My sister-in-law is an alien!
May 20, 2012 by Mark Embleton
Filed under Atheism
Matt Parker reflects on Christian morality
As an ardent atheist, it is often difficult to understand the workings of a religious mind. Especially a mind that thinks it is religious because of bizarre unsubstantiated claims of existential intervention. Such thinking is alien to most atheists.
Many of you may be familiar with this scenario. My sister-in-law is one of those ‘part-time’ religious folks who subscribes to the view that there is ‘likely to be something more to life than that of which we are aware; but who knows?’ She goes to church (as and when it suits), but her faith, as far as I can see, is based on a couple of events from her life, which she has trouble explaining.
The first, intriguingly, is an ‘event’ that happened when she was young, at an all girls church-camp. Sadly, and despite my best efforts to extricate the specifics of this ‘event’ she was less than forthcoming about it. However, the second event, about which she was far more candid, was something that we all may, once or twice, have experienced.
Picture the scene: you are diving up the motorway on a dark night. There are few other cars on the road, and so you drive in the middle lane. There is nothing to concentrate on, other than the dull roar of the road around you and the dulcet tones of ‘Pienaar’s Politics’. Suddenly, you catch something in your peripheral vision: what appears to be a bright light of a car approaching fast from the rear! Immediately, you pull over to the slow lane.
As you do so, you notice that the road ahead has been clumsily coned off, revealing a building site. You then come to the stark realisation that had you not seen that bright light behind you, you would surely have careered off the road to your doom!
Well what could possibly have caused this miracle to occur? It could, of course, be the intervention of a higher, intelligent being, so hell-bent on ensuring your survival that he took a well-earned break from saving African children dying of AIDS and decided to save you instead. It could also be that a car came up from behind that you had not previously noticed and then passed before you had a chance to register what was going on (being so fixated on your near-demise). Who knows?
Well, my sister-in-law apparently went for the first option, concluding that the reason for this was God picking her out for salvation.
I have no idea where to start complaining about this, but perhaps the sheer egocentricity of this kind of thought process would be as good a place as any. What makes you so special that any ‘higher being’ would see you as worthy of saving? Why are you more important than the thousands of people who die every day as a result of disease, war, famine or other ‘acts of God’?
Is this not the ultimate form of narcissism?
This whole scenario got me thinking: are all religions not simply a form of narcissism?
Let’s take Christianity as an example. Christians are resolute that our Western morals are based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Hang on a minute.
Let’s take the ‘morals’ of Christian teachings and deconstruct them.
If you follow the teachings of Jesus you will go to Heaven. If you fail to follow these teachings and do awful things (or collect sticks on the Sabbath) you will go to Hell.
However, does this mean that the only motivation for Christians choosing not to sin is the promise of reward (Heaven) or fear of punishment (Hell)?
Surely, an atheist who chooses to behave well displays more in the way of morals than a Christian who apparently does so either for fear of retribution or promise of great reward.
The moral of this story is a simple one: being religious does not mean that you are better than anyone else.
I admit to finding the thinking (if it can be called that) of theists to be incomprehensible, I just cannot understand how anyone can believe in fairy tales. The stories of the different gods are no more real than the stories of superheroes like Batman or Superman with their attendant baddies (in the case of the christian god, the joker is being played by satan). Seriously, how do you convince yourself that this nonsense is true?
It’s not just that individuals like the sister mentioned in this anecdote are egocentric, the preposterous idea that a being that created this whole magnificent universe is remotely interested in the sexual goings on of beings on a mediocre planet out on the edge of a mediocre galaxy is so self centred as to be unbelievable. Indeed, this whole idea that this universe was created just for the human race is just so egotistical that it’s stupid!
As for morality, you’ve hit the nail on the head. There is nothing moral about doing something only because you are scared of hell (the stick) or wanting heaven (the carrot). It is more moral to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
Religion is nothing more than vanity and theatrical superstition gone mad! The fact that none of them have anything at all that proves a jot of their lies sends me half way up the wall! Then to accuse me of not knowing right from wrong because I use socially acceptable and beneficial actions as part of my daily living as opposed to their blood soaked rape infested maniacal dictatorship instruction book from beyond the stars, quite frankly sends me the rest of the way up said wall and back down again!!
I quite like the batman comparison Graham, although atheist batman fans may be annoyed. The problem Matt discusses stems from the quite frankly abhorrent practise of forcing children to listen to religious filth at so vulnerable an age for so long that it poisons the mind making it difficult even for the well educated and logical ones to fully remove the stain of indoctrinated fear and self imposed guilt over things they are not responsible for and have no power over any way, causing mental confusion and distress into adulthood. For parts of America X 10!
I personally love Richard Dawkins’ explanation for morality and that if you read stupid religious book A, how can you decide which part is moral and which immoral??? Unless you have been evolved to make such judgements based on successful hereditary social practises that kept you and your species alive long enough to reproduce because they actually work!! Therefore you had morals before you read the book and so did not receive them from the great bearded one because you didn’t know anything about him before foolishly reading stupid religious book A.
On a personal note I have a question on this topic, If the religious had a button that would make the human race all religious in an instant, but is obviously hugely immoral, would they do it???
Likewise if atheists had a similar button to remove all religion, would we push it?? I’m quite interested to hear for’s and against’s on this.
Matt Parker doesn’t deconstruct Christianity he misrepresents it, primarily because he doesn’t understand it. While it may be true that there are some people who believe being a Christian means taking a fire insurance policy but, in doctrinal terms, the promise of reward or the fear of punishment plays little if any part in becoming a Christian. Hence the conclusion that, ” an atheist who chooses to behave well displays more in the way of morals than a Christian who apparently does so either for fear of retribution or promise of great reward” is invalidated by Parker’s misrepresentation. The moral of this reply is that being an atheist does not entitle one to claim superiority in morality over theists. Virtus83 needs to get a life (or a brain at least) if he wishes to be taken seriously. In answer to his question, this believer’s answer is “no”.
Oh, we’re going down that road are we? We don’t understand christianity, we need to study more, it’s much deeper than we know! Bah Humbug. We understand christianity all right, the question is, do you?
GMR claims, “We understand christianity all right” – then refutes it with every comment he makes.
Why am I feeding a troll? I should know better.
I feel perhaps you are a little confused believer, as most of you are. First, we of the mature and educated members of society do not resort to insulting people off hand at the slightest disagreement as it is considered rude and most disruptive to an intellectual conversation. Second, on what basis do you judge the content of a life and all it’s cerebral capacity? Surely not a few blog paragraphs, that would paint such a shallow and self absorbed picture of you wouldn’t it?
Seriously, if you disagree then say so without the childish name calling and give your opinion why, to which we are all entitled. The fact is all theists take guidance from a preacher of some sort who professes to commune with God(s), you take your moral cue from him/her, there are no Gods, therefore your morals come from a mammal that follows the instructions written down by another mammal. You are the one’s who claim superiority of morality, and not only that but you claim it based on fictitious stories and bronze age mystics. An atheist can prove their point, theists cannot.
What religious morality lesson did priests receive before thinking its okay to molest young children?