CONSVLTVS writes:

As a novice in the blogosphere, I’m discovering more fascinating conversations every day. I had seen a couple of references to your site, so this morning I stopped by.

What a treasure! The graphics are beautiful. More importantly, the content is first rate. You are making essentially the same case on sexual relations as I, though you have been doing it much longer. (My first blog entry was just last August.)

Where I think we differ is in religion. I was intrigued by your recent post, The Murky Waters of Atheism. I agree with every point you made against atheism, for instance that since atheism cannot point to an ultimate moral order in the universe any moral assertions made by atheists are on the order of preferences. More, I see some kind of religion as essentially inevitable for human society, and among the world’s religions most have operated to the benefit of their adherents. Still, I remain a nonbeliever.

Why? It is simply that I have no faith. It seems incredible to me that the details of each particular religion could possibly be true. That sense of incredulity is so strong that it would make my public espousal of any religious creed a fraud (and thus useless for redemption, if there were a God). It even overcomes my preferences, for I am an unwilling unbeliever.

Consider: On the one hand, Christianity offers a life of community in which the Creator of the universe takes a personal interest, followed by blissful eternity in His presence along with everyone I have ever loved. On the other hand, atheism offers a short life in an indifferent universe, where pain is never balanced in the moral ledger, followed by oblivion. What fool would choose the latter?

For some of us, that latter choice is distressingly inevitable.

Many young atheists discard God because they want to be free to misbehave. Later, they tend to find “spiritual” New Age substitutes for traditional religion, or they return to the fold. Many do remain atheists to the end, and some few of those are, perhaps for reasons of personality, conservative.

Imagine that you were incapable of belief. You might find yourself expressing your still firm conservatism. I have done so in a little slide show you might find of interest. I do not expect it will make an (un)believer out of you, and indeed conversion is not its purpose. But I hope you will find it some evidence that there is a small community of conservatives, reliable allies on many issues, who are still skeptics when it comes to religion.

Laura writes:

Thank you. I appreciate your interest and your support.

I looked at your blog and enjoyed your item on the poet laureate of Britain very much. You are right. Her refusal to write about the prince’s engagement suggests she does not understand the parameters of her assignment. She doesn’t have to say anything conventional about the engagement. Not at all. Let her write a clever sonnet on the stupidity of love or celebrity marriage.  But she should say something. A poet who cannot summon any words about the betrothal of the future monarch of her own dying republic is lacking in imagination. It’s like hiring a guard for Buckingham Palace who refuses to hold a gun. She is not worthy of the laureate post.

I also found your YouTube presentation lucid and nicely presented, if unpersuasive and factually flawed.

Now, please don’t think I have no respect for your efforts to define and wrestle with conservative skepticism (or skeptical conservatism). We live in a shallow and thoughtless world. I have some respect for anyone who sincerely tries to hash out the terms on which he is living and who does not treat believers with hostility. But I notice a few glaring evasions in your video and your note above. I would just like to see you hone your arguments.

You write, It seems incredible to me that the details of each particular religion could possibly be true. That’s good. I’m glad this strikes you as incredible because the details of each particular religion definitely are not true. The idea that either all religions are true or none of them are true is a strange and false dichotomy. I think it wise to consider the possibility that there really haven’t been that many world religions. There have been pantheistic and polytheistic philosophies. There have been apprehensions of the supernatural embodied in myth. But there have not been many religions. In fact, there has arguably only been one, possibly two. 

You write: Consider: On the one hand, Christianity offers a life of community in which the Creator of the universe takes a personal interest, followed by blissful eternity in His presence along with everyone I have ever loved. On the other hand, atheism offers a short life in an indifferent universe, where pain is never balanced in the moral ledger, followed by oblivion. What fool would choose the latter?

Is the possibility that there is a higher intelligence, a personality much, much smarter than you, who knows you better than you know yourself and who  holds you accountable for your actions such a comforting thing? Seems kind of terrifying to me. Isn’t an indifferent universe a better proposition?

You speak of your “sense of incredulity” when it comes to Christianity, but this is not of much interest to me. If someone said to me that they have a “sense of incredulity” regarding the existence of subatomic matter that would not persuade me whether there is or is not such a thing as subatomic matter. Put aside your sense of things and in your video say what you believe: that Christianity makes false claims about history. You believe Christians are promoting a false view of historical events, but you approve of their ethics. Fine, that I can understand. I think it is wrong-headed but I can understand it. But this vague sense of incredulity is irrelevant. Christianity makes very specific claims about historical events. It is evasion to not come right out and say you think this history is false when you are capable of evaluating Christianity’s historical claims. This is not rocket science. Look at the evidence. Was Christ who he said he was or not? Is the evidence reliable or not?  If he was not who he said he was, then devote yourself to a truthful order. Tell people he was not who he said he was and explain why. Ground your beliefs in what is. Life is too short to perpetually dangle from a thread.

Now if you admitted to just being too stupid or indifferent to figuring it all out that would be one thing, but you actually present vague, ill-defined reasons and argument for being skeptical. And yet all the time, you avoid the heart of the matter. Are Christianity’s claims true or not? You want the ethics of Christianity to bolster social order, but you’d just as soon leave the ultimate responsibility and justification for these ethics to others. You don’t want to be held accountable for their truth or falsity. You just want to get on with the show. How can I care about what you say when you seem to care so little about truth? It’s not that I insist you agree, but at least admit there is such a thing as truth so that I can take you seriously.

You say in your video, “People everywhere and at all time have believed in a higher power.” This is not true at all. Buddhism involves a belief in the supernatural and the superiority of the immaterial over the material, but it is not quite the belief in a higher power. Primitive polytheists did not believe in a higher power in the sense we mean the term. Their gods were an extension of nature and did not transcend it. Pantheism is the default belief system of most of humanity. This is not the belief in a higher power, but the belief in an impersonal and immanent force that is ultimately inconsequential in the face of human will. If anything, humanity has resisted from the beginning of recorded hisory the notion of a higher power. Is a golden calf a higher power?

You say that skeptics need rules of conduct. Of course, skeptics need ethics. People who live in Alaska need coats. The problem is, the skeptic cannot justify his ethics and does not really know when he should wear a coat or why he should wear a coat. He follows a general sense of things when life is, if anything, disturbingly specific and often does not conform to very general rules, especially given the variety and distinctiveness of human personality. He can offer no reason to wear a coat as opposed to, say, a sweatshirt. In that case, he should perhaps just say, “I don’t know. I am going to defer to those who have an argument for why we should wear coats and refuse to undercut their justifications given that I simply don’t know anything about matters of ultimate meaning and believe nothing meaningful can be known. I am not going to present skepticism as a form of belief when it is, in fact, a suspension of belief. I am going to defer to my ancestors and to those who care about these things more than I do. Why? Because I don’t  know. Because I love my people if nothing else.”

                                                      — Comments —

Walenty Lisek writes:

CONSVLTVS writes:

On the one hand, Christianity offers a life of community in which the Creator of the universe takes a personal interest, followed by blissful eternity in His presence along with everyone I have ever loved. On the other hand, atheism offers a short life in an indifferent universe, where pain is never balanced in the moral ledger, followed by oblivion. What fool would choose the latter?

If based on faith or feeling, then you should choose Christianity. If based on facts and logic, then you must choose the second. No sane person chooses atheism because it makes them feel better.

Laura writes: Is the possibility that there is a higher intelligence, a personality much, much smarter than you, who knows you better than you know yourself and who holds you accountable for your actions such a comforting thing? Seems kind of terrifying to me. Isn’t an indifferent universe a better proposition?

An indifferent universe is absolutely not a better proposition from the point of view of human emotions. Consvltvs above understates the position of atheism. Not only is the universe uncaring and indifferent to your suffering, not only will Nature not balance the moral scales that humans value, but at the end of it all you and everyone you love will be swallowed by the big-black-nothing.

One does not choose atheism because it makes them feel better about life, one chooses atheism because they think it is true.

Laura writes:

Yes, one should choose atheism only because one thinks it is true. However, Consvltvs said, “No sane person chooses atheism because it makes them [sic] feel better.” I was merely pointing out that a sane person could indeed have compelling psychological reasons for believing in atheism, not that every atheist bases his beliefs on the fear I mentioned.

Kristor writes:

Thanks to Consvltvs for an articulate contribution to the discussion. I hope he will not mind my saying that I think he is barking up the wrong tree. When we are satisfied with our understanding of things, our motivation to undertake a serious examination of quite a different understanding is nil. Until Consvltvs discovers some holes in his atheism, he won’t want to move away from it, and any of the alternatives are going to look pretty silly. 

So rather than giving religion a critical glance and deciding it is incredible on its face, he should examine the premises of his atheism as carefully as he can, to see if it is really credible after all. He might ask, for example, whether it really makes sense to think that an orderly universe came out of nothing at all. In order to do this properly, he shall have to approach the project with an honest desire to discover and correct the inadequacies in his own understanding. This is not about defending a doctrine from attack, it is about seeking the truth with an open mind, and with a willingness to follow the logic wherever it goes. 

If he has once begun to think that there may be some irreparable holes in atheism, then perhaps he will be ready to start trying to figure out what theism means. By then, he will have found himself in search of a better theory, and theism might not seem so incredible anymore; for he will by then have been disabused of his confidence in its opposite. And, once he has begun to think that there might be something to theism after all, then and only then should he begin studying up on the details of the various theistic religions and theologies. It’s critical to find out what they think they are preaching, rather than relying upon their critics.

Jesse Powell writes:

I find it interesting that skeptics / atheists are starting to assert themselves as skeptics, incorporating their lack of religion as being a part of their identity. Some “militant atheists” such as Christopher Hitchens actively argue that religion is a negative force that produces many harms and that the positive attributes that are credited to religion can just as easily be achieved through non-religious means of argument persuasion and communally based rule setting. 

Skeptics are starting to assert themselves as skeptics, and the subset of skeptics that are conservative are starting to assert themselves as “Skeptical Conservatives”. These “Skeptical Conservatives” make a point that they are both conservative and non-religious, asserting that their existence is real and true precisely to counter the argument made at this website and in many other places that atheism and conservatism are intrinsically incompatible with each other and by necessity are in conflict with each other. 

Skeptics who are also conservative face a problem in that those who are their natural allies, religious conservatives, often castigate and attack them for their lack of religious faith, making the claim that their lack of religious faith by definition undermines the legitimacy of the conservatism they advocate. When faced with this problem many Skeptical Conservatives take the approach of saying they wish they could be Christian, they really respect Christianity, but they just can’t bring themselves to “have faith.” 

Another approach the Skeptical Conservative might take is to dispute the claim that conservatism and a lack of religious faith are incompatible at all. This approach is more confrontational but in my opinion is more intellectually honest. 

In the words Consvltvs said it is clear he is taking the first more conciliatory approach; however, in his video he does offer vague criticism of religion in general and vague assertions about the need for man to live under an orderly set of rules that is consistent with conservatism. In my view, CONSVLTVS, in his video, is simply explaining that there is another way to view the world outside of religion and that there is a basis for a skeptic holding to conservative views. 

Laura is correct that Consvltvs is not supporting his view on what the moral order should be and why very effectively, that he offers implicit criticism of religion without explaining what his alternative to religion is. This is either because Consvltvs has not worked out his system of moral values yet or because he is trying to avoid confrontation. My inclination is to think it is the latter, that he is trying to avoid confrontation. 

Most skeptical conservatives try to avoid confrontation with religious conservatives for obvious reasons, because they don’t want to be shunned by the social group they feel a political affinity towards and because they want to be allowed to speak and voice their opinions without their views being summarily dismissed. 

Laura, it seems to me you are challenging Consvltvs to a fight when he doesn’t want to fight, when he doesn’t want to go into great detail about why he thinks Christianity is wrong. Can’t atheists / skeptics be allowed to exist in peace in the political environments they feel most comfortable in?

Laura writes:

“Most skeptical conservatives try to avoid confrontation.”

Writing on the subject of faith, as Consvltvs has done, is an invitation to others to examine one’s claims. His video is not necessarily confrontational, but it is not silent deference either. Consvltvs was not attacked by me for these statements. I stated where I believed they were evasive or wrong. There is no one keeping him from “existing in peace” within conservatism unless he cannot achieve peace unless he receives absolute agreement with everything he says.

The “skeptical conservative” who really and truly wants to be an ally of Christian conservatives should never go around publicly stating that what Christians believe is no different from what Muslims believe, that all world religions are one undifferentiated stew, unless he is willing to back up his claims. He can even politely back up his claims, and invite civil discussion, but if he is going to wade into the subject of religion he should be prepared with some basic understanding of what religion is and what different faiths believe. Otherwise, the skeptical conservative should simply promote conservatism and stay away from the subject of faith altogether, deferring to the traditions of his culture.

Jesse’s claim that Christians tend to ostracize atheists simply because they are atheists, regardless of whether they are respectful or not, is not convincing. Challenging an atheist’s beliefs when the subject of religion arises is not a form of ostracism.  I don’t reject any allies in the fight against liberalism unless these allies try to destroy or undermine Christianity too.

Clark Coleman writes:

CONSVLTVS wrote: “Consider: On the one hand, Christianity offers a life of community in which the Creator of the universe takes a personal interest, followed by blissful eternity in His presence along with everyone I have ever loved. On the other hand, atheism offers a short life in an indifferent universe, where pain is never balanced in the moral ledger, followed by oblivion. What fool would choose the latter?”

I have found that the sequence of accepting atheism is often the following: One is presented with an image of religion as superstition and irrationality, and lack of religion as enlightenment and rationality. Given those images, the latter is chosen, often quite early in life, e.g. the teen years. Only later does the atheist grapple with implications of oblivion and meaninglessness, at which time he has already chosen enlightenment and rationality over superstition and irrationality. Now he must decide if he wants to flee back to superstition just because he has glimpsed oblivion, which he cannot honestly do because it would be a case of pretending to believe something.

So, in answer to the question of why anyone would choose atheism, I contend that it is often chosen based on superficial images, by teenagers with no philosophical or religious maturity, and seems quite desirable, with the undesirable parts revealed much later as they mature and think more.

Josh F. writes:

I say to the “skeptical conservative” who makes the grandest assertion (there is no God) “utilizing” no empirical evidence that his  “skepticism” is anything but. Notice that the atheist accuses the 
believer of making the grandest assertion (God exists) with no  empirical evidence. Each side, making antithetical assertions, accuses the other of doing the exact same thing; you are making a bold 
assertion with no empirical evidence. But clearly, the believer has a  universe of empirical evidence in which to cite AND he has the Supreme  example of Jesus Christ in which to follow. The atheist’s fundamental  assertion that there is no Supremacy in general (God) or in particular (Jesus Christ) is nothing more than a simple denial of reality. And right along with this denial of reality is the ever present euphemism,  the skeptic. Can a skeptic really be one who makes a grand assertion based on NO empirical evidence? What do we call one who makes a “skeptical” assertion based on empirical evidence? A believer?

Walenty Lisek writes:

Clark Coleman writes: “So, in answer to the question of why anyone would choose atheism, I contend that it is often chosen based on superficial images, by teenagers with no philosophical or religious maturity, and seems quite desirable, with the undesirable parts revealed much later as they mature and think more.”

I suppose there may be some slow-in-the-head atheists out there, but the idea that the supernatural or god does not exist automatically implies oblivion awaits at the end so I doubt many atheists don’t know about this going in to atheism. But then I only know two other atheists in real life so maybe I’m dealing with a biased sample.

CONSVLVTVS writes:

Thanks for the kind words. As for the rest, well, I have no interest jousting. As I said, my intent is not to convert anyone. If you found any of my material “vague,” I suggest you put that down to an attempt at being polite.

The point of the whole exercise is to announce that you have allies on the Right, even if we do not share your faith.

Jesse Powell writes:

I wish to add a comment in regards to whether an atheist necessarily chooses atheism only because intellectually he believes it is true, not for emotional reasons. For me personally, it is much easier, from an emotional point of view, to be an atheist than it would be to be a Christian. From my current position becoming a true believing Christian is unfathomable to me because intellectually I’m sure I would find one disagreement after another after another in regards to specific elements of religious doctrine. More importantly, however, the thought that I would give up control of my mental faculties to somebody else, like the minister of my church or to the “group think” of whatever congregation I might join, is what is truly terrifying and unacceptable to me. From my point of view, my morality, the integrity of my soul, is dependent upon me making moral decisions about my actions. To me, I am much more likely to live a moral life by acting according to my own reason and my own understanding of the world than by blindly following the dictates of somebody else, whoever that “higher power” may be. Now if God were to appear in front of me, and I understood him to be God in the sense Christians mean that term, then of course I would follow him blindly and believe what He says regardless of whether it conformed to my perceptions of things as a fallible human being or not. My own understanding and reason is the closest I can get to understanding “God’s will”; though it is imperfect it is all I have access to. 

All that I have said, however, I only claim to be true for myself. Atheism is not for everyone, how things appear atheism is only for the minority. I happen to be a part of that minority but it does seem for the great majority religion is a benefit to them and I in no way seek to undermine or de-legitimize the benefits that believing Christians receive from their Christianity. Christianity, it seems to me, is both a benefit to the Christians who are drawn to believe and to society as a whole. 

Now on the subject of nobody choosing atheism for emotional reasons, based on my observations and what I know of human nature, that doesn’t make sense to me. I have recently done some research on the political beliefs of atheists and gone to some atheist websites and it does indeed appear that a great many atheists are intentionally seeking to free themselves from the moral bounds of religion. Though I argue that an atheist is not by definition a rejecter of absolute truth, many atheists in practice seem to revel in ridiculing the moral values that Christians seek to impose upon them, deriding Christian moral values as nonsensical superstition, and a remarkable number of atheists characterize themselves as being libertarians. To my mind, an atheist who advocates libertarianism is letting his atheism dictate his politics or perhaps he has chosen to be an atheist in order to buttress his libertarian stance. I’m not saying all atheist libertarians by definition are being intellectually dishonest in their advocacy of the libertarian “ideal” but there are way more atheist libertarians than there are libertarians in the general population indicating to me that most atheist libertarians are simply rejecting moral standards, not honestly advocating for a libertarian “ideal world.” 

Judging by what I have read on atheist websites I’d say about half of atheists are atheist libertarians, indicating that they are fleeing religiously based restraints on immoral personal conduct; that they are atheists for selfish and anti-social reasons. 

It is true that adherence to religiously based moral principles has gone down during the same time period where adherence to moral values in general has gone down. Church attendance falling in a society does coincide with greater levels of social disorder and family breakdown. Atheism can be pathological, harmful to the individual person and harmful to the society overall. For those who wish to study up on what might be called “atheist culture” I suggest going to the Atheist Nexus website.

 Laura writes:

Jesse writes: 

More importantly, however, the thought that I would give up control of my mental faculties to somebody else, like the minister of my church or to the “group think” of whatever congregation I might join, is what is truly terrifying and unacceptable to me. From my point of view, my morality, the integrity of my soul, is dependent upon me making moral decisions about my actions. To me, I am much more likely to live a moral life by acting according to my own reason and my own understanding of the world than by blindly following the dictates of somebody else, whoever that “higher power” may be.

The Church has very little authority over the personal lives of believers, especially today. However, both Catholics and Protestants are required to profess the basic tenets of their faiths.

Christian morality springs from the inner workings of faith. Christian sexuality, in the mind of the believer, isn’t the result of edicts against carnal pleasure, but of the deeper understanding of what the body is. Looked at from the outside, these ethics may seem like mindless adherence to an authoritarian code, but from the inside they are willing and voluntary assent to what is.   Usually, this understanding is acquired progressively, over the course of time, as one realizes the full implications of what one believes and that’s why one agrees to be led by the wisdom of Scripture and the teachings of the Church Fathers. One cannot escape “groupthink” of one kind or another. But there is a rich tradition against mindless assent. Job cried out in the whirlwind. God did not repudiate him. The Bible includes the reflections of Ecclesiastes, who said religion is so much wishful thinking. How is one to mindlessly follow here? The more one tries to grapple with Christian truths, the more one is called to use one’s reasoning and think.

No one can control your mental faculties, as far as I know.  Well, no one can control them unless you give them up. The fact that orthodox Christians agree on many issues doesn’t mean they do not think for themselves.

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