1. The Christian religion posits an all-powerful, omnipresent god who cares greatly about human beings as a whole and, indeed, who is concerned with each of us as individuals. Yet, in scrutinizing what is alleged to be god’s magnificent creation, the most conspicuous fact given by observation is god’s utter absence from it. If god exists, he is a silent, inert sluggard who cannot be bothered to make his existence manifest, despite the fact that, in biblical times, he was full of wonders, miracles and prodigies.

2. The Bible, which, according to Christians, is the inspired word of an omniscient god, does not contain the slightest shred of internal evidence to support that contention. Indeed, every single sentence in the entire tome could have been written by any first century commoner with the rare talent of literacy. Men’s ignorance in biblical times was so comprehensive as to be rather shocking; the Bible fully captures, and credulously regurgitates, the ancient ignorance of its time.

3. On Christianity, god is interested in human salvation, and the religion quite clearly holds that salvation is achieved through saving faith. It is interesting, then, that god has not been more proactive in disseminating this rather important point, given the fact that, even now, there are remote places that the Christian message has not yet penetrated. Christianity’s slow spread by the efforts of man indicates god, if existent, does not much care whether his message is heard.

4. With its bizarre tales and miracle claims, the Bible reads like any common collection of mythology. A world in which a virgin birth occurs, men rise from the dead, miraculous healings are effected and street magic is not mere illusion bears no similarity to, and has no relationship with, the world in which we find ourselves, where the laws of nature are immutable. When one reads mythology and legendry, one finds precisely the same topsy-turvy world one recognizes from the Bible.

5. Although even some Christians discount the factual veracity of most of the Old Testament, many still dogmatically hold to the myths about Moses and the Israelites. The best available evidence indicates the flight from Egypt, wandering in the desert and conquest of the Promised Land did not ever occur. Indeed, rather than the Israelites conquering Canaan following the Exodus, most of them, in fact, had always been there. That is, the Israelites were simply Canaanites who forged a distinct culture. The Old Testament contains nothing more than self-aggrandizing folktales.

6. One of the few theological tenets that are clearly open to scientific experimentation is prayer. And, in fact, the efficacy of intercessory prayer has been tested in a rigorous and credible way. The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP), supported by the John Templeton Foundation, which attempts to wed religious and scientific thinking, found that intercessory prayer had no effect on complication-free recovery from coronary artery bypass graft surgery. In this case, prayer was tested credibly and it comprehensively failed.

7. The fact of Darwinian evolution by natural selection contradicts biblical Christianity and shows it to be false. Although some proportion of Christians has succeeded, in their minds, in melding the Christian faith with recognition of Darwinian fact, this seems a fruitless exercise. There is not a whisper of Darwinian understanding in the Bible, which, as Christianity’s foundational text, purports to speak to questions of origins. Any “harmony” between Darwinian thought and the Bible is the product of an elaborate construct invented by scientifically aware Christians.

8. The Christian religion is fantastically solipsistic with respect to the human animal and its place in the cosmos. The Christian message specifically says that humans are god’s special creation—made in his image—and that, of all the creation, he is principally interested in us. This notion, of course, arose in a time of immense ignorance of the cosmos. We are a single species, on a single planet, part of a single solar system, in a single galaxy, in an almost unimaginably vast universe. Humanocentrism is a luxury of ignorance we can no longer sustain.

9. To cite god is to invite an infinite regress from which there is no escape. Any god character who is complex enough to design a universe—let alone to monitor every human being who has ever lived, listen to and answer prayers, and send a son to die for our sins—is statistically improbable exactly because of that complexity. Inasmuch as Christians offer no explanation for god’s existence, it is all but ruled out simply because of the statistical improbability of unexplained organized complexity. We can explain the human brain’s evolution; Christians cannot explain the organized complexity of god.

10. The faith to which one adheres seems, in the majority of cases, to be quite directly determined by (a) the faith of one’s parents and (b) the dominant faith of the society in which one is raised. Young children trust their parents—a fact that, quite clearly, has evolutionary benefits generally. However, it also means they are susceptible to parental religious inculcation, from which it can be difficult to liberate oneself. One wonders how many people adhere to Christianity, or any faith, as adults simply because they were raised that way.

11. Homo sapiens sapiens have walked the Earth, in something approaching modern forms, for the last 100,000 to 200,000 years. This is scientific fact, and no thinking person entertains Young Earth creationist piffle. This means, then, that for tens of thousands of years human beings lived, struggled, suffered and died—and Heaven watched, arms folded, in silence. After this interminable wait, which likely lasted well over 100,000 years, god decided that maybe it was time to intervene. His method of intervention? A nauseating human sacrifice in a very remote part of Palestine.

12. The world looks exactly as we would expect it to look if there was no god and no special interest in human affairs. Our planet is plagued with natural disasters in which people are killed indiscriminately—without any regard for their supposed righteousness or evilness. We do not find the slightest hint of ultimate justice in the cosmos. And god, who supposedly loves humans so dearly, demonstrates his laziness again. When there is a hijacking, he never zaps the hijackers with heart attacks. When a crazed gunman is on the loose, he never turns the bullets into popcorn. Love is in evidence; hate is in evidence. Only god is not in evidence.

13. Christianity loves to cloak itself in the raiment of meekness and humility, endlessly drawing attention to how humble it is. Christians call themselves lowly, sinful worms in god’s eyes, desperately in need of redemption through saving faith in Jesus. Although Christianity features an unquestionable tendency toward self-debasement, it is also fantastically arrogant. Fearing that the creator of the universe is upset with you is equally solipsistic—indeed, betrays equal arrogance—as enjoying peace from the belief that the creator of the universe is pleased with you.

14. The notion of an afterlife—surviving one’s bodily death—seems completely incompatible with our current scientific understanding. A blow to the head can rob one of one’s memories. Neurodegenerative disease, in some cases, can result in what might be described as the loss of the self. Phineas Gage suffered a traumatic head injury, the lasting effect of which was a dramatic change in personality. As Victor Stenger notes, neurological and medical evidence strongly indicates that our memories, emotions, thoughts and, indeed, our very personalities reside in the physical particles of the brain or, more precisely, in the ways those particles interact. What, then, would make it into the afterlife? Vague, impersonal energy?

15. To threaten small children with damnation to hell strikes me as a particularly hideous form of mental abuse. Our imaginations seem to be most vivid when we are children, and our credulity is at its peak. To small children, weeping and gnashing of teeth, not to mention lakes of fire, are not metaphorical descriptions of existence apart from god; to the undeveloped mind, they are real and haunting. One can only hope, when they grow and mature, they realize, to be a deterrent, hell’s awfulness must at least be commensurate with its ludicrousness. Because hell is infinitely silly, to deter anyone at all, it must threaten infinite punishment.

16. On Christianity, moral facts exist, because Christians stipulate that morality—what is good and what is evil—flows directly from god’s nature. They contend that god’s nature is unchangeable—cannot be otherwise—and, therefore, morality is objective. Yet, in conducting an evidence-based interrogation of the natural order, one finds no moral facts. Earth’s biodiversity is a bare fact. A conclusion flows naturally therefrom: A fact necessarily exists about the origin of, or explanation for, Earth’s biodiversity. Nowhere do we find the necessary existence of a moral fact, or any evidence that one exists.

17. If, as Christians say, morality flows directly from god’s nature, then any behavior god exhibits, and any action he commands or endorses, is necessarily righteous on the Christian view. In Genesis 19:4-8, the Bible character Lot offers his two virginal daughters up for rape to the men of Sodom, who surround his house. In 2 Peter 2:7-8, Lot is called “righteous” three times. The Bible, on Christianity, is the word of god; therefore, one must conclude Lot’s offering his two virginal daughters up for rape is consonant with god’s objective morality. Deuteronomy 7:1-5, Deuteronomy 20:16-18 and Joshua 10:28-40 demonstrate that god, whose very nature defines what is moral, sometimes commands genocide.

18. Men have been inventing deities for millennia, and Yahweh is just one in the near-infinite troop. As H.L. Mencken observed, the graveyard of dead gods, wherever it is, is well populated. I have little doubt that Yahweh’s grave is already dug, and that perhaps it is alongside the final resting places of Resheph, Baal, Anath, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Hadad, El, Addu, Nergal, Shalem, Nebo, Dagon, Ninib, Melek Taus and Yau. Then again, Yahweh’s grave might be closer to those of Amon-Re, Isis, Osiris, Ptah, Sebek, Anubis and Molech. RIP Yahweh.

19. Human beings, although clearly the most advanced species currently living on Earth, are easily deceived, deluded, confused and baffled. Our minds are well adapted for survival and for dealing with “Middle World,” where things are not microscopically small or cosmically very large, but they are still evolved organs with inherent limitations. Through a long period of trial and error, we can now conclude that marshaling evidence—relevant facts—is the best, most reliable way for humans to approximate truth as we interrogate the world of experience. If Christianity is to be accepted, it must be on the strength of its evidence.

20. On scientific thinking, hypotheses are meritorious only to the extent that they (a) make predictions, (b) enable those predictions to be tested and (c) find that, upon testing, the predictions are confirmed. The Christian hypothesis, to its detriment, is exceedingly bad at having its predictions be confirmed. Let us take Genesis, for example. The creation chronology presented in Genesis represents a testable prediction. In recent times, science has been able to test that prediction. Rather than being confirmed, the prediction failed, because Genesis’ creation chronology is wrong. This is a strike against the Christian hypothesis. Archeological disproof of the Exodus narrative is another strike against the Christian hypothesis.

21. It has been said some people are so constituted that they cannot believe in god. I am not such an individual, insofar as I invite convincing evidence of god’s existence and workings. I shall not fall prostrate to god’s feet in any case, but I would believe god existed if the evidence were sufficient. Any moral opinions I articulate, including those in which I deem god’s actions evil, are expressions of my deepest nature; I am constituted as I am, and I can neither help nor change what fundamentally strikes me as grave evil, which would prevent me from worshipping god, irrespective of evidence for his existence.

During a recent conversation with a close friend, I came to an important realization as it pertains to how I feel about religion in general and Christianity specifically. I have been an atheist, properly defined as an individual who lacks belief in god, ever since my early college days; I certainly retain that label. However, in conversing with my friend, who is also an atheist but takes a more benevolent view of religion than I do, I came to realize that I am an antitheist, as well. It is not merely that I lack belief in god: I possess a passionate antipathy toward religion as a whole, and Christianity in particular. Although I would not contend that Christianity, while clearly ludicrous, is more nonsensical than other prominent religions are, it is the religion that was inculcated into me and the one from which I escaped; thus, I cannot feel neutrally toward it.

My hatred of religion, however deeply felt, has not colored my analysis or blinded me to potential weaknesses in my arguments; on the contrary, my passions have been inflamed precisely because I have come to understand religion's flagrant falsity and its power to prey on the minds of those who are weak or helplessly indoctrinated. Moreover, as one who recognizes the power and beauty of science—as one who acknowledges that science, more than anything else, has pulled us out of our miserable ignorance and given us some shred of knowledge about the universe we inhabit—I take great offense at the pitiable primitivism, mysticism and supernaturalism that are part and parcel of religious practice. This “magical” fancifulness, which ought to have been abandoned in early childhood, serves to undercut a scientific approach to reasoning, crippling our ability to think and analyze rationally. This muddled thought and shameless unreason is nowhere more evident than in prayer.

Let me be succinct and clear: Prayer is a useless exercise, undertaken by those who, in a fit of childish delusion, believe they can effect change in the real world by falling to their knees and murmuring to themselves. These people, oftentimes adults who have been properly educated and who can function in day-to-day society quite serviceably, are under the distinctly infantile impression that muttering under their breath can affect the outcome of some circumstance in which they have a stake, emotional or otherwise. If an adult man conversed regularly with his invisible friend Paco Bill, an Old West-style cowboy, it would be a sign that man had departed from his sanity; when a large proportion of the population meekly murmurs to an invisible god at night, however, one is expected to hold one's tongue and not remark on the bizarre nature of said behavior. I shall not.

Perhaps the element of prayer I find most bothersome is the combination of silliness and arrogance that is manifest in the act. Suppose you are fervently praying one afternoon when, quite suddenly, the telephone rings. If you wished to finish your prayer, and you had a fidelity to honesty, you might tell the caller something like this: “I'm sorry, John, but I'll have to call you back. I'm talking to the creator of the universe at the moment, and I haven't quite finished what I have to say. I'll give you a ring when I'm done.” This is the delusion under which people who pray operate: They believe—and, yes, I find this utterly incredible—that they are conversing with, or at least directly addressing, the god who, they believe, is the architect of the cosmos. When a person prays for a sick friend, or a missing loved one, or whatever the cause might be, that person is attempting to make contact with—and ask a request of—the being who, they believe, designed Alpha Centauri and invented quasars and pulsars. What could be more arrogant than to believe the creator of the universe is accessible to you and wishes to hear your thoughts and requests?

Nothing puts humanity in its proper place like science. Current scientific thought suggests the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. As it pertains to the small blue planet on which we live, it has been around for about 4.54 billion years. With respect to humanity, hominids in something approaching modern forms did not evolve until perhaps 200,000 years ago, meaning that, on a cosmic scale, humanity has existed for merely an instant; we barely register as ever having existed at all. If there is a cosmic creator—a notion for which there is no good evidence, to be sure—we can be certain this creator is either unaware of, or disinterested in, humanity as a whole—let alone individual members of the species! Humanity is to the universe as a single grain of sand on a beach is to Earth; the entire species could go extinct in a nuclear blast tomorrow, and the universe would not take the slightest notice, nor miss our kind. The breathtaking ego of thinking one's petty personal problems would interest the universe's architect cannot be overstated, nor can the lunacy of believing such a creator would even be aware of the pious muttering, let alone listen to it.

Prayer is, indeed, an exercise in self-deception. When people feel powerless—when they feel like they cannot do anything to aid in a terrible situation—they grope desperately to find that magical act that might help; all too often, prayer is the result. As philosopher Daniel Dennett once wrote, the feelings of affection and love that inspire prayer might be appreciated, but the act itself is not; indeed, it is an act for which forgiveness should be sought. To pray is to do nothing of use...to do nothing that will effect any change in any situation. If someone hears about a catastrophic earthquake and then proceeds to pray for the victims, rather than donating a substantial sum, that person, in my view, is acting in a way worthy of disapprobation. The same goes for a hypothetical missing little girl: If a neighbor fervently prays for her safe return home, but does not participate in the search party, the neighbor does nothing of use or help. Speaking for myself, I would urge my own loved ones to keep their muttering to themselves. I, of course, appreciate the feelings for me that would inspire prayers, but I no more welcome them than I would invite someone to sacrifice a goat on my behalf on an altar he constructed in his backyard.

The aforereferenced self-deception becomes ever more apparent when one considers the degree to which people who believe in the power of prayer “count the hits and ignore the strikes.” There is a word for when a person prays and then the thing for which he prayed happens: a miracle. There is no word for when prayers are callously ignored. Not to prostitute a tragedy for argumentative purposes, but consider the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that occurred on April 5. How many times did you hear the phrase, “Pray for our miners”? How many prayers were offered, in earnest hope that precious life would be preserved? If those miners had lived through the incident, people surely would have partially credited the power of prayers for their survival. Given the tragic eventual outcome, though, the refusal to acknowledge a strike against prayer's efficacy is conspicuous. Answered prayers are a sign that prayer works; unanswered prayers are just tragic twists of fate. This kind of intellectual dishonesty—counting the hits and ignoring the strikes—is worthy of disapprobation, as well, and is even more disturbing for its seeming universality.

When you wake up tomorrow morning and leave your house for work, take a quick look skyward before you get into your car to drive off. Can you really imagine, for instance, seeing Jesus descending from the heavens—perhaps casting a luminous specter over the local Dairy Queen—ready to separate the righteous from the wicked? Is that the kind of world in which we live? Or do we live in the more prosaic, albeit still amazing, world that science has illuminated for us? Do we live in a world rife with miracles and prodigies and magic and supernaturalism? Or do we live in a world that, although deeply mysterious due to our continuing ignorance, operates according to a comprehensible natural order that allows for no convenient, anomalous miracles?

Rise from your knees; cease your mindless murmurs to a god who does not exist or, at best, does not care; and accept the world as it actually is. There is learning to do, there are discoveries to be made and there is knowledge to win. The blackness has not yet fully lifted, but we can only strive for greater illumination when we clutch science as, as Carl Sagan might have said, our candle in the dark.

Editor’s Note: The purpose of this piece is not to make a moral case against Christianity. It is not to declare that the biblical god character is immoral. It is not to insinuate that, by inculcating Christian theology into one’s children, one will produce immoral adults. On issues related to morality, I am a nihilist; that is, I do not believe objective “right” and “wrong,” or “good” and “evil,” or “moral” and “immoral” exist. Thus, I am quite possibly the worst conceivable individual to make a moral case against any belief system’s truth. This is why my present purposes relate much more to academics and scholarship than to passion or righteous outrage. I aim simply to explain what the god of the Bible endorses, without standing in judgment of what he endorses.

On any Bible-centered Christian worldview, it is quite easy to apprehend what is right and what is wrong...what good and what evil. To a Christian, such as my frequent interlocutor Rhology, that which is good is consonant with god’s nature and that which is evil is counter to it. A key point must be made clear: On Christianity, it is not that god’s will conforms to that which is good; rather, on this view, god’s nature defines what is good. To a Christian, anything god does, commands or affirms is necessarily good, and could not be otherwise. Turning to the Bible, then, any behavior god exhibits therein, and any action he commands or endorses, is necessarily righteous on the Christian view.

To live up to this post’s title, then, I first must prove that god endorses—approves of—“offered rape.” To do this, I shall cite Lot, the well-known biblical character whose unfortunate wife was turned into a pillar of salt. When two angels came to Sodom, which god had marked for destruction for its unbridled wickedness, the kind and righteous Lot would not accept their intention to spend the night in the square and, instead, took them into his house. No sooner had they eaten a feast than the plot thickened….

Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;
and they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them."
But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
and said, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
"Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof."

Genesis 19:4-8

I selected a Bible translation in easily understood English to ensure the gist was clear: The men of Sodom were surrounding the house because they wanted to fuck the two angels. But Lot, being a good host, intervened in an effort to forestall such an unpleasant experience. His suggestion to the libidinous troop was to rape his two virgin daughters instead, whom he offered to bring out for them. This was the suggestion of Lot, the most righteous man in the entire city.

How do we know Lot was considered righteous? We do not even have to cite the simple fact the angels moved to save him and his family. It is spelled out very clearly:

and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

2 Peter 2:7-8

The Bible, on Christianity, is the word of god. On the Christian view, god’s nature is the definition of what is right, or good. The Bible describes Lot as righteous, and god’s own angels move to deliver Lot from Sodom’s imminent destruction. At the same time, in his efforts to bargain with a lascivious mob of would-be angel sodomites, Lot offers his virginal daughters up for rape. Thus, in at least some circumstances, offered rape, on the Christian view, is consonant with upstanding morality.

The Bible also expresses, in the clearest of terms, the moral righteousness of genocide in some cases. Let us first define genocide so no later confusion is possible: Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group, whether racial, political, cultural or religious. To demonstrate god’s endorsement, the challenge is not so much finding applicable passages to select as avoiding the potential pitfall of illustrating the point gratuitously. Here are a few prime examples:

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,
and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
"Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.
"For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.
"But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

Deuteronomy 7:1-5

"Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.
"But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you,
so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 20:16-18

Now Joshua captured Makkedah on that day, and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword; he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it He left no survivor Thus he did to the king of Makkedah just as he had done to the king of Jericho.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Makkedah to Libnah, and fought against Libnah.
The LORD gave it also with its king into the hands of Israel, and he struck it and every person who was in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor in it. Thus he did to its king just as he had done to the king of Jericho.
And Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Libnah to Lachish, and they camped by it and fought against it.
The LORD gave Lachish into the hands of Israel; and he captured it on the second day, and struck it and every person who was in it with the edge of the sword, according to all that he had done to Libnah.
Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish, and Joshua defeated him and his people until he had left him no survivor.
And Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Lachish to Eglon, and they camped by it and fought against it.
They captured it on that day and struck it with the edge of the sword; and he utterly destroyed that day every person who was in it, according to all that he had done to Lachish.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they fought against it.
They captured it and struck it and its king and all its cities and all the persons who were in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor, according to all that he had done to Eglon. And he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him returned to Debir, and they fought against it.
He captured it and its king and all its cities, and they struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed every person who was in it. He left no survivor. Just as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir and its king, as he had also done to Libnah and its king.
Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.

Joshua 10:28-40

Working from our definition that genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group, whether racial, political, cultural or religious, there can be little—nay, absolutely no—doubt that the god of the Bible has commanded genocide. This is not to say that any genocide is consonant with godly righteousness; not in the least. It is not even to say that one in 1000 genocides is consonant with godliness. It is merely to prove that, on the Christian view, in principle, genocide can be consistent with righteousness before god. It proves that, if god condescended to humanity again tomorrow, and he commanded genocide, it would be consistent with some previous commands and, on the Christian view, to perform genocide would be moral.

I believe it has been established sufficiently that the god of the Bible—in circumstances however limited—endorses offered rape and actual genocide. In those circumstances—again, however limited—offered rape and actual genocide, on Christianity, are consonant with god’s necessarily righteous nature.

From where does the primitive, delusional silliness of religion come? Why did men invent gods in whose service they all too frequently waste their sole earthly lives? It seems the answer is threefold: First, in times of ancient ignorance, men invented gods to explain phenomena that were beyond their understanding. People could not adequately explain natural disasters or thunder and lightning, so they bound up such events with angry or wrathful deities. Medical understanding of disease was pathetically lacking, so people associated sickness—especially mental illness—with invasive demons or curses. Second, it seems to be a universal part of human nature that, when things are going badly, people like to feel there is somebody in their corner on whom they can count. Because people are limited in their ability to palliate each other’s pain and depression, it is comforting to invent a god to whom one can turn in one’s blackest hours. Third, conjuring a god in whose presence you can spend an afterlife is a neat way of lessening one’s natural fear of dying. The human mind is an amazing thing, and its blessings are numerous, but it also curses us with sure knowledge of our own mortality; god belief, however unjustified and silly, contributes to distracting us from our inevitable expiration.

This third reason why men invent gods and confect religions is my principal interest at present. I am not qualified to say whether individuals of any other species are aware of their own ultimate mortality, but we can be certain none possesses awareness near as acute as that of humans. And yet…death’s slow but sure approach does not preoccupy most of us. We watch our CSI-type shows and see a corpse on an examining table being looked over by the medical examiner, but it rarely occurs to us that, in some period of years—perhaps many but perhaps few—we shall be on just such a cold metal table. A mortician might not be our favorite person to see, but, when we do, it is seldom we consciously ponder that, eventually, powder and makeup shall be applied to our own ashen faces, drained entirely of their pinkness and vitality. I do not think our ability to forget about our own impending death has, in the main, to do with religious superstition; I think we are easily distracted by our prosaic day-to-day lives. But, surely, on the anthropological level, looking across cultures, the idea that one can survive one’s own death has appealed to our kind for millennia.

Although I am without gods, have no use for infantile spiritual pursuits and recognize an afterlife as nothing more than wishful thinking, I have no fear of death. (This is not to say I have no fear of possible pain associated with death, but only that dying, to me, is not frightening.) The balance of this post shall explain why. Religious individuals (principally Christians) have often warned me that, as a blasphemous atheist, I shall spend eternity in hell, being tortured and roasted and experiencing all manner of other such unpleasantness. To be sure, I recognize that, on Christianity’s truth, I shall be consigned to the fire pit; the conclusion is hardly debatable. However, these warnings give me no pause. One reason is that hell, in itself, seems so transparently invented as a means of controlling people’s behavior and making them fall into line. I also find laughable the very notion of a place where billions of wispy, incorporeal essences are tortured infinitely for finite sins committed during earthly life. (How might one torture a wispy, incorporeal essence, anyway? How might there be pain without a physical body? Beats me.) Why does the doctrine of hell entail unending, limitless torment? I submit that, to be an effective deterrent, hell’s awfulness must at least be commensurate with its ludicrousness. Because hell is an infinitely silly concept, to deter anyone at all, it must threaten infinite punishment.

There is no good reason to believe god’s celestial dictatorship exists in the real world but, for a moment, let us suppose it does. Indeed, let us suppose that hell exists, too, and billions have been consigned there. If a god exists who damns people to hell, this god is cruel beyond description and, to my standards, the very picture of evil. On Christianity, god is omniscient, in addition to being the author of every human soul (that being, the immaterial essence that animates our flesh). Omniscience entails that, when fashioning a soul, god already knows every action the person-to-be shall take; there can be no mystery for an omniscient creator. Inasmuch as god is creating people, the deity is creating each individual to be as he is. The deity made John Wayne Gacy to be John Wayne Gacy; he could have created him differently but he did not. In fashioning Gacy’s soul, the deity, with full foreknowledge, fashioned a serial killer who would not repent and who would be sent to hell. Gacy was created to fail, insofar as god chose to make him as he was and all his actions were a foregone conclusion even before he emerged from the womb. The deity, then, established a torture chamber, from which escape is impossible, to punish those people who he, given his omniscience, deliberately created to be unredeemed sinners (that is, sinners who he knows shall not get redemption). Indeed, god is the toymaker who, after purposefully making faulty toys, inflicts wrath upon them.

I do not recognize objective morality, but I see no way I could worship such a deity, who, in my judgment, exhibits the height of cruelty. No matter, though. The unfairness of a god who creates hell is rather a moot point, given that hell is a patently ridiculous concept. Rather than wasting breath arguing against it, it is more properly the subject of derision. Much like Jesus’ apparent parthenogenic birth, Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, and biblical characters living hundreds and hundreds of years, hell carries falsehood upon the very face of it.

If there is no hell, as surely there is not, what does happen to us when we die? Of course, no living individual can know for certain, but the evidence is rather clear: Upon death, we cease to be. Much as we all might wish that, after dying, we might find ourselves in a theme park in the clouds where our old friends and relatives eagerly await us, we really need to leave such childishness behind if we wish to have an accurate apprehension of reality. What, exactly, is supposed to make it into the afterlife? Victor Stenger writes, “We have seen that neurological and medical evidence strongly indicates that our memories, emotions, thoughts, and indeed our very personalities reside in the physical particles of the brain or, more precisely, in the ways those particles interact. So this would seem to say that when our brains die, we die.” And Stenger is correct, of course. A blow to the head can rob one of one’s memories. Neurodegenerative disease, in some cases, can result in what might be described as the loss of the self. Is one honestly supposed to believe that when the brain is dead—perhaps even rotting away—phenomena strictly dependent upon brain activity, such as memories, thoughts and personality, shall persist? If one wishes to pursue that silliness, one might also revert to the idea that emotions such as love emanate from the heart.

For something that at one time lives, death is merely not to exist. Indeed, in a true sense, each of us may say we were dead during all the years prior to our birth. I was dead throughout the entirety of the Holy Roman Empire. I was dead throughout the time of the dinosaurs. I was dead during World War I and World War II. I was dead when Charles Darwin was formulating his dangerous, and wonderful, idea. For the brief present period, I am alive; after this period, I shall be dead again. Insofar as my death was no inconvenience or trouble to me for the previous several billion years, I expect it shall cause me no unpleasantness for the several billion years upcoming. Sadness and regret, loneliness and missing—these are emotions for the living, and none of them follows when the dirt closes over us.

Atheism, then, is freeing and joyous in its way. True, it does not entice us with promises of an afterlife that does not exist. It cannot distract us from our mortality or life’s briefness. But, it allows us to focus our full attention on the single life we do have—this one—and wringing as much enjoyment from it as we can. We do not waste our time prostrating ourselves before a god who, by my standards, would be unworthy of mere acknowledgement, let alone servile obedience. We refuse to gorge ourselves on the false comforts of childish delusion, instead accepting the world for what (and how) it is and, indeed, finding joy, inspiration and wonderment in studying and better understanding the natural order. There is no need for Bronze-Age superstitions cooked up by semi-stupefied peasants when there is biology, cosmology, anthropology and physics, just as no one bothers with alchemy when chemistry is available to us.

Life might be short, and nothing but individual non-existence follows thereafter, but evolution has bequeathed us a gift that no other species has been given: We are capable of understanding our own evolutionary origins and where we, for a brief moment, find ourselves. If this is insufficient to occupy the mind, it is difficult to imagine any cobbled-together book of folklore or magic Jesus wafer would ever be.

The following thought experiment is designed for biblical-literalist Christians. Specifically, to partake in this thought experiment, it is necessary that (a) you believe Earth to be several thousand years old, rather than 4.54 billion years old, (b) you believe Earth’s biodiversity is explained by creationism/intelligent design, to the exclusion of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, and (c) when referring to creation, both of Earth and of life, you credit the god of the Bible as the creator and ruler. If these stipulations coincide with your worldview, step right up and play along.

Suppose that, in just one instance, time travel was possible. For the sake of this hypothetical, assume that you—a biblical-literalist Christian—had the opportunity to travel far, far back in time and, of course, return to the present day after your trip. Further, suppose that a meddlesome secularist goaded you into traveling 100,000 years into the past, in hopes of proving to you that Earth, indeed, is far older than a mere several thousand years. For this hypothetical, let us assume that the time machine’s accuracy is 100% and, if there were no such thing as “100,000 years ago,” the machine would travel nowhere. (I deliberately spell out such prosaic assumptions because, to touch on the interesting issues raised by this thought experiment, I must close as many loopholes as I can conjure.)

You step into the time machine, which is set for 100,000 years into the past, and are whisked away. Moments later, you step out of the machine and find yourself very much on Earth. In fact, you are in what would now be called Western Europe. After mere moments of exploration, you stumble upon a species that is completely unfamiliar to you: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. You have never laid eyes on such a robust-looking hominid, and watch in awe as they ably hunt for sustenance. Later, to your shock, you stumble upon a burial site where the creatures place their dead. What a curious, curious creature—so seemingly skilled with tools and weapons and, more discomfiting to the biblical-literalist Christian, so similar to us while, at the same time, so unquestionably different.

You are about to step back into the time machine when you notice several woolly mammoths approaching. Needing little more encouragement, you return to the present day, where the meddlesome secularist anxiously awaits your report. Yes, you say, Earth is indeed older than a mere several thousand years. Having traveled to the very time in question, you can say with utter certainty that Earth, at the very least, is 100,000 years old. Obviously, this expedition could not prove Darwinian evolution by natural selection, but it would disprove Young Earth creationism. Old Earth creationism (hardly a monolithic school of thought) is not disproved; Darwin’s theory, of course, remains entirely in accord with the evidence gathered from the journey.

How grievous would the injury to your worldview be, if such an event were to transpire? Could you, as a biblical-literalist Christian, just switch from Young Earth creationism to Old Earth creationism and still leave the entirety of your worldview intact? Or, given your literalist interpretation of the Bible, would the absolute knowledge that Earth, at the very least, is 100,000 years old throw into doubt all you thought you had known? If the creation story, to some degree, must be read metaphorically, what else might be metaphorical? Jesus’ birth by parthenogenesis? The story of Noah and his ark? Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb? Would the shattering of Young Earth creationism poke too many holes in your worldview to be easily plugged? Or, again, would minor tweaks be sufficient to reinforce the edifice?

Let us not end the thought experiment there, though. Instead, let us take it a step further. Suppose, through some method I shall not bother to confect specifically, you came to the certain knowledge that Darwinian evolution by natural selection is true. For the purposes of the hypothetical, again, we are talking about utter and unquestionable 100% certainty. Additionally, let it be clear that microevolution—the process of small modifications occurring within the species level that can result in a new subspecies—is not the topic at hand. Rather, we are discussing macroevolution, which is exactly the type of which Darwin wrote and precisely the process through which our kind, Homo sapiens sapiens, came to be.

This would leave the biblical-literalist Christian with few appealing options. You could endorse a theory of Universal Common Descent, which has been espoused by Darwinians. Or, you could stand behind a theistic evolution/evolutionary creationism scheme, in which evolution has occurred precisely the way Darwinians say, but, essentially, the process was designed, and continues to be overseen, by god. It is not a random process, then, in the broadest sense, because its operating structure was designed by god.

If this were the case, and Darwinian evolution by natural selection was known to be true, how grievous would the injury to your worldview be? Would it throw everything you thought you knew about the nature of the universe (not to mention the nature of reality) into question? Would it lead to a crisis of faith and a newfound doubt in various metaphysical propositions proposed in the Bible? Or, as before with our time-travel trek, would a mere rejiggering suffice to patch up your worldview and make it solid once again?

All this rhetoric, at base, seeks to discover how central denial of Darwinian evolution by natural selection is to the biblical-literalist Christian worldview. Imagine your worldview as a Jenga tower. How important is the piece positing Genesis’ accuracy? If that piece were forced to be removed, would the tower topple?

My Christian interlocutor Rhology and I have been continuing our ongoing debate in one of his “comboxes.” Because the extent to which my readership is identical to his is certainly questionable, I shall publish our most recent exchanges here. The overarching topic at hand is faith, and the degree to which I—an evidentialist—am dependent upon it.

On Monday, September 15, 2008, Rhology published a post entitled “No faith, just faith.” In it, he writes:

Since he (the Jolly Nihilist) has chosen a faith-based position for his First Principle, why not just go with "faith is the best way to discover truth"? Obviously evidence failed him in this question and faith resolved the problem. Why not just stick with that? Why go with what failed him in this most important, overarching question of First Principle?

That pithy provocation warranted an immediate response, quoted below:

You have raised this point on at least three occasions, so, rather than letting the question fester, I shall address it presently.

You are correct in saying I take evidence’s usefulness in human approximation of truth as a supposition or a postulate. (You use the loaded word “faith” in order to try to rouse discomfort in me; nevertheless, at least in this instance, I shall grant your biased word choice.) You attempt to equate my “faith” with the superstitions of Christians, seeming to say, “See? We are bound equally by blind faith!” In actuality, however, this similarity is much overstated.

Eventually, the following analogy breaks down (at least with respect to the practical realities of construction), but, nevertheless, it remains instructive. For me, faith is most accurately analogized as scaffolding, defined as “a temporary framework used to support people and material in the construction or repair of buildings and other large structures.”

In order to confront, analyze and interrogate the world in which one finds oneself (the world of experience, whether such is “really real” or a Cartesian Demon’s construct), one must begin somewhere. I call this analytical starting point the Philosophical First Principle (hereafter “PFP”). Because a PFP is foundational—a human’s first step toward interrogating the world in which he finds himself (that being, the world of experience)—it cannot be discovered or independently proved from other propositions. It is taken as a supposition or a postulate…as a point of faith.

I employ faith as scaffolding. Only with this scaffolding in place can I lay my building’s foundation, which is “Evidence is the best, most reliable way for humans to approximate truth.” With this foundation laid, dried and completely solid, I have no further need for my scaffolding (which, again, in this analogy, is faith). Instead of faith appeals, I continue erecting my building upon the dry, solid foundation (in my case, evidentialism).

I use faith once…as scaffolding…to lay my building’s foundation. This hardly equates to a life rife with faith appeals.

You repeatedly ask, “Since he (the Jolly Nihilist) has chosen a faith-based position for his First Principle, why not just go with ‘faith is the best way to discover truth?’ Obviously evidence failed him in this question and faith resolved the problem. Why not just stick with that?”

You might as well ask a Fortune 500 executive, whose company soon shall reside in a new Chicago office tower, why he does not simply arrange all the desks on the scaffolding.

The scaffolding is temporary, existing only to allow the building to be built. And for me, faith is mere scaffolding, permitting me to erect Evidentialist Tower.

Rhology quickly retorted with the following:

I am not equating our faith positions, actually. My faith position has actually quite a lot of justification for it, while yours does not. Your faith is blind, while mine is informed. So no, I wouldn't call them equal really.

Yes, one must begin somewhere. You begin with faith. Then you later have the gall to criticise me for having faith. It's very cheeky of you.

Nihilist: “Because a PFP is foundational—a human’s first step toward interrogating the world in which he finds himself (that being, the world of experience)—it cannot be discovered or independently proved from other propositions.”

Rhology: I hate to keep doing this, but you have said many times in the past that, for example: “If you believe those bare facts of reality require external grounding, I suggest you attempt to demonstrate such.” and “evidence (relevant facts) can be marshaled to demonstrate evidence’s utility. Because of this, my postulate is self-subsisting.”

I honestly don't know which of these you actually believe.

Nihilist: “I use faith once…as scaffolding…to lay my building’s foundation. This hardly equates to a life rife with faith appeals.”

Rhology: Why not use it more than once? If it is good for a foundation, why is it useless elsewhere? And you appeal to faith to form your very first principle. Thus all your life is based on faith - I'd call that “rife”, actually, yes.

Nihilist: “why he does not simply arrange all the desks on the scaffolding.”

Rhology: On the one hand, I see what you're saying.

However, the switching in and out of “faith is good and useful” to “faith is bad and useless” seems completely arbitrary. On what do you base your decision to switch building materials? What guides it?

My rejoinder reads as follows (with some minor modifications):

Rhology: “Yes, one must begin somewhere. You begin with faith. Then you later have the gall to criticise me for having faith. It's very cheeky of you.”

Nihilist: I suppose the factuality of your statement depends upon what you mean when you say, “begin with.” Faith is not my First Principle; faith is not the foundation upon which my worldview is erected. Instead, faith was merely the scaffolding that permitted me to lay down my foundation, which is evidentialism.

Also, I do not necessarily criticize you for having faith. You are a devout Christian and I am content to let you live a devoutly Christian life. I criticize those Christians who attempt to impose their values and moral viewpoints on others, who ought to be permitted to confect their own worldviews and live in accordance with them. After all, Rhology’s Metaphysical Foundation is precisely that; it does not overarch the world.

Rhology: “I hate to keep doing this, but you have said many times in the past that, for example: ‘If you believe those bare facts of reality require external grounding, I suggest you attempt to demonstrate such.’ and ‘evidence (relevant facts) can be marshaled to demonstrate evidence’s utility. Because of this, my postulate is self-subsisting.’

I honestly don't know which of these you actually believe.”

Nihilist: I shall respond to those quotes in reverse order.

When I say I can appeal to evidence to demonstrate evidence’s utility in the approximation of truth, I am not defending evidence with “other propositions.” Rather, I am defending evidence with evidence—defending one proposition with the very same proposition. This is why you often accuse me of question begging. However, my purpose in “begging the question” is different from what you might expect. I do not mean to confirm evidence’s utility via circular proof, but rather to show that evidentialism is a self-subsistent First Principle. The “question begging” exercise is a simple demonstration of self-subsistence. Faith (to yield, once again, to your biased word choice) is still required to lay my initial foundation.

When I reference “the bare facts of reality,” I am talking about the world of experience…the world in which one finds oneself. That world—the world of experience—simply is. It might be genuinely real or, indeed, it might be the fabrication of a Cartesian Demon. I cannot rule either possibility out. However, the world in which I find myself, irrespective of its veridical nature, is manifest, and I seek to interrogate it, using my chosen evidentialist First Principle. In short, with respect to the line you quoted, I have little patience for those who refuse to recognize the world of experience as simply existent.

Rhology: “Why not use it more than once? If it is good for a foundation, why is it useless elsewhere? And you appeal to faith to form your very first principle. Thus all your life is based on faith - I'd call that ‘rife’, actually, yes.”

Nihilist: You are conflating two ideas here, I think. When you say, “If it is good for a foundation, why is it useless elsewhere?” you seem to be referencing faith, even though faith is not my foundation—evidentialism is. Faith was merely temporary scaffolding, permitting the building to be built. It was transitory…not part of the finished structure.

Why do I not appeal to faith except to pave the way for my First Principle? Because, once I have selected a First Principle, it makes little sense to overthrow it for some other one, such as appeal to faith. If I laid a foundation for a skyscraper, why would I start building things elsewhere, rather than on the foundation I just established? Once I have a First Principle, that is to what I appeal. Faith was of utility only before the principle had been established…when I needed a place to start.

And, my life (and, implicitly, my understanding of the world) is not based on faith. Scaffolding was needed to lay my foundation, but, once that foundation was laid, my analytical processes became a natural extension of it. I appealed to faith once, to lay my groundwork; I now appeal to my principle.

Rhology: “On the one hand, I see what you're saying.

However, the switching in and out of ‘faith is good and useful’ to ‘faith is bad and useless’ seems completely arbitrary. On what do you base your decision to switch building materials? What guides it?”

Nihilist: There is no switch of building materials in my analogy. The scaffolding used to enable a building to be built, by definition, is temporary. It was always meant to be used and then removed. In order to lay down my evidentialist foundation, faith was required. So, for that period, faith was “good and useful.” Once the scaffolding was no longer required—because a solid foundation had been laid—it was taken away. This does not mean faith becomes “bad and useless” but only that its purpose had been served and it was no longer required. Faith was needed when there was no foundation of which to speak; now, I have evidentialism as a solid foundation upon which to build. Why revert back to the temporary framework?

Again, I recognize my scaffolding analogy is flawed, but I am trying to explain a point that practically invites misapprehension, even by those of sincere intent.

Conclusion: Faith indeed played a role in permitting my foundation—evidentialism—to be laid. However, once in possession of a foundation upon which to build, the temporary scaffolding (faith) became outmoded…no longer needed.

In sum, then, scaffolding was deployed, used and, finally, duly removed.

Although geocentric cosmology has been abandoned for centuries, its philosophical analogue pitifully persists even today in the solipsistic and speciocentric thinking exhibited by persons of varied theological (and atheological) persuasions. The delusive notion of which I write can be understood as two intertwined components: (a) The cosmos is purposeful and (b) our meager species is of central importance to this purpose. Steven Weinberg, an American physicist and Nobel laureate, once observed, “In the same way that each of us has had to learn in growing up to resist the temptation of wishful thinking about ordinary things like lotteries, so our species has had to learn in growing up that we are not playing a starring role in any sort of grand cosmic drama.” The present composition is submitted as a corrective to human ego with respect to matters cosmic.

The first, and most important, realization to which a thinking person must come is that the cosmos—by all evidentiary indications—is purposeless and dispassionate…striving toward no goal, operating with no aim, hoping for no particular result. Some commentators have called the cosmos an immoral place or, in my own case, an unjust one; to do so is mistaken. “Good” and “evil”…“just” and “unjust”…“moral” and “immoral” are judgments that cannot be made in the absence of purpose; to declare the universe an evil place is equally ludicrous as judging one’s car to be wicked or one’s computer to be morally wretched. The cosmos’ utter indifference precludes all such characterizations.

Even if the universe does have a purpose—and there is not a single credible reason to believe that is the case—there are no grounds to suppose that humans are part of it. The universe, whose estimated age is 13.73 billion years (plus or minus 120 million years), long preceded Homo sapiens sapiens (estimated age: perhaps 100,000 years), a species that is a newcomer even on Earth, which itself is a tiny, long-forgotten-about speck of stardust. Indeed, Earth is just one of, conservatively, a billion billion planets strewn about the cosmos. The folly of thinking Earth to be cosmically important is exceeded only by imagining one’s own species to be so.

Let us make a few things clear. If a global pandemic were to strike tomorrow, and the entire human race were rendered extinct in 30 days, “indifference” would vastly overstate the cosmos’ concern with such a development. Bertrand Russell, a thinker who courageously rejected the temptations of human ego, remarked in “A Free Man's Worship” (1903) that it is very nearly certain “That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins….” The upshot, of course, is that, although our day-to-day travails seem to be of great importance, none of our deeds, nor anything that happens to us, is of any enduring cosmic significance. One day our solar system shall end, and it shall be as if none of us ever existed.

Must, then, we be consigned to a life of despair? I think not. Recognizing our place in the grand scheme—a place of supreme insignificance—does little to diminish the pleasures one may experience. The triviality of our existence, as a species and as individuals, does not make, for example, family vacations any less pleasurable. It does not make a joke any less funny. It does not make a swimming pool any less refreshing, nor does it lessen the succulence of a juicy steak.

Yes, we are subject to an uncaring, unfeeling universe. Yes, we are utterly impotent when faced with inevitable death. Yes, all our achievements and pleasures are fleeting, much like our existence as a sentient life form. However, our species would be in a sorry state, indeed, if mere recognition of this basic truth were to doom us to a life of despair.

The neophyte to issues scientific and philosophical should not let the abstruseness toward which these conversations tend leave him at a loss. There is but one life we have been afforded. I urge readers to live it to the maximum, wringing pleasure from wherever it can be wrung.

One never knows when the chaos out of which the cosmos formed might again reign supreme.

Rhology, thank you for your reply, which, undue hubris aside, was an enjoyable read. As mentioned in a comment box, I have to conclude this blogalogue, because of work commitments and an increasingly busy schedule. At summer’s end, when my workflow slows to a relative crawl, I would be happy to commence another extended discussion. If nothing else, our interactions enable me to refine my points, allowing me to find theistic arguments’ deficiencies and exploit them for evidentialism’s (and atheism’s) benefit.

My concluding salvo…

“This type of authoritarianism—I call it moral narcissism—is the point of comparison.”

Rhology: Then where are your cries of "atheofascist" over The Dawkins' calling child abuse immoral? Why restrict this to the Abrahamic religions? There are nearly as many targets for your "-ofascist" label as there are religions out there. Why engage in such special pleading?

Nihilist: I condemn everybody who, after formulating their moral opinions, decides those opinions ought to be inflicted on other people against their will. I do not take issue with Dr. Dawkins because, to me, his argument has less to do with the immorality of teaching children the doctrine of hell and more to do with whether, given the facts of the doctrine’s teaching, it falls under the legal definition of child abuse. One can make a legalistic argument without delving into the morality morass. [I offer no judgment about the legalistic case’s merit.]

Speaking strictly from my own perspective now, I single out Christians and Muslims for the “ofascist” designation because I concur with Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” When one believes a patently ludicrous notion, such as the divine inspiration and absolute perfection of a single book (a book written during our species’ bawling intellectual infancy, no less!), from that notion can spring what I would consider atrocities.

Your own comment box remark is illustrative: “So [if god] had said that it is necessary to prevent homosexuals from copulating, it is every human's responsibility to do so.” Presumably, then, if god had said it is necessary to castrate all practicing homosexuals, and then drench oneself in their spurting blood, you would agree it is every human’s responsibility to do so. Or, if god had said, every Sunday, it is necessary to torture all heathens prolongedly, you would agree it is every human’s responsibility to do so.

Your First Principle is the absolute inerrancy of a single book, from which you unquestioningly take your marching orders. You toss aside common sense, popular wisdom and other tools upon which humans rely for fear they are imperfect as compared to your text. This unshakeable loyalty, to a 2000-year-old cobbled-together tome, which could have contained anything, given the happenstance of history, is so frightening to me that merely assigning the “ofascist” label is being generous.

“However, I am doing no such thing”

Rhology: OK, so relativism is neither better nor worse than authoritarianism.

What's your argument, then, for choosing one over the other? Just whatever you feel like that day, or most days? Whether you have the wherewithal to inflict your ideas upon others or not?

Nihilist: Despite your question, I have been absolutely clear on this, so either you did not read or did not comprehend. Neither relativism nor authoritarianism could be judged moral or immoral in any objective sense, given our demonstrable moral ignorance. [Make a moral statement and then try to prove it—from square one—with no presuppositional appeals. If objective moral “laws” exist, they should be like the universe’s physical constants…unaffected by one’s viewpoint.] In light of this demonstrable moral ignorance, one can judge relativism coherent and authoritarianism incoherent. I am a moral relativist (“moral skeptic” is more accurate) because I strive to behave coherently. I do not impose my evidence-bankrupt moral opinions on others.

“Because it makes no sense for one to be coercive with respect to things about which one is ignorant.”

Rhology: This falls victim to the constant problem that your worldview provides you no way to say OUGHT. It's all just IS.

It may make no sense, but so what? Maybe Joe feels like it. Where's the prescriptive power in your statement? Why SHOULD Joe do that which makes sense? There's a reason we call these questions "moral" questions, as opposed to "arithmetic" or "fluid dynamics", you know.

If these are just opinions on your part, again, where's the prescriptive power? Why SHOULD anyone agree?

Why even make such statements? Why not just think them and be done with it? I'm serious.

Nihilist: My evidentialist principle, although lacking objective moral standards at this time, certainly offers the potential to make “ought” statements. Suppose Axelrod is standing in his living room, and he genuinely wants to go outside. There is a locked door separating him from the great outdoors. If he wishes to go outside, he OUGHT to go to the door, unlock it, open it and step out; that would be coherent behavior. If he wishes to go outside, he OUGHT NOT to walk right into the locked door; that would be incoherent behavior. Furthermore, suppose Comstock genuinely wishes to see a comedy film. However, at his local multiplex, only two films are being screened: American History X and The Naked Gun. If he wishes to see a comedy, he OUGHT to see The Naked Gun and OUGHT NOT to see American History X. No moral judgments, objective or subjective, have been rendered, but we have arrived at clear, coherent “ought” statements. In truth, the only prescriptive powers I lack are those related to areas of demonstrable ignorance.

Incoherency arises in attempting to be coercive with respect to things about which one is ignorant. Ponder “best color” and “best film,” which are analogous to “moral behavior” and “immoral behavior.” It would be incoherent for me, an aficionado of red, to demand that you renounce green and recognize the intrinsic superiority of my color. It would be incoherent for me, a fan of Mulholland Dr., to demand that you throw aside your favorite film and recognize the superiority of mine. These would be manifestly incoherent behaviors, and I do not shy from identifying that. The same goes for inflicting arbitrary moral opinions on others.

We previously have touched on the fact that, even though your worldview does afford you the right to make objective moral judgments, said judgments are mere derivatives of your First Principle…offshoots of your personal metaphysical foundation. You have failed to explain why, if you live in, say, Oklahoma, your metaphysical foundation should hold any relevance for two homosexuals living in Detroit: Your First Principle is the method by which you interrogate the world. It does not overarch the world itself; the world is not captive to Rhology’s mind.

If existence affords you a metaphysical foundation, it affords one to every person. Setting aside issues of law, if you may live in accordance with your own First Principle, so too may everyone else.

“it makes no sense for laws to be religiously derived.”

Rhology: 1) Go start your own country and see how far you get with that.

2) Oh, the USSR already tried that. Well, maybe you can do better than they did.

3) On what basis would you argue that atheism would be able to justify laws of religious freedom? Humans have no universal rights on atheism. Freedom is not a mandate on atheism.

Nihilist: You have committed gross intellectual dishonesty: You snipped a few words from a sentence, and pretended as though your snippet was my complete thought. Here is the proper quote: “Rather, I contend that, in a country with constitutionally enshrined freedom of religion (and its negative, freedom from religion), it makes no sense for laws to be religiously derived.” [Your choice to snip words from a sentence reminds me of Roger Ebert’s complaint that a word like “fun” will be attributed to him in a movie advertisement, when his real sentence was something like, “This movie is absolutely no fun.”]

If there is to be true freedom of religion—equality of faiths before the law—the government cannot have one religion (or even a few) as its legal system’s foundation. Such is antithetical to freedom of religion: If all religions are equal, Christianity cannot be “more equal” than the rest.

I shall answer in parts, as this seems to demand:

1. Objective judgments vis-à-vis laws can be made without appealing to religion…indeed, without appealing to morality at all. In a democracy or republic, the government works for its citizens, and must comport itself in a way representative of the citizenry’s demands. If a democratic government is formed and the citizens task it with promoting societal stability and preserving individual liberty, that government can create laws that enable it to perform its tasks. Kidnapping and murder could be outlawed because they cause chaotic instability and abridge victims’ liberty. The government need not wade into morality at all; it needs only look at its mandate and figure out which laws shall permit it to complete its duties.

2. The USSR represented nothing more than exchanging one dogma for another. I would argue that, in some sense, the laws in the USSR were religiously derived, in that Marxism/Leninism was imposed with a dogmatic, nay, religious fanaticism.

3. If a new democracy or republic were to arise, and the citizenry wished to enjoy complete freedom of religion, then the government could make it a constitutional tenet, as a way of serving the people for whom it works. We need not try to decipher cosmic truth; we need only to know the priorities of the people for whom the government works. We are not endowed by a creator with a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; rather, we value those things, and assign government with safeguarding them (preferably via constitution).

“Recognition of moral ignorance does not forbid formulation of moral opinion.”

Rhology: If only your camp would extend such courtesy to ID and not deny ID-ers tenure, a voice, etc, all the while thinking they were ignorant.

Does that work anywhere else? Recognition of ignorance in particle physics does not forbid formulation of opinion on black holes.

Recognition of chemical ignorance does not forbid formulation of opinion on whether I should mix ammonia and bleach and inhale the results, does it?

That's special pleading.

Nihilist: Apparently, it is time for the “square-peg-in-a-round-hole” routine, because your examples are unanalogous; they are mere red herrings employed for obfuscative purposes. Below, please find examples of issues about which we truly are ignorant.

• What is the best color in the spectrum?
• What is the best number between one and 20?
• What is the best film ever made?
• What is the funniest joke ever written?

These are issues about which we are ignorant because, even if facts are discoverable, we have no certainty as to what a relevant fact might be or how the facts might converge to form a conclusion. Is acting quality relevant to the “best film” question? Who decides what acting is good and what is wretched? Is being divisible by two relevant to the “best number” question? If so, who decides whether that would be propitious or deleterious?

Such is morality. Perhaps human suffering is relevant vis-à-vis moral questions, with increased suffering being immoral and decreased suffering (or increased pleasure) being moral. Then again, maybe not. For now, there is no way to know. Although we can ascertain facts about what behaviors cause suffering…or what actions cause pleasure…or what behaviors harm the environment, we have no way of knowing those facts’ relevancy to the question of morality.

Conversely, facts involving radiocarbon dating, for example, clearly have relevancy vis-à-vis Darwinian evolution. In the sciences, facts’ relevancy is generally clear.

Rhology: Been wondering something - Where are these "Christofascists"? Compared to the very large number of Islamofascists, they are a speck if they exist at all. And their modus operandi is so different from jihadists as to warrant the serious question - why the "-ofascist" at the end of the appellation?

You need to point these people out and give a good reason to think they're acting in accord with a doctrine that could reasonably be thought to be of Christ; otherwise you're engaging in poisoning the well. Showing that their numbers even approach that of jihadists would help your case as well. It needs the help.

Nihilist: You keep wanting to make this about behavior when, from the commencement, I have said my Christofascist/Islamofascist comparison involves mindset. Large numbers of Christians and Muslims suffer from the pathology that their arbitrary moral opinions can and should be inflicted on other people against their will. One need not be an abortion clinic sniper to be a Christofascist; one need only be a Christian so enamored of his religion that he feels not only can he make objective moral judgments about other people but can coercively impose his moral standards on them, as well. [Consider your personal delusion here: The fallacy that your metaphysical foundation, and its offshoots, extends beyond your mind.] If one’s Christianity is an unwelcome interference in other people’s lives, one is a Christofascist. I use this standard for Muslims and all other theists. I rarely encounter an atheofascist (that being an atheist who acts coercively toward theists).

“One need only remember the commandment addressing covetousness, which lumps thy neighbor’s wife in with that same neighbor’s ox and ass.”

Rhology: You have completely abandoned your original field of discourse on this topic, that of the "wives, submit to your husbands", since I provided you the context.

Nihilist: I only “abandoned my original field of discourse” in your reply, because you chose not to quote the relevant portion of my response. I said, “My concern is not related to the specifics of the inequality but rather to the inequality itself. You condemn Islam’s ‘mistreatment’ of women but, when one looks at Christianity, it is quite clear that women and men are not treated as absolute equals.” As long as you affirm “the head of the woman is the man,” your condemnation of female treatment under Islam is rather like you walking into a bar—nursing a cold Budweiser— and promptly telling everybody downing shots that they should not imbibe alcohol.

Rhology: You're battered so you retreat to the OT, moving the goalposts.

Nihilist: I did not realize you scoff so easily at the Ten Commandments, to which many Christofascists are happily wedded. After all, you must remember the two-and-a-half-ton Ten Commandments monument commissioned by Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Presumably, his battle over the monument underscores his viewpoint that the commandments remain relevant today. In raising the aforequoted objection, I assumed you might wish to defend the placement of wives alongside oxen and asses.

“This is not a ‘clean break’ from the Islamic misogyny you excoriate.”

Rhology: Deal with the hypothetical all you want. The Bible denies such hypotheticals - God doesn't change, can't be any other way. It's like asking me if God can microwave a burrito so hot that He can't eat it.

Nihilist: My hypotheticals have little to do with the Bible and much to do with you as an individual.

A couple rounds back, I asked you this:

“…what if Jesus had explicitly preached that women should walk ten steps behind men, or that they never should show their faces in public, or that they never should shake hands with men?”

Prior to confirming Jesus did not preach that, you answered:

“I'd submit and conform to it.”

This relates to what I wrote to commence this long rebuttal: If god had said it is necessary to castrate all practicing homosexuals, and then drench oneself in their spurting blood, presumably, you would submit and conform to it. Or, if god had said, every Sunday, it is necessary to torture all heathens prolongedly, presumably, you would submit and conform to it. I know I cannot make objective moral judgments, but your willingness to submit absolutely to a text—a text (!) written by primitives who knew essentially nothing of the natural order—is far more revealing than you might wish to accept.

“Presumably, when that verse was written, god knew quite well that some of his followers would misuse it in the context of hysterical hunts for witches”

Rhology: You're the one who's so fond of freewill. What's wrong if God is a fan of it too?

Man, God just can't win - you won't give Him credit either way!

What's He supposed to do? Zap them out of existence as soon as they start to think a wrong thought about the meaning of the Bible?

Besides, this is just one more moral judgment - you're trying to convince me that these hunts and these Scriptures which supposedly underpin them are morally objectionable. This dog only comes out when the meat is stinky enough, it would seem.

Nihilist: Hold it…I am not making any objective moral judgments. I am using biblical standards as articulated by YOU: After all, you are to apologetics what the finest Oxford fairyologist is to the study of pixies, fairies and elven creatures.

I shall let you speak on behalf of Christians as to the moral righteousness of using torture on suspected witches in order to secure extravagant confessions. “I wouldn't support those gross abuses,” you emphatically stated. You also condemned as sinful executing somebody who was not afforded a fair trial. Undoubtedly, many innocent people were executed as witches, given the miserable standard of evidence that prevailed, the forced confessions attributable to torture and the nonsensical tests confected to distinguish witch from non-witch.

If this spectacle truly were displeasing to god, why would his divinely inspired text include a verse that facilitated and enabled such blood-drenched lunacy? Would omitting/rephrasing that verse have obliterated free will? No. The deity’s alleged omniscience, and his choice to leave the verse “as is,” clearly seems to indicate that god was quite satisfied with permitting the witch-hunts to occur. One wonders why god would indirectly facilitate acts you identify as being sinful.

“it is not even clear from the Bible whether the creator of the universe is aware of Australia.”

Rhology: B/c it's not mentioned in the Bible? Wow - a ZINGER of an argument!

Nihilist: I have reiterated this point quite a bit on my blog. The notion that a book…any book (but particularly a cobbled-together tome from an ignorant period of human prehistory)…is omnisciently inspired is quite extraordinary. Only the most extraordinary of evidence would suffice to substantiate this notion. So, as I scour the Bible, I look for brand new information about the natural order—information that, prior to the Bible’s writing, was unavailable to humankind. But the Bible, to its shame, fails the test. In a recent blog post, I wrote this…

“…the Bible could have contained some brand new information about the natural order. I have harped on this before, primarily because I think The Argument from Mundanity is one of the strongest weapons in an atheist’s arsenal. After all, Christians claim that the creator of the universe directly inspired the Bible’s very words. Forget about Einstein and Hemingway; forget about Joyce and Sagan—this is the creator of the universe here. And yet, despite god’s omniscient authorship, the Bible wallows in pre-scientific primitivism and yawn-inducing mundanity. As Sam Harris observed, ‘[The Bible] does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.’ There is nothing about the actual age or size of the universe. There is nothing about the germ theory of disease. Earth’s vast geography is shrunk down to claustrophobically local levels. It is not even clear from the Bible whether the creator of the universe is aware of Australia. If the Bible’s alleged omniscience had been manifest, that tome could have been meaningful evidence.”

If you want to impress me with an omnisciently inspired book, you shall have to do much better than the Bible. Moreover, you shall have to offer up a better justification for Christofascistic tendencies than the fallacious notion that the world is overarched by your metaphysical foundation, that being the prism through which you view it.