An open letter to pastor Rick Henderson

Hello Mr. Henderson. I recently read your post “Why There Is No Such Thing as a Good Atheist”, and thought that I would offer a response on the woefully inept manner in which it was so clumsily composed. You offer a challenge to atheists in your post as well, to which I will rise with relative ease.

But first!

Let’s delve into your ridiculously petty construct, and kick out some of the warped 2 x 4s upon which it is teetering, so that you may approach it again with a clearer understanding of what you are referring to. I’ll reference the passages verbatim for you as I respond to them. I understand that your theological perspective allows several hundred interpretations of the same event, so to avoid that, I’ll make sure to address what you said. Not what I think you could or should say. So here goes.

 You begin your post with this statement: “You clicked on this post for one of two reasons. Either you're hoping that I'm right or you know that I'm wrong. For those of you who are eager to pierce me with your wit and crush my pre-modern mind, allow me to issue a challenge. I contend that any response you make will only prove my case. Like encountering a hustler on the streets of Vegas, the deck is stacked, and the odds are not in your favor.”

Now, aside from your conclusion of what my motivation was for clicking on your story being subjectively incorrect (I clicked because I am always curious to witness the depths of theistic stupidity), it is inherently troubling to think that people “hoping” you are "right" about “No Good Atheist” as a motivation to click on the miniature dumpster you posted, assumes that there are people incompetent enough to believe that absurd proposition. Then again, you are around, amongst, and a member OF individuals on a daily basis who subscribe to the idea of a personal, all knowing, all seeing, intervening, and ever-present creator of the universe, so again, it isn't surprising that you'd pander to people believing in absurdities like your notion of “god”. I suppose doing so ensures that you have a paycheck every month, another fact of which I am certain that you are keenly aware.

 You also posed what you have decided to be a “challenge” to Atheists, but I fear that your knowledge of what a challenge is comprised of needs immediate improvement. Although I extrapolated what you believe to be a challenge, it isn't at all clear that what you are proposing meets the criteria of that term. As such, I’d say that your communication skills are in an identical state of dysfunction. 

Let me begin with that old, time honored secular effort of explaining things as they actually are, rather than what crackpot snake oil salesmen say they are.

 According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of challenge is: verb – To invite someone to join in a contest. While your PROPOSITION is that any response to this soppy paper will only further prove your case, you failed to engage individuals in a tangible contest with an objectively observable outcome that favored either yourself (the CHALLENGER!) or the respondent. Since the terms of your “challenge” have no meaningful structure or discernable outcome, it must therefore be intellectually and academically identified as theological bantha poo doo.

It also doesn’t surprise me that you are familiar with “stacking the deck” so to speak, being an adherent to an ideology that teaches children to hate, but in the future you may want to actually have CARDS to accomplish that feat. It is good to finally see a religious leader correctly identifying their character by comparing themselves and what they say to a hooligan in a back alley who's only interest is liberating a person from their cash. Well done, sir.

Onward!

Next you take a moment to define a term. “Before our love fest continues, allow me to define an important term, "worldview." A worldview is your view of everything inside (and possibly outside) the universe: truth, religion, beauty, war, morality, Nickleback -- everything. Everybody has one.”

Now, aside from that one word you’ve apparently invented actually being known to the rest of the academic world as two distinct words, i.e. “world”, and “view”, your definition adds complexity where none exists. Once again, according to the Oxford English dictionary, “world view” is defined as a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world.

Let’s continue: “While it is true that there is no definitive atheistic worldview, all atheists share the same fundamental beliefs as core to their personal worldviews. While some want to state that atheism is simply a disbelief in the existence of a god, there really is more to it. Every expression of atheism necessitates at least three additional affirmations:
1. The universe is purely material. It is strictly natural, and there is no such thing as the supernatural (e.g., gods or spiritual forces).
2. The universe is scientific. It is observable, knowable and governed strictly by the laws of physics.
3. The universe is impersonal. It does not a have [sic] consciousness or a will, nor is it guided by a consciousness or a will.”

Let’s deal with number two first. You make a statement here that no responsible atheist can agree to. Allow me to compose a more accurate revision of your number two statement.

“So far, the universe appears to operate within the boundaries of known scientific principles. It is observable, knowable, and governed by the known laws of physics.”

Now, this would be a much more agreeable statement. I understand why your perception of the existence of all things is hopelessly enclosed within the pages of your employee manual (the bible), but if you are going to assume an epistemic position of people who are not bound by those confines, you must endeavor to divorce yourself of your personal biases, and actually effort a clear understanding.

In your first statement, you say that a non-negotiable affirmation of atheism is dependent upon the precept that there is no such thing as the supernatural, which is quite true. We would however, in the context of your statement that follows disagree. It is true that atheists believe that there is no realm that is apart from spatiotemporal existence that would qualify for what you define as “supernatural”. However, you then state that “gods” and “supernatural forces” would be included in that designation. You reveal a critical weakness in your own theology in that in order for something like “god” to exist, it must be supernatural, or non-spatiotemporal. Atheists are open to the discovery of a natural being or consciousness that is responsible for the creation of the universe. Unfortunately for your ideology, as well as that hypothesis, there is exactly zero evidence…so far… that it exists. There is however evidence that the universe operates without the assumption that it was “created”.

 Your third statement is generally accepted as true.

“Denial of any one of those three affirmations will strike a mortal blow to atheism. Anything and everything that happens in such a universe is meaningless. A tree falls. A young girl is rescued from sexual slavery. A dog barks. A man is killed for not espousing the national religion. These are all actions that can be known and explained but never given any meaning or value.”

As I’ve shown, two of the three assertions that you have made are lazily dismissed with a bit of good ole’ fashioned cognition. Additionally, they have the misfortune of not being the mortal blow you said they’d be. Your assertion that everything that happens in such a universe is “meaningless” is categorically false. Without your existence, and the ability to reason your existence (albeit clumsily, for you anyway) you would simply be unable to perceive anything to what you now assign the highest meaning. This is a result of your learning from the observation of your environment, as well as the subjective interpretation of your experiences. Without your understanding of language, you cannot understand the scripture you so ardently adhere to, etc. You are bound to even your most basic editorial decisions and trivial practices being dependent upon a learned set of instructions. Think of how your priorities would change with only slight modifications to the variables of your life experiences. It isn’t difficult to see how “meaning” changes depending upon our environment. Each event that you listed has a subjective meaning for the individual experiencing it, which is the only “meaning” anyone ever derives, from anything. What you are attempting (again, clumsily) is to assert that “meaning” without a centralized authority to tell us what that is, is trivial. It’s one of the most comical propositions that theological quackery has to offer. Any entity that you must choose as a governing authority of morality and by extension – meaning – WITHOUT EVIDENCE is entirely subjective. Unless you can illuminate special information that provides evidence for your inept hypothesis of all things (Christianity), you will continue to enjoy a comfy collective seat on the short bus.

Your next declaration takes the taco in your broken little sad box of theology.

Here it is: “A good atheist -- that is, a consistent atheist -- recognizes this dilemma. His only reasonable conclusion is to reject objective meaning and morality. Thus, calling him "good" in the moral sense is nonsensical. There is no morally good atheist, because there really is no objective morality. At best, morality is the mass delusion shared by humanity, protecting us from the cold sting of despair.”

While this drivel inspired a bit of haughty laughter, it was useful for little else. First, you assert that the only good atheist is a consistent one, and then go on to state that calling an atheist “good” is nonsensical, because there is no objective morality. The lecture circuit is full of idiotic statements like these, however more responsibly delivered, but that isn’t really what concerns me. I believe that morality is subjective, and that it pre-dates Christian (or any other religion’s) scriptural example. There are inherently held precepts that seem to guide our morality from a young age, but our intelligence has more to offer our sensibilities regarding our relation to other human beings than any “objective” standard could. We’ve found throughout our recorded history of civilization that murder, theft, perjury and rape are as close to absolute as they can possibly be. Close, but hopefully you’ve already reasoned exceptions to them. Since most of them are promoted and indeed often required by the pious or God himself in scripture, I will have to assume that the morality espoused by Christian theology, is inferior to my own subjectively deduced version. It is that inherent morality that is biologically evolved in each person that makes your god seem like a pimp in some dark alley. Should we even touch on vicarious redemption? The act of jesus washing away the sin of the offending human race to gain their loyalty and obedience? It is one of the most irrevocably unethical aspects of the Christian “way” there is to observe.

Your final comment about morality is sophomoric. The cold sting of despair? Morality is quite simply the subjective arrangement of governing principles that people use to define right and wrong. You, in your closed, inept dogma system may need a standard to adhere to when considering morality, most of the rest of us derive that from the empirical data collected during our analysis of empathy. When held in comparison to Christian morality, it does a much better job of instructing us.

 Since I am not a religious, goldbricking lay about, the above will have to suffice as a response to your hopelessly ridiculous interpretation of the mechanisms of morality as they relate to the atheist. Unlike you, I don’t enjoy endless paid hours of postulation on how to keep the veiled eyes of the pious veiled, so we will skip on to your conclusion.

Here it is: “Conclusion: Intelligent people ask serious questions. Serious questions deserve serious answers. There are few questions more serious than the one I'm asking. How do we explain objective meaning and morality that we know are true? If a worldview can't answer this question, it doesn't deserve you. One sign that your worldview may be a crutch is that it has to appeal to an answer outside itself -- becoming self-contradictory, unable to reasonably account for the question. Any atheist who recognizes objective meaning and morality defies the atheism that he contends is true. If your worldview can't makes sense of the things that make most sense to you (like objective morality), then it's not worth your allegiance. This new reality may launch you onto a journey of reluctant discovery. Whoever you are. Wherever you are. Whatever you believe. You deserve a foundation that is strong enough to carry the values that carry you.” “Intelligent people ask serious questions.”

Really? Perhaps questions like “Should I believe in an all-powerful creator entity without any evidence of its existence?” somehow elude your inquiring and ironic mind. Since atheists do not have the opinion that there is an “objective morality”, your assertion that “objective morality” requires an explanation is nonsensical. Here’s a tip: if the “objective” portion of your morality system is dependent upon cultural norms, or can be rendered invalid with exceptions, IT ISNT OBJECTIVE. This is one of the reasons that honest people call the religious hypocritical. It isn’t your “worm” status as a “Christian” that makes you a hypocrite, and in need of a savior. It’s that your savior is the hypocrite. “World Views” don’t answer questions. They inform them. I am constantly surprised and saddened by people who are so willing to surrender their individuality. Your shallow understanding of morality is not the basis by which every other human must understand morality. It is not difficult to not only understand your moral position as a Christian, but to demolish its flaccid attempt at creating a standard of behavior.

So, without getting into the meat of morality, I have dismantled your platform, and shown your “objective standard” to be inherently unethical and immoral. A CRUTCH, so to speak that you use to inform your apparent decision to absolve yourself of the more difficult moral task of deciding whether or not to make an attempt at understanding your existence, and what you should do with it while it is “yours”. Since you believe in all the fantasies of doctrine, you have no accountability whatever to the evolution of society, or its changing moral and ethical landscape. We believe in ourselves, and each other. We learn from our interactions and continue to seek answers to questions that are illusive and important. Our world view is broad, and our convictions are attended to with deliberation and conscientiousness. That is a strong foundation. Strong enough, in fact, to carry and reason through the manufactured ghost stories of man that people like you scalp to the desperate as true. Think about THAT as you’re cashing your next paycheck provided to you by people who can’t afford to give the money they put in the collection platter at your church.

Your pal in humanity,

-meridianfrost

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