An Atheist Apologizes to Christians - Call In Show - March 4th, 2015

[JamesP]

This was an amazing conversation, thanks to the caller and Stef for sharing it.

 

It's certainly provoked a lot of thought and examination for me; I invite everyone to give it a listen. It's a long call but it is most certainly worth it.

[K.o.t.H.]

Listening to it now. Thanks

[Molly]

Agreed, loved this call, so moving and thought provoking.  

 

For a long time I've only been focused only on the negative aspects of my Catholic upbringing; It's taken me years to shake off the crushing guilt, and I've been so angry about so many things.  The conversation reminds me of the good parts of that community that I've taken with me... but to again the question is, to where?

[MysterionMuffles]

Totally moving call. My bestfriends in my physical proximity are both Catholic, while of course all my online FDR friends are Atheists. For the most part, the ones I talk to most are just as curious and compassionate as my Catholic friends. But there has been the discrepancy with some more FDR acquaintances who judge me and challenge me for having Catholic bestfriends like its a bad thing. They cut off the possibility of being friends with people of the same belief structures simply because it is rooted in superstition and religion. They make the argument that relationships are based in honesty and reality, and having irrational beliefs like religion stumps if not completely stifles their capacity to be true friends. Although it's a valid sounding argument, it hasn't been empirically proven in my experience. I could be wrong, but so far, I've been able to discuss my differences with my friends when it comes to their religious beliefs and my philosophical ones without it becoming a hostile debate. Instead, because I'm close with them, we're able to disagree peacefully and at the same time gain more insight about each other where we differ. 

 

This call reaffirms my belief that as long as you're a curious and compassionate person, no matter what your belief structure is, you're already a decent person, and much better than the rest of the populace. We have similar conclusions, but different methodologies. I think the tolerance taught in Christianity is probably what's left in me as I'm able to tolerate that my bestfriends believe in a sky ghost, but at least when it comes to real life execution of the virtues found in their religion, they are some of the kindest most consistent people I know in my life. 

[PatrickC]

Wow this was such an interesting call in, thanks James (needed a few tissues for this one ). Recently I'd been thinking that whilst I've always tended to feel that I would have prefered my family to have left the church whilst I was growing up. There was a great deal of kind and benevolent people that I met in that community for whom I wouldn't have benefited from if my family hadn't been connected to them.

 

Having spent some time with people in this (FDR) community, I realise that my ACE score of 3 is quite low by comparison to many. That my parents in particular my father's faith probably tempered his propensity for sadism. That without his faith things could have been a whole lot worse for me.

 

I feel I've reached a cornerstone which has finally brought me some peace regarding my history with christianity. I hope Scott can find that peace also. Great call.

[Yeravos]

I feel this conversation that Scott and Stef had might well be one of the most important, gamechanging conversations I have ever heard.
Not only the fact that there are, when I think about it, a lot of things I have in common with what I imagine would be a whole lot of christians out there even though I am an atheist (something I would never think I'd ever say), but it is also giving me food for thought when it comes to ''How can I improve the world?''

 

For quite some time, I have thought that the best way I can change the world is for me to act and speak as if we were on the brink of a peaceful society. Which I don't think we are. To just bullrush into the superstitions of people and cry ''For truth!''.

 

It is a difficult thing to say, because I identify a great deal with that inner radical social-change warrior inside me... But it is too soon. I believe that I, like Stef, has been projecting my own situation onto the rest of the world. Truth was (relatively) easy for me to grasp... because I had so little to lose, and so much to gain. But that isn't the case with everyone else.

 

This call has helped me realise, that truth isn't worth much, if it cannot change the world. It helped me realise that I do not want to fight for truth, but for the children. That fighting for truth might help children out is more of a happy coincidence.

 

I have a lot more thoughts to digest from this call... I expect to relisten to it a few more times at least.

 

A HUGE shoutout to the brave caller Scott. What a brave and good man, changing the world for real. And of course, thanks once again Stef for sharing wisdom and love to the world.

[2bits]

I'll be the contrarian. Like others, I was also moved by the emotional situation of the caller. However, Stefan went off the reservation with a train of thought that leads to this logical conclusion:

 

We should raise our children in religion for utilitarian reasons.

 

He's not wrong because of a conclusion I dislike. Go where the evidence leads. Instead, there were a series of incomplete and cherry picked data, logical fallacies, and overall emotional bias that led to what I consider a false conclusion.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if either Stefan expresses regret later, or announces the results of this reverse psych experiment.

 

I want to go on and dissect it sentence by sentence. I feel that strongly about it. However, these days I'm not much for internet, lengthy, typed, forum back-forth. My daughters are asking me to play before bed now. This is the best avenue for immediate feedback to the show. I will probably email the show and see if I can challenge Stefan directly.

 

Update: I found a more appropriate thread for my comment here: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/43536-an-atheist-apologizes-to-christians-call-in-show-march-4th-2015/

[PatrickC]

I found a more appropriate thread for my comment here: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/43536-an-atheist-apologizes-to-christians-call-in-show-march-4th-2015/

 

Yes, I'm aware of that thread and have deliberately avoided commenting on it, because people's minds it seems are made up. But since you bring it to this thread I'll give you my own thoughts on it. Firstly I think it's completely understandable that some people in this community were going to react negatively towards this call. I think if I had listened to this call more than 2/3 years ago I might have been joining them myself.

 

I can't speak for you or anyone else's history with religion, but I know my own. Having been brought up with religion, it certainly hampered my own search for truth in adulthood, which swept me down a path to nihilism, causing me no end of problems in finding true happiness in my life. I have certainly cursed religion for that. But in reality much of my reaction towards religion was more a projection of how my parents had lied and treated me. Religion had been a soft target for my annoyance with them. In more recent years I've gotten to know some Christians through work and realised that I share many values with them. Values that are almost never shared in any other community I interact with day to day. It was a startling revelation to me at first and one that I felt decidedly uncomfortable with at first. But they have been surprisingly warm towards my ideas on ethics and child raising and just about the only people I've ever been able to discuss philosophy with in a civil and productive manner outside of this community.

 

I'll be the contrarian. Like others, I was also moved by the emotional situation of the caller. However, Stefan went off the reservation with a train of thought that leads to this logical conclusion:

 

We should raise our children in religion for utilitarian reasons.

 

This simply isn't true. The question was, with whom would you prefer to leave your children too, if the only choices were the state or the church? With all the caveats that it was a church community that didn't indulge in subjugation and exploitation. However, I do agree that it's a pragmatic stance. Stefan was very clear to say that it wasn't an argument.

 

If we take philosophy seriously it's an extremely hard discipline to follow in our current culture. Something that makes it that much harder is by expecting to be surrounded by people in our lives that share absolutely every value we have. Some of us simply aren't going to be living around likeminds and it may not be practical for us to leave and be amongst them. So finding people that don't initiate force against us in our personal lives and still manage to share some of our values can be potentially great allies for us and allow us to move out into the wider world we're surrounded by. I for one do not want to be living in isolation in my own impenetrable philosophical ivory tower.

 

That said, I do understand how challenging it can seem at first, particularly if you've never considered it before. I think it's a personal process we all have to go through as individuals dependent on our own circumstances. I'd still be open to your arguments against it of course. I'm not saying my position or Stefan's is ironclad. There may well be issues that we haven't considered that need correction. Excuse me for being long winded perhaps, but I hope it makes sense.

[MysterionMuffles]

I can't speak for you or anyone else's history with religion, but I know my own. Having been brought up with religion, it certainly hampered my own search for truth in adulthood, which swept me down a path to nihilism, causing me no end of problems in finding true happiness in my life. I have certainly cursed religion for that. But in reality much of my reaction towards religion was more a projection of how my parents had lied and treated me. Religion had been a soft target for my annoyance with them. In more recent years I've gotten to know some Christians through work and realised that I share many values with them. Values that are almost never shared in any other community I interact with day to day. It was a startling revelation to me at first and one that I felt decidedly uncomfortable with at first. But they have been surprisingly warm towards my ideas on ethics and child raising and just about the only people I've ever been able to discuss philosophy with in a civil and productive manner outside of this community.

 

We have quite the mirrored journey, Patrick...There was a short period of time in between Agnosticism and Atheism where I thought there was no point to anything and goodness was a vague thing to grasp. I connect with this comment. I'm better able to have philosophical discussions with my Christian friends than I can with people who have pursued alternate spirituality like the new age suff. And you're not alone in projecting anger towards dishonest parents onto religion. Religion is partly to blame for their ignorance, but if the Bible is a giant invitation to cherry pick from an abundance of values and non-values, so are my parents for choosing to believe in the inhibiting beliefs. In fact, I don't think they even cared for the values so much as the appearance of Christians who go to church every Sunday and that is enough to obsolve them of their sins.

 

Religion, much like any belief system, becomes a problem when it isn't so much about practicing what you preach, but preaching the opposite of what you practice. You know, those kind of people who are more proud to belong to a certain belief system than they are to actually have any integrity? Like a friend I used to have who was egotistical about being enlightened instead of actually BEING enlightened. There were some beliefs from her new age spirituality that were actionable and beneficial because they were some that I carried on from my Agnostic days. However, her belief system wasn't for making herself a better person, it was for making herself APPEAR a better person than other people.

[Tservitive]

Such a powerful conversation. It reminded me of when I first discovered FDR and how religion was the toughest truth I had to confront. While I'm not a mormon, nor never was, I've always had respect for the LDS church for placing an importance on the family. Over the past summer, had I not discovered FDR, I was thinking about the benefits of LDS with regards to family and dietary choices. I am happy that I accidentally stumbled upon one of Stef's speeches, but it is good to know that me feeling of sympathy towards the religious as opposed to the statists was based on a shared set of concessionary values rather than internal biases that I still harbor. 

[2bits]

This simply isn't true. The question was, with whom would you prefer to leave your children too, if the only choices were the state or the church? With all the caveats that it was a church community that didn't indulge in subjugation and exploitation. However, I do agree that it's a pragmatic stance. Stefan was very clear to say that it wasn't an argument.

I provide quotes in the other thread that prove Stefan's comments were not limited to the caller's least-bad options. I could go line by line gathering more "non-arguments" that apply equally to the caller's children and anyone elses' children.

 

This is a positive thread, rather than critical like the other, so I'll bow out and let you have the last word. I'll just say that Stefan has earned trust with me (even after the Frozen magic-is-insanity stuff ), but no one will ever accuse me of being a Stefbot. Not that you are a Stefbot yourself.

[shirgall]

As someone that was raised without religion I don't relate to those who rebel against it or those that are tortured by the idea of leaving it. This was an interesting podcast for me.

 

As one who is willing to talk to people from any background, and who respects people that really listen, I liked the discussion. I don't understand the (sometimes visceral) reaction to it. Stef's views came across as more pragmatic that utilitarian. The people, right now, who are most open to arguments about child abuse are who they are.

[J. D. Stembal]

I do not have any experience with the Church or Latter Day Saints, but my experience with Protestantism was very empty. You go to a building on holidays, sing songs, and donate money, but there was no sense of community. I didn't know any one at the church by name, and no one knew me by name.

 

I believe my parents, who are predominantly leftist, went there because they were guilt tripped by their parents into exposing me to it. I was baptized by the Presbysterian church. I was also circumcised, which is another religious practice, but one not particular to Presbyters.

 

I knew faith was nonsense just as most children find out that Santa Claus is a hoax. There is no sense of love between my parents, and no sense that they wanted to honor their marriage vows, except out of convenience. They likely got married because there was no other better mates available in their early twenties. My father took on a mistress when he expatriated to Southeast Asia in 2000, and sired two children in secret.

 

My parents stealth divorced in 2012, not telling anybody, and my father married his mistress so that both of their kids would stay in the United States. If my father's mistress could not get a valid green card or visa, she would have taken only my sister back to Thailand permanently, separating brother from sister.

 

People are welcome to believe whatever fantasies they wish, but I have no wish to associate with the irrationality of organized religion or endorse the state institution of marriage. Along with the brutal practice of circumcision, which comes straight out of religion, many Christians, especially Catholics, come out of a history of childhood violence to enforce rules.

 

This is the very essence of the gun of statism. Do what we say or you die!

[Tservitive]

People are welcome to believe whatever fantasies they wish, but I have no wish to associate with the irrationality of organized religion or endorse the state institution of marriage. Along with the brutal practice of circumcision, which comes straight out of religion, many Christians, especially Catholics, come out of a history of childhood violence to enforce rules.

 

This is the very essence of the gun of statism. Do what we say or you die!

First off, I want to let you know that what happened between your parents was awful and I am sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic event.

 

I think Stef's reason for pragmatism is that since the only real change we can have on this world is ending child abuse. In theory, it is important to follow UPB and NAP, but if the pursuit of these things will only provide child abuse then it stands to reason that one must make a decision based on the situation rather than the ideal course of action. His bridge metaphor is spot on. 

 

It is also important to note that there is far less to fear from religion than there is from the state. If a government is run by a God it's a theocracy, if the majority believe in God it's "reality", if a few believe in God it's a cult, and if only one person believe in God it's a mental disorder. The more immediate threat is the gun of the state, jet as you said. Once that's gone and once children are raised without abuse, then religion would have far less power than it does now. The opposite scenario, however, in which religion is gone but the state still exists, is the worst of all situations since the state is powered by abused people who need a new God and a new cage. 

 

It's not a perfect answer, but it is more practical than what humans have been doing.

[J. D. Stembal]

First off, I want to let you know that what happened between your parents was awful and I am sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic event.

 

I think Stef's reason for pragmatism is that since the only real change we can have on this world is ending child abuse. In theory, it is important to follow UPB and NAP, but if the pursuit of these things will only provide child abuse then it stands to reason that one must make a decision based on the situation rather than the ideal course of action. His bridge metaphor is spot on. 

 

It is also important to note that there is far less to fear from religion than there is from the state. If a government is run by a God it's a theocracy, if the majority believe in God it's "reality", if a few believe in God it's a cult, and if only one person believe in God it's a mental disorder. The more immediate threat is the gun of the state, jet as you said. Once that's gone and once children are raised without abuse, then religion would have far less power than it does now. The opposite scenario, however, in which religion is gone but the state still exists, is the worst of all situations since the state is powered by abused people who need a new God and a new cage. 

 

It's not a perfect answer, but it is more practical than what humans have been doing.

 

Thank you for your sympathy.

 

Stefan was spot on to tell the caller about the third way because if he turns his back on LDS, he will likely lose his family permanently. Clearly, that's a no win situation for him or his family. Since the caller is already embedded in the Church, he might as well build a bridge toward virtue in his community. From the caller's description, it sounds like there was already a lot of virtue in his family and community, but I do not have the same experience of the devoutly religious.

 

(My aunt, uncle and their daughter are all working on their second marriages, and they love to sit in the pew and sing to Jesus.)

 

However, for the rest of the atheists, we owe it to our children to not indoctrinate them into theocracy, or the state. The state is just another form of theocracy. In fact, the modern state evolved directly out of theocracy. One nation under God. I see no significant difference between the morality of the state wielding the gun, and the same gun being wielded by priests and parents on behalf of an angry deity. We have just as much to fear from religion as we do the state because it is a mutation from shared DNA.

 

Advocates of religion contrive to dress it up in virtues and values, but it is largely a front for the public, God and their congregation, and rarely an expression of wisdom, honesty or compassion.

[PatrickC]

I see no significant difference between the morality of the state wielding the gun, and the same gun being wielded by priests and parents on behalf of an angry deity. We have just as much to fear from religion as we do the state because it is a mutation from shared DNA.

 

I have to disagree with you here ETU. The State can lock you up, empty your bank acoount and take away your children if it so wishes. The church simply doesn't have that power anymore. Granted, if we were living in Iran or Saudi then that would be a different situation. But here in the west religion is largely voluntary and free of coercion.

 

Advocates of religion contrive to dress it up in virtues and values, but it is largely a front for the public, God and their congregation, and rarely an expression of wisdom, honesty or compassion.

 

I agree, certainly the pious can often be more interested in what others think about them and anything but virtuous. I'd probably put my own father in this category, except for one thing. I believe he knew he had a tendancy towards being sadistic. Well at least he knew enough about himself to know he needed something to help temper his behaviour. His faith was probably one way that helped him, albeit very often poorly. I'm not making excuses for him either, I'm just seeing it as it is. I've since met sadistic people without faith and those people are downright scary frankly. Well at least compared to my father.

 

I think it can be difficult to see how awful the effects of nihilism are if you have been raised in a religious household. At least it was for me. I'm not saying that you can't have full on sadists in the church either, you probably can. But I think religion can act as a buffer between some peoples terrible urges and their actions.

 

That said, I'm cautious not to suggest your experience isn't true or even irrelevant ETU. That would be disingenuous of me, as I'm quite sure it is true and I'm sorry you have a family like that. My experience is anecdotal and limited to the circumstances I found myself in. Also it should be noted that this new thinking I've had recently is not a reason to forgive my family. It's just been a way to make sense of my history and in that regard it's very personal to me. My corollory regarding Christians I now meet in my life is as I mentioned in my previous post and a quite seperate issue to that of my family itself.

[J. D. Stembal]

I have to disagree with you here ETU. The State can lock you up, empty your bank acoount and take away your children if it so wishes. The church simply doesn't have that power anymore. Granted, if we were living in Iran or Saudi then that would be a different situation. But here in the west religion is largely voluntary and free of coercion.

 

Religious zealots will murder you given the chance. Remember, we are talking about a religion that says right in its book of wisdom that we are to burn homosexuals and witches at the stake, basically any faggot God doesn't like. See also usurers. Have you ever wondered why Right Libertarians are so anti-Fed? It's right there in their book of laws.

 

Proverbs 28:8

 

"He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor."

 

Statists simply want you thrown in prison.

 

Choose the better of two evils? No, thanks. I'll go my own way.

[WasatchMan]

Religious zealots will murder you given the chance. Remember, we are talking about a religion that says right in its book of wisdom that we are to burn homosexuals and witches at the stake, basically any faggot God doesn't like. See also usurers. Have you ever wondered why Right Libertarians are so anti-Fed? It's right there in their book of laws.

 

 

I agree ETU.  If we want to compare religion and the state, it is disingenuous to use the religion that has been neutered by the state as your example.  Saying that religion is superior to the state is saying that western philosophy separating the two by law was a bad thing, because if religion is superior to the state than the separation would make the state worse, not  better.  If you want to compare religion and the state you need to compare what they do with same power... Look what religious people are doing with power in countries where Shiria law is the law.

[Matt D]

First of all, wow. This was without a doubt an enormously challenging and moving show. Kudos to the caller and the host.

 

I won't reiterate what I said in the previous thread except to say let's not assume that leftism and Christianity are mutually exclusive. The black protestant church and the UCC are two strong examples of this. This was, I think, the one tidbit that could have been clearer in Stef's assessment of the facts.

 

The people, right now, who are most open to arguments about child abuse are who they are.

Shirgall, do you think that teaching children religion is itself child abuse? I have found that if you try to make that case Christians are no longer open to talking about child abuse.

 

 

Having said that, I think there is a case to be made for religion as a placeholder for philosophy, until the time comes when the world is ready for principles based on rational methodology. Brave Scott may have just initiated the equivalent of a Libertarian Party in religion. By that I mean, "Big L" Libertarians believe that the State can be reformed or dissolved from within, and yet empirically they have achieved the exact opposite since the party's conception. I used to think the same was true about Christianity, but this podcast has caused me to rethink that idea. The difference between religion and statism is that violence is inherently related to the latter but historically related to the latter.

 

Maybe... maybe after generations of raising children whose only trauma is the lie of God, those children will find that they no longer need God because they can replace it with self-knowledge AND keep their traditional values around the family. I myself, and many others on the board, are evidence of this.