Christian Leap Logic

    Christians, and by extension most theists, employ a wonderful tool of reasoning that I like to call CLL, or Christian Leap Logic. In short this means that if Item A is true, totally unrelated Item B must also be true. Once you understand how this reasoning works it is fairly easy to disassemble almost all arguments for theism.

     For example: Item A: the Bible mentions accurate geographical places. Totally unrelated Item B: Jesus performed miracles. This isn't an example I pulled out of thin air. It happens to be one of Lee Strobel's favorite arguments. Read it in More Than a Carpenter if you can stomach it.

     Another example: Item A: the universe must have had a beginning. Totally unrelated Item B: God is the creator of the universe and is imbued with all the attributes described of him in the Bible. This one if from Dr. Turek in his book I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

     CLL accounts for the vast majority of arguments I've heard from Christians. To be honest, it saddens me. I honestly believe that if Christians would employ actual logic...well, they wouldn't be Christians. Other than the fact that I don't think Christians and other theists would stop believing if it weren't for CLL, I also think they would understand their place in the world somewhat better.

     Christians, if they applied normal logic, would understand their own beliefs. They would understand that people who want to live their own lives in a manner that is different are not a threat to them. They would realize that being the majority does not necessarily mean that you get your way. They would understand that other people expressing themselves is not a form of persecution. They wouldn't react based on fear, emotion, guesses or...faith.

The Why

    Lack of belief, on its face, is hard to justify. Put in any other context it almost seems absurd. Nobody would interrogate me on why I don't skydive or eat bananas. Yet, the fact that I don't believe is enough to bring frustration and tears to my parents. It is as though belief is the default position and straying from that is somehow abarrant and dangerous. I understand why. As a believer, Hell awaits those who don't think like you. But when you step outside that box, things look very different.

     We all share a certain level of non-belief. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of gods that you don't believe in no matter what your faith is. Why we find the gods of ancient cultures absurd is something I don't understand. The Greeks had as much reason to believe in their gods as we do ours, but for some reason one set of deities is taught as mythology and another is taught as fact. From a young age, I never understood this. I understand it better now, simply because I have acknowledged that it simply makes no sense.

     In the objections below I will refer to the Christian god since that is the one I am most familiar with due to my personal experience. Please apply them to the gods of your personal belief, whatever that might happen to be.

     Objection 1: Why is God any different than any other god? In other words, out of all the innumerable faiths throughout history why is yours the right one? Invariably when I ask this question I have a so-called holy book waved at me. Well, if there was only one such book, that might be a worthwhile argument, but there are many books to support many gods, so why is your book the book? I have heard many empty answers to this, but none are convincing. If you were to rearrange the names of any religious story even its adherents would find it absurd.

     Objection 2: Religion is so often wrong. Throughout history religion has been used primarily to explain the world we live in. The origins of life, the world, the universe, sin, pain, suffering and the very meaning of life were all under the purview of religion to explain. Religion has always been wrong on these subjects. Science has answered many of the questions that religion offered meager explanations for. In all cases, science has done better at solving these problems. In fact, invariably, religion constantly takes the best of scientific reasoning and them mutates it to fit their primitive ideas. Why should I believe the claims of miracles or eternal salvation when the claims of our origins or even basic history are incorrect? When science is proven incorrect, it is always by improved science. No scientific hypothesis has been proven wrong by an ancient text.

     Objection 3: Religion is immoral. I need not list the crimes of the followers of any particular religion here. For one thing, they are too extensive to possibly summarize. However, I mean that the religions themselves are immoral. In almost all cases, sectarian violence, segregation and discrimination of those who believe differently are all encouraged. In the case of the Christian god, sin is cured through the vicarious sacrifice of the only allegedly sinless individual of all time who also happens to be god himself. The mandate of self-hatred is unavoidable.

     I find it all fantastical and pathetic. I want nothing to do with it, and neither should you.

One Step Further

I've been told that I always take things one step beyond normal. I over-think. I over-analyze. I've been told that my train of thought veers way off the tracks and that people have a hard time keeping up. That might all be true. I certainly hope so.

See, I don't want to be normal. I don't want to have an irrational thought and grasp onto it thinking that it resembles Truth. I want to seek the patterns and currents of thought. I want to know the Why behind everything. Why do we do what we do? Why do we like certain foods and not others? Why do we date certain people? Why do we continue bad behaviors even though we know better? Why do people keep electing Republicans? You know... irrational stuff like that.

Earlier today I heard the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series on a radio show. It was a good interview. Except for one thing he said. Now, I may misquote him here, but: "There is a blessing in every tragedy".

I take issue with a statement like that. Anybody who wants to take 8-12 seconds of thought can disprove that statement. We can instantly think of tragic events that have not ended up as blessings. The Holocaust. The massacre of millions in Russia and China during the Communist Revolutions. Jonestown. Any music produced by Phillip Glass. You know... really really horrible things.

But see what we just did? We applied a few seconds of thought to something we were told. I know that perhaps hundreds of thousands of people heard that statement today and simply took it at face value. Some people may have even written it down to share with others. They didn't actually think about it.

It's that extra step that I think is important. I think if more people kept thinking about things, we'd be a lot less likely to spew crap like that. We'd just think to ourselves that it's not true and we'd let it slide. I think we'd be better off only passing on to others things that we've actually applied some effort into thinking about ourselves. It's called Food for Thought for a reason. You're supposed to think about it.