't really know what it was that they gave him, so I guess that gives you enough wiggle room to believe what you want to about this event. :-)

I'm not one given to mysticism in religion. It's a two-edged sword anyway -- everybody wants a miracle to happen to them, but what if the cost is knowing God (or whatever) really does exist, wants you to behave in a certain way, and now you know with absolute certainty that you _must_ spend the rest of your life in the service of this supernatural Being or risk eternal damnation, etc.? Who really wants to be a Jonah or a Paul, in the end? (If you don't know the historical accounts of these men, read Jonah and read Acts regarding Paul's conversion.)

But this event with my dad (and one or two others I've heard from people I trust that I'm not going to share here) eventually served one important purpose -- they helped shake me loose from my hardened anti-supernaturalism. I don't believe every coincidence that I hear about. But I don't summarily dismiss them anymore, either.

'But then you go on with an argument that looks to me like "I can't say for certain that X definitely didn't happen, therefore I'm justified in believing that it did happen". This is fallacious reasoning.'

I think my case is stronger than that. There's no good reason for me to believe it was an anesthesia-induced hallucination. He wasn't in a situation that required anesthesia. The event seemed to be in reaction to almost dying, rather than being doped up. And he didn't dream about being bodily carried off to heaven by the Great Pumpkin (sorry, I love that example). He claims to have had an out-of-body experience similar to what others have claimed; maybe they claimed the same experience because they really did all have the same experience. And he wasn't pre-occupied with out-of-body experiences beforehand, so it's not likely that he just dreamed about it because he knew something about it from before.

Furthermore, the world seems like it could be a place where the supernatural happens. Arguably, there are no satisfying purely natural explanations for:

1. How the universe came from nothing.

2. How human consciousness came from nothing. (I've _never_ heard a natural explanation for this one.)

3. How the human conscience came from nothing.

4. How the fundamental laws of the universe are set to such precision that any variation would result in no life, or even no universe, at all.

Between my knowledge of my dad's experience, and my understanding of the way the universe is likely to work (and the apparent room for the supernatural), I think it's reasonable for me to believe it really did happen. "I can't say for certain that X definitely didn't happen" understates the evidence, in my view.

I think the important point is the one I made above about the two-edged sword of direct miracle evidence. With an anti-supernatural bias in hand, it's very easy to set up an impossible standard for God (or whatever potential supernatural being or force or whatnot). Would a world of Paul and Jonah robotic slaves to God be a good world? Isn't free will, in some measure, a good thing?

The challange that belivers put to atheists is, well if you take away my God-centered religion, then what will I believe? What will replace it? My response is, why must religion be replaced?

Believers are conditioned to think a certain way. To have spirtual answers to unknowns. An anchor and social group for support. Because of this way of thinking, they want the atheist to propose an alternative that gives them the same of what hey already have.

It is not possible or an atheist to do this since atheism is not a dogma. But there alternatives to theism and some of which are alien to our culture. Buddhism is an atheistic religion for example.

The problem is not that the atheist cannot provide an alternative, but that the believer cannot think outside of their closed religious box and open to other possibilities.

Funny how some atheists like to bolster their claims by citing Buddhism as an atheistic religion. Theravada Buddhism might be described that way but it would still be a stretch; however, most Buddhists believe in a higher power and some even believe in a personal god or gods.

Sorry, but "I am certain there is no God" is a dogma because you are stating an unprovable supposition as true. The only way to approach this topic that is completely free of dogma is to suspend judgement (the agnostic approach), or by making a statement along the lines of "My own experience has not provided me with any evidence that leads me to believe in the existence of God."

By the way, Jerseyguy, it's a big ol' world out there. Get to know some thinking Christians and you'll find out that there is a lot of discussion on the nature of life and the universe, that some of us believe in evolution and other findings of science, and that many of us acknowledge that there are things that are simply unknowable. Sorry that the ones you've met have all functioned within a closed box.

And by the way, when are one of the atheist organizations going to establish a poverty-fighting or peacemaking program to try to do some real good in the world? I'd much rather support a faith-based organization that might get some existential questions wrong but strives to do good in this here-and-now world than to an organization that spends its time and money navel-gazing and bitzing about people of faith.

Patrick,

"I am certain there is no God" is a dogma

True, in the sense that you mean, but this only describes the "strong" atheists. Atheism in general means nothing more or less than non-theism. The two are synonymous.

Regarding atheist charities, there are lots of non-religious charities (which is what atheism means). Maybe you were only looking for "strong atheist" charities?

I found a short list here: http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2007/07/atheist_charity_results.php

Also, I heard that UNICEF is non-religious, but haven't found a clear reference.

Thanks for the clarification, Cliff. You made your point really well. I think I mostly understand you, and will readily concede that your father's experience is harder to explain than the drug-induced hallucination hypothesis.

Still, it seems that (regardless of the specifics of what we're talking about) the supernatural is inherently uncooperative at being testable, so we'll always be stuck in a state where, however hard to explain things might be, natural explanations are always going to be better supported by evidence than supernatural explanations. Supernatural explanations that I have heard for things are pretty much never supported by evidence, but rather by lack of evidence for any particular natural explanation.

Is this an unfair bias against supernatural explanations? Not necessarily. It is merely an admittance that we can't test supernatural explanations. That being the case, all supernatural explanations have equal evidence supporting them. All we have to go on to choose a particular one of them over the others is our own emotional biases.

You mentioned 4 questions that we don't have good natural explations for:

1. How the universe came from nothing.
We don't know whether the universe actually did come from nothing. Leading scientific theories would actually not put it this way.

2. How human consciousness came from nothing. (I've _never_ heard a natural explanation for this one.)

This is part of the field called "evolutionary psychology", which is pretty young still, but is being actively pursued. If you google that or "evolution of consciousness" you will find lots of stuff on it. But here's my take

Basically, it evolved from simpler beginnings. Most theories I've seen say that human self-consciousness developed along with (or as a side effect of) the advent of language, which came along as our ancestors evolved greater ability to speak more and more complex sounds. Language allowed more complex organization and cooperation between people, and over time language (and the correspondingly increasing brain size) allowed our ancestors to build more and more complex mental models of the outside world, including mental models of other people. A large factor in theories of consciousness is this social aspect. After getting to the point where our ancestors were able to form complex mental models of other people in order to predict their actions, it was not much further along when they would have started forming mental models of themselves as well. This first "feedback loop" of a mind perceiving a mental model of itself would have been the first instance of self-consciousness as we think of it today.

Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of a book on this very thing: _I Am A Strange Loop_, by Douglas Hofstadter.

3. How the human conscience came from nothing.
Very similar story to #2. It evolved (genetically AND culturally).

4. How the fundamental laws of the universe are set to such precision that any variation would result in no life, or even no universe, at all.

This is a tough one all right. The standard answer, it seems to me, is the anthropic principle: if the universe were different, we wouldn't be here to ask the question in the first place. This is a bit contraversial though, since it isn't really an answer. It does raise a good point, though. We're here, so of course this universe supports life. Maybe zillions of universes have existed with slightly different laws, but we are in this one because it's the only one that could have produced us. It's impossible that we would have evolved in any of the other ones. (but of course, it's pure conjecture that other universes might exist).

I have a book on this very topic (not the anthropic principle, but the deeper question) that I'm going to start when I've finished the above. It looks excellent. The Mind of God, by Paul Davies

godma,

So what you're saying is "atheist" simply means "secular?" Are you ready to say that public schools are "atheist schools?" Unfortunately, some on the religious right have been saying that for years.

UNICEF is certainly not affiliated with any religion, nor should it be; it's a UN program. Neither are Alternative Gifts International, America's Second Harvest, Heifer Project International, Kiva Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, and I think it's a little disingenuous for that writer at scienceblogs to suggest that these are atheist charities when they make no claims about the existence of God. But they can rightly be called secular, just as public schools and our nation itself are secular. Secular leaves room for people of faith; it simply does not promote faith.

I can appreciate your distinction between strong and weak atheism, but I'm trying to find a counterpart in Christianity. No Christian wants to be called a weak Christian, though again the fundamentalists would probably apply such a label to a somewhat-liberal like me. Would most atheists refer to themselves as "weak atheists?"

That's a great question, Patrick. I see now that I made a mistake when I said that "atheist" is the same as "non-religious". Sorry about that, and thanks for questioning me on it.

Here's my second try, after a night of sleep: :)
Whereas secular means "not associated with religion", atheist means "without belief in deities". So they're not quite the same. You can be one but not the other (depending on your definition of religion).

Applied specifically to our government, "secularism" refers specifically to the separation of powers, not to any specific beliefs or disbeliefs. Our governmental institutions are called secular because they are supposed to stay disassociated from religion, not because they are supposed to profess a lack a belief in deities.

A great many people who believe in God also happen to be secularists.

Missed your last question.

I do think most people who call themselves "atheist" are actually "weak atheists". There are even more people who I would call "weak atheist" but who call themselves "agnostic".

But it's interesting. Even on the "strong" side, how certain do you have to be about something before you'll say you "believe" it? It's probably something less than 100%, right? I believe that I'm not hallucinating right now, but I wouldn't put it at 100%. I believe there are no leprochauns, but I can't say for certain that there aren't. My belief that there is no God is similar. I'm certain enough about it to say I believe but not 100%..

Probably many people who DO believe in God wouldn't put their certainty at 100% either, right? Everyone has their own personal scale for how certain they have to be about something before they'll say they "believe" it.

Thanks, godma. Count me in as a political secularist (because I believe strongly in separation of church and state) who is also an ardent Christian, so I appreciate the distinction. I think when we use secular we refer primarily to institutions and processes rather than individuals. The term "secular humanism" is not troubling to me when it pertains to a philosophy, but "secular humanist" when it pertains to a person is because it seems to confuse the term with atheism, in which the correct term would be atheistic humanist. Or, it could refer to someone who simply gives no thought to religion, but with the current religious climate that seems improbable today ("you can't be neutral on a moving train").

You know, that very thing has bothered me about "secular humanist" as well!

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