simont | God-botheration

God-botheration

stephdiary wrote yesterday about having been pestered by a ‘God-botherer’, as he put it, while stuck on a broken-down train. It's obviously the weekend for it: this morning I heard beckyc's doorbell ring downstairs, and shortly afterwards my own doorbell rang. On the way to answer it I decided it was most likely Jehovah's Witnesses or similar, since they seemed the most plausible people to be going door-to-door on a Sunday morning; and sure enough, when I looked out of the window above my door, there were two people waving a ‘tract’ (their own word) at me entitled ‘All Suffering Soon To End’.

I get a lot of mileage out of that little window. For those who haven't visited me: I live in a first-floor flat with internal stairs down to my own front door at ground level. One of the hall windows is directly above the front door. So when my doorbell rings and my fifth sense tells me it's an unwelcome door-to-door pesterer of some kind rather than someone I actually want to see, I don't bother going down to the door; I just open that window and ask what they want from up here, saving me the effort of going down and up the stairs and also protecting me from any attempts to get a physical or psychological foot in the door.

That said, I would actually quite have liked to have talked to them on this occasion. Owen's comment yesterday had reminded me of the fundamental curiosity I always feel about proactive religious evangelists of this nature, and I've never yet managed to actually ask one about it. Sadly, when I do encounter one it never quite seems to be the right time; in this case I was half way through my breakfast and it would have gone soggy if I'd left it too long, so I just said ‘no thanks’ and shut the window again.

My fundamental curiosity about evangelists is that they invariably seem to start their reasoning from a premise remarkably close to its conclusion. I've read one or two JW pamphlets, and when you strip out the details of the JW faith in particular, the overall gist goes along the lines of ‘Given that God exists and [has the following nature], hadn't you better start [performing the following acts of acceptance and worship]?’ You occasionally hear echoes of this in mainstream Christianity too, with lots of emphasis on accepting Jesus Christ and not a lot about coming to believe in him.

This argument raises two related questions for me. Firstly, do these evangelists really think that the majority of the unconverted already believe that God exists and has the specified nature, and merely haven't got round to doing anything about it? This seems inconceivable to me; if I believed God existed, I would already be in church[1]! The reason I'm not is because I don't believe it in the first place, which means that arguments of the above form have no effect on me because they start from a premise I already don't believe. I can just about imagine that there might be some people who believed but had hitherto been lazy, but I cannot bring myself to believe that most people fall into this category. Surely the majority of non-churchgoers must be either definite atheists like me, or people whose belief in God is hesitant, tentative or half-hearted? Such people surely need (from the evangelist's point of view) to be convinced of your premise, not reminded of it as if they already knew but had forgotten. So my question to an evangelist, if I ever manage to ask it, is: ‘Do you have a lot of success with this approach?’ In other words, am I completely wrong in my intuition about the demographics of non-churchgoers?

[1] (Well, perhaps not. I've heard it argued by other atheists that if God did exist and was responsible for the current state of the world, he wouldn't be worthy of our worship and the morally right thing to do would be to shun him deliberately. I've no idea whether I'd subscribe to that if I did believe in him, but I'm pretty sure that I'd either be in church or deliberately not be in church; the fundamental point is that I can't imagine that I'd sit around being indecisive and lazy.)

My second question to the evangelist would be: ‘OK, I've heard your argument and am unsatisfied with it because it starts from a premise you have yet to convince me of. What are you going to do about that?’ Part of me suspects they would simply be unable to deal with the concept: that if they tried to construct an argument which convinced an atheist of their God's existence, they would find themselves accidentally assuming the conclusion every few sentences simply because they didn't have any idea how to think from any other starting point. This hypothesis is consistent with the structure of their pamphlets, because it suggests that they're presenting the only part of the argument that they're capable of thinking through clearly. But it is only a hypothesis, and a totally untested one. Other possibilities are that they might actually have such an argument but merely not have to use it very often (which would be consistent with me being completely wrong about the demographics of non-churchgoers), or that they might simply have no good argument and therefore direct their efforts at the few people they can convince rather than wasting their time on people like me. I'm curious to know which, and one day I hope to get round to asking somebody.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Or put him on trial (especially if the OT was accurate).

How exactly would you go about enforcing whatever sentence was passed on him? I can see there'd be a moral satisfaction in having a fair and impartial court find him guilty of diverse atrocities and war crimes, but if you want anything more concrete than moral satisfaction out of the exercise then I think first you have to find a way to (e.g.) ensure he stays arrested.

Mortals get tried in absentia, so it's not entirely unprecedented to get a judgement that you can't currently enforce.

Also, getting enough evidence to actually secure a conviction would imply quite a lot of new facts discovered compared to now; perhaps along the way we'd find out something useful for sentencing, too.

We could start by putting the devil on trial and getting god to give us information about how to imprison supernatural entities...

I know of no logical proof of the existance of deities, or other supernatural entities. To paraphrase Julian Baggini:

The cosmological argument (that everything is caused, therefore the Universe needs God as its cause) is logically inconsistent (God then also needs a cause) and does not demonstrate that any particular deity would be the cause of the Universe.

The teleological argument (that the Universe is a mechanism like a watch, so needs a watchmaker) fails because we know that rabbits do not need rabbit makers, but evolved. (Also, we have no experience what the causes of Universes might be.)

The ontological argument conflates concepts with truths about existance.

In other words, such attempts at existence proof at best merely allow space for the possibility that deities exist. Your evangelists cannot convince you.

*nods* Yes, I can't imagine that an evangelist could actually come up with an argument which would convince me. What interests me is whether they would be able and/or willing to at least make a credible attempt, and in particular whether they think they have such an argument.

I think most would neither make a credible attempt, nor think that they should have to...

I can only speak from an Evangelical perspective which is What-I-Woz^TM.

Firstly, do these evangelists really think that the majority of the unconverted already believe that God exists and has the specified nature,
Yes. In the bible virtually everyone believed in *a* god so it is just assumed that you've already got that part of the argument sorted. Evangelism techniques start from that point for that reason. Even where people did not believe in Yahweh (for example the Greeks in Athens in Acts 17:16-34 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2017%20:16-34;&version=31;)) you could at least start at the point that there *was a god of some kind*.

I don't find this highly surprising - I guess at the time believing in god seemed like the most rational thing to do.

There were people who did not believe in god but the bible doesn't seem to think it's worth engaging with that at all... "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." " (Psalm 53:1 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2053:1&version=31)).

Alongside you have the argument that everyone knows that God is around anyway:

¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
(Romans 1:18-20 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201:18-20;&version=31;))

You're without excuse Simon! ;-)

As a counter to this people can say of course that this isn't the case. The way around this contradiction is to say that "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (2 Corinthians 4:4 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20corinthians%204:4&version=31)) where the 'god of this age' is the devil.

The argument is a bit more tricky to follow after this point, but basically because of total depravity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total depravity), unconditional election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election), and irresistible grace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_grace) you can't actually choose God yourself anyway. If there is any choosing to be done it is all because God chooses to unblind you and then you are overwhelmingly compelled to believe in him and follow him (yes obviously this idea creates lots of free will / love related problems!!).

This unblinding process occurs when the Holy Spirit uses the 'Sword of the spirit' (the Bible), which is why Evangelical Christians try to lace their conversations so much with direct quotes from the bible (of course most don't realise the reasoning behind this - it's just what they've been taught to do). A a friend of mine (http://podbo.livejournal.com/) (who is now minister of misinformation for UCCF (http://www.uccf.org.uk)) has questionned whether apologetics (the defense of explanation of the faith through reason and logic) is worth doing at all as from the Bible we know^TM that the reason people don't become Christians has nothing to do with their lack of awareness of God - people are blinded by the devil or choose to reject God even though you know the truth deep down (for those who don't strictly follow the three Calvinist doctrines mentionned above).

and merely haven't got round to doing anything about it?
Haven't had your eyes open / been compelled to follow / are choosing to sin and rebel against God.

[1]!
I'm in that category. The god of the bible is as Richard Dawkins said "The god of the old testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.".

‘OK, I've heard your argument and am unsatisfied with it because it starts from a premise you have yet to convince me of. What are you going to do about that?’ Part of me suspects they would simply be unable to deal with the concept
It depends. For lot of the 'troops' they wouldn't really know what to do - but a small percentage are reasonably intelligent logical people such as ourselves and would reel out some appropriate apologetic arguments to you.

Why are you an atheist Simon? Are you a weak or a strong atheist (as defined by Wikipedia), please feel free to tell me to RTFP if one exists :-)

I think it's pretty shocking you reject God when there are so many proofs (http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm) of God's existence ;-)

I had an entirely secular upbringing: my parents never mentioned God to me at all. I picked up the concept from my extensive reading and from clues like the lyrics of Christmas carols, but until I was eight it wasn't clear to me that it was anything more than a polite fiction on about the same level as Father Christmas; it was quite a surprise when I went to a new school and one of my classmates gasped in shock at me swatting a fly "because it was one of God's creatures". At that point I woke up to the idea that people actually took this concept a lot more seriously than Father Christmas, but it still didn't strike me as a reason to start believing in it myself. At that point, if you'd explained weak and strong atheism to me, I think I'd have had to describe myself as a weak atheist: seeing no reason to believe in God's existence, but not positively believing in his absence either.

Some time around age sixteen (I think) I became aware that I could no longer give mind-room to the idea of a god without some part of my brain just going "yeah, right" and considering the idea to be fantastically unlikely. At that point I became something closer to a strong atheist, which is where I still am today: rationally I have to accept that there is no incontrovertible proof of God's nonexistence any more than there is of his existence, but emotionally it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that he does not in fact exist, and if it were feasible to put money on the question then I would unhesitatingly bet on there being no God.

That website's fantastic, isn't it? I particularly enjoyed the "Argument From Intimidation" :-)

Sometimes I think I would prefer to be a meta-smug type, as that to me seems to be what most atheists do in reverse. (I hadn't seen that site, it is pretty awesome.)

Considering I am just back from church, I thought I would chip in.

Everyone has doubts about God's existence at some point. The difference is that you have *faith*. I doubt I could convince you, or anyone of His presence. Personally, my reaction to looking up at the night sky is to see the Face, and Handiwork, of God. Sure, I know it is an emotional reaction, but that is the difference between myself and my mother. She isn't a church goer, nor brought me up to go either. I chose. And that is the choice we make. Your reaction seems to me the same as hers. You emotionally don't think there is one, whereas I do. I think most atheists love to show their smug learning and arguments, but alas you can't argue with someone who has faith, or believes, as well, they believe, and you don't. No amount of reading and debate on either side will, more than likely, convert/convince the other. Both sides have the choice. And long may that remain so.

Of course, I am also an unrepetant heretic.

I grew up in an overtly fire-and-brimestone area in an overtly fire-and-brimestone country. (You know all those religious nuts in the US? They came from my part of the world. We didn't get rid of enough of them, it seems.)

These tracts are great:

http://www.chick.com/default.asp

Armageddon! Armageddon! Arm a geddon out of here (etc)

Yeah Jack Chick is amazing - he taught me the errors of my ways when I found I was worshipping by playing Dungeons and Dragons!

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

You think exactly what I think. I've often wanted to write some hints on how to evangalise more effectively.

However, I do have a few ideas:

* Think of mediaeval times. Supposedly everyone believed, but I'm sure there were lots of people who thought they believed, but put off thinking about it the way we don't plan for old age.

* They might correctly realise you're basically a lost cause, so a pitch that gets you to say "no think you" quickly, but gets someone who *is* thinking about it to listen may be perfect.

* Many people apparently *do* find it inconceivable that there *isn't* a god, and so *do* feel everyone is deliberately ignoring it, even if they know better intellectually.

* This last also axplains why you start your argument too near the end.

To me it's interesting how Witnesses always seem to turn up in pairs - my experience from being sufficiently bored to debate with them once was that the one sent to talk to me was being observed by the elder lady, who was hanging in the background with a sour look as though more concerned that her charge might fail to evince sufficient strength of faith than with whatever my reaction might be. Of course, there's an obvious safety aspect for them which is very understandable - it's best not to go around annoying people on your own - but having your opponent silently observed by an inquisitor is a bit disconcerting. I found myself not wanting to get her in trouble... (Am I over-reading things, or is this a standard way for evangelicals to test their newer members?)

Their arguments seem, on the whole, to be pretty standard. Mine launched straight in with the Argument from Design, which you'd've thought they might have realised is a little easy to shoot down these days. Oh well.

The tack after that was an attempt to put forward the bible as prophetic and therefore inerrant - "it was right about all these things, so surely the rest deserves some attention too". (The prophecies in question concerned Jesus rather than any of the more amusing wormwood/Chernobyl type of modern readings.) Of course, it's rather easy to make your prophecies accurate when you get to edit them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea) a few hundred years after the events concerned...

I keep hoping they'll turn up one day with one of their fun arguments. A friend had them attempt to tell him that all the ills of the world are the fault of the "sexual revolution". I mean, just think of the entertainment you could have with that one. And I just get boring old creationism. I demand a better class of Witnesses, damnit!

(Don't you mean "evangelist" rather than "evangelical"? AIUI they're not the same thing, although there's probably at least some overlap.)

I find your description puts me in mind of a driving test. Did the inquisitor tap a pencil at any point and require the other Witness to bring their current line of argument to an emergency stop? :-)

It's nice to hear that they do at least have arguments for atheists. I'm still curious to know whether they have a lot of success with not even trying to deploy them, but that's probably half my question answered.

Possibly... I meant "evangelical" in the sense of "member of one of the sub-sects of Christianity which actively evangelise". There may well be a capital-E Evangelical church as well, just to confuse things...

I'm afraid I don't recall seeing the observer taking any sort of notes. A pity. From there they could branch out into customer satisfaction surveys - "Please rate your proselytising experience from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) in each of the following categories:".

I would have thought that the reasoned Atheist is a sufficiently rare beast that the evangelist neglects their existence.

I think there are plenty of people who basically do not question the recieved wisdom of the existence of God, but at the same time don't give the concept much time or headspace. These are the people the evangelist is after, people whose dormant belief in a God can be inspired into a more active one, following their faith.

Someone with an active belief system is a much tougher deal for an evangelist. As an experiment, during a time that our area was plagued with evangelists, I would attempt to repel evangelists by claiming all sorts of beliefs, to see which would be the belief they'd least like to tackle. Of those I tried, I found the best way to repel them was to claim to be a devout Catholic. Atheism, they were much more happy to tackle, but seemed to believe that an Atheist was either agnostic, or some sort of fallen, disillusioned Christian who could be restored to the light. The idea that someone might have an honest conviction that the whole religion business was too unlikely to contemplate just wasn't in their worldview.

people whose dormant belief in a God can be inspired into a more active one, following their faith

Hence "born again".

I believe their standard argument is that "Historic sources prove that Jesus existed, and he claimed that . Either he was evil, or insane, or his claim is the truth." They then require that you read the bible and hold it as an article of faith that not only will you accept the words in the bible as backing for their argument, but that during this process you will recieve a personal revelation, if your heart is open to it.

Ah yes; the "lord, liar or lunatic" trilemma as championed in particular by C S Lewis. I've never been entirely sure why they neglect "honestly mistaken" in that list of choices, which almost everybody in the world manages to be on one subject or another without being a liar or a lunatic. Perhaps it's just because it doesn't begin with L.

As someone put it the other day, to be "honestly mistaken" that you're the Son of God is rather like being honestly mistaken that you're a Jam Tart from Alpha Centauri. Which tends to imply lunatic territory.

Well, I suppose so, but that's a matter of definitions. The real point is that the Trilemma's presentation of "lunatic" is of somebody who you cannot fail to notice is barking mad in any interaction with them (since the Trilemma's argument is that because Jesus was not obviously barking mad in that sense, he cannot have been a lunatic and hence was either genuine or deliberately lying), and I don't think it's immediately obvious that someone believing themselves to be the son of God must be totally incapable of normal function in all other areas as well.

(In addition, I can't help wondering whether the existence of prophecies about the Messiah might lead plenty of people to think "It Could Be You" sorts of thoughts; someone who actually did fulfill all the specified criteria might consider the possibility of messiah-hood to be a reasonable consequence of their existing belief in the prophecy, and if we posit the non-lunacy of the latter belief then jumping from "maybe I'm the messiah" to "actually I think I am" looks like rather less of a leap. Still not one I'd want to make myself without a very good reason, but.)

I think I agree... the analogy is simplistic and so isn't watertight. But even limited lunacy is still lunacy. Look at cult leaders such as David Koresh: cults grow because they appear plausible to their recruits (perhaps with some manipulation) but having seen what happened we'd still consider them fruitcakes rather than just a bit dappy. If they were raving to start with people wouldn't be taken in.

I suppose the questions to ask really are: a) are the New Testament accounts reliable and b) did they really happen? Because it's one thing to claim to be the Messiah but quite another to do things only the Messiah was capable of doing.

That comment just made me laugh out loud. It's been far too long since I saw you :-)

lots of emphasis on accepting Jesus Christ and not a lot about coming to believe in him.

My view of religion is that it's a coping mechanism; a sort of pill-free antidepressant, only unfortunately it involves deliberately letting go of your grasp on reality to a definable extent. So from my POV that actually makes sense: saying 'accept Jesus' is saying "accept that you can't cope; and now you're really shit-scared, accept our handy way of reassuring yourself that It Will All Be All Right Really. See? Much better.".

Close on 70% (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3490490.stm) of the UK, at probably the most Godless point in its history, believe in God in some form. Your upbringing as you describe it wasn't mainstream in this sense.

(Personally, I grew up believing in God both on a visceral level, re-inforced by the surrounding culture, and on an abstract level (where did the Universe come from if not from some omniscient, omnipotent being?). I talked to a random Dane about it at ~19, came to be convinced by his point that it's less of a leap of logic to posit time starting than it is to posit the omnipotent being, and changed my abstract belief. The visceral belief didn't go away with it, though, and I was surprised to notice last year that it was no longer there, I no longer felt any desire to pray when random things went very wrong, for example.)

I don't disagree that my upbringing was unusually secular, but I think that figure of 70% is a bit too black-and-white to be useful. I did mention in my original post the possibility of "people whose belief in God is hesitant, tentative or half-hearted"; I suspect many of that 70% would fall into that category. I'm pretty sure it isn't a question of firm disbelief, firm belief and no middle ground.

An assumption I made in my original post which I failed to explicitly flag as such is that people in that category would ("surely") require further convincing rather than just being reminded of something they already "knew". Perhaps that's another possibility for where my error is.

Yeah, I don’t have a good answer for you there. One thing I’d like to put forward is that, more often than you might think, social factors in making this sort of decision (“am I interested in this religion”) can reasonably outweigh any doubts about the well-foundedness of the religion itself, even for people who are in general critical thinkers.

Cf. FSF-advocates, of which a good number exist, who have signed up to an ethos that says that proprietary software is unethical and simply wrong (http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html); which ethos, in this
respect, is false, and disrespectful of the rights and freedom of the people who write proprietary software. Now, over the last few years, I’ve worked (remotely, online) with a good number of them, and they’re often smart,
passionate, and engaged. I’ve enjoyed it.

From this enjoyment, I can see the attraction of signing up for the FSF ethos, to better integrate into the club, and I suspect this is, deep down, the reason for the allegiance of many to the organisation, rather than that they’re convinced in detail that it’s right.

I'm slightly confused by your use of the FSF analogy. Your comment reads as if it's completely obvious that the FSF ethos is wrong and bad; that may be completely obvious to you, but it's a long step from there to concluding that all or most people who subscribe to it must be doing so for reasons other than their conviction of its rightness!

(I don't subscribe to the FSF's viewpoint myself; my free software politics are strongly aligned with the MIT/BSD axis rather than the GNU GPL axis. Nonetheless I don't find it obvious that the FSF is wrong; I had to stop and think about it for a while before forming my opinion.)

Have I misunderstood you?

Sorry, I’m often conscious that people tend not to read scads of text, so I over-edit what I say, to the detriment of its clarity. Particularly a bad choice in responding to someone who just wrote scads of text on the nature of religion in a Livejournal post.

I didn’t say the FSF was bad; I said its ethos was wrong, in at least that one aspect. I should have gone on to say that no-one is hurt by the existence of proprietary software, no-one is deprived of something they had already, and that software being proprietary has had benefits in areas like internationalisation, GUIs, and overall consistency that haven’t been practical with decentralised development by people working mainly through English, via the command line, with very strong individual opinions on how software should behave. “Unethical and simply wrong” is false.

Now, as I say, lots of the people who’ve signed up for the project are smart, passionate, and engaged. Smart, passionate, engaged people are never totally oblivious to details like this, by definition, especially not after years of engagement. I do not propose that they are wilfully ignoring a judgement that something is wrong; rather that they enjoy being part of the club, with good reason, and as a result don’t question its foundations with an independent clarity.

I think you're oversimplifying by insisting on seeing the issue from the point of view of harm as deprivation of things. As I understand the FSF's viewpoint, what's been lost is freedom. Specifically, the freedom to solve problems in a natural way sitting at your computer, by using the most appropriate combination of software and data to achieve a desired goal. The existence of proprietary software and arcane copyright restrictions means that when I sit and think about solutions to a problem, I have to evaluate every one in terms of its legality as well as its technical feasibility, and some courses of action which do not harm anybody in all the senses you list are nonetheless illegal.

Now the FSF will see that as a fundamental injustice whereas I see it as an annoying inconvenience. But it is something which is a restriction on the things I can do and the ways in which I can solve the problems that confront me on a day-to-day basis, and it is something which would not be there if it weren't for software copyright, so it is something you have to weigh up against the putative benefits, and although you might reasonably disagree with the FSF's conclusion that the benefits are not as large as they look and the loss of freedom is more important, I don't think you can reasonably consider it to be obviously false to anyone considering the issue with "an independent clarity".

I would point out that the existence of copyright for books means that some courses of action which do not harm anybody in the senses listed are nonetheless illegal, but Stallman doesn’t argue against copyright for books with anything like the vehemence he does for software.

The “freedom” thing, as the FSF argues it, is not honest, IMO. They resolutely fail to admit that the individual user of the BSD- or MIT-licensed software has more freedom than the user of the GPL. That the user can turn that freedom to ends that are not what the FSF would like, well, something similar has always been the consequence of actual freedom. If you’re a country and you open your borders, you run the risk of your best and brightest leaving to earn more money elsewhere; if you end prohibition of alcohol and gambling, you run more risk of having inveterate gamblers and alcoholics in your population.

Now, yes, the freedom of which the GPL deprives the user should be balanced against the freedom it grants; but they don’t even start. Whence, IMO, the dishonesty.

I’m going to shut up on this now, because I’ve thought it through already to my satisfaction, and I really dislike trying to get into Stallman’s frame of mind, both in reading his opinions on society and his Lisp and emacs documentation. I find him inarticulate, unclear and so often just wrong (“Of course C-h should be the primary documented way to invoke help! What, you say that every terminal in the world sends C-h for backspace? Then every terminal in the world should change! C-h for help makes perfect sense!”) that the effort versus the benefit rarely works out.

But, yeah, I accept that my example was badly chosen. I suppose it’s a symptom of my having talked about it with a limited number of people, so my appreciation of how other people understand it is not that complete.

I have a sudden interest here in why you think I believed the FSF bad. Do
you think the Church of England bad because several of their basic tenets
are wrong?

I think you misread, actually: I said you thought the FSF ethos was wrong-and-bad, not the FSF itself.

Indeed--which raises the question, do you consider the Church of England ethos bad, given that several of its central tenets are wrong?

I'm even more baffled now. You said the FSF ethos was wrong. I paraphrased that statement in response, saying that I thought you thought that the FSF ethos was wrong, because I thought that's what you said. Why are you now asking me to defend the claim that the FSF ethos is wrong? I never said I thought it! I said I thought you thought it.

It is what I said. I distinguish between "bad" (in this context, "net negative for the world, morally objectionable") and "wrong" (i.t.c "incorrect") and you appear not to, which is reasonable enough.

Ah, I see; none of this sidetrack would have arisen if I hadn't thoughtlessly said "wrong and bad". I'm sorry about that. It's a sort of stock phrase among some people I know, used without much thought. (Though also, after you said "disrespectful of the rights and freedom of [a group of] people", I don't think it's too unreasonable to be left with the impression you thought the thing thus described was a bad thing!)

I think most door to door evangelists have just been told they should "convert" people otherwise they won't get into heaven. :)

From my perspective, as a Christian converted from a totally atheist background, I find that people require an explanation for belief in a God/gods much more frequently than they require an explanation for belief in no God/gods. Which feels sort of unfair - assumptions have already been made that one needs to prove the existence of a God. I see the argument more like "given the universe, the nature of man, etc etc, which theory best fits the situation". Under that question the existence of no God requires as much proof as the existence of one - both are competing theories.

In response to your question about the general population: Basically, i think the vast majority is in the "i haven't really thought about it" section, being busy with work, socialising, holidays, housework, and generally getting on with heading for death without switching their brains on if at all possible. Also, i think most people grow up with an idea that some people believe in a God and some even go to church/temple/mosque etc. This is changing and we are probably the first generation in britain mostly raised in the "post church" era - i.e. we weren't all forced into churches as kids, and don't know much about it.

So, door to door people must have some success by a combination of prodding people into general enquiry and the attraction of a demonstrated absolute assurance in a given set of beliefs.

Its much more interesting to have a discussion with a reasoned atheist though - I used to be one so obviously they are a great bunch of people. :)

There are also vast crowds of unreasoned believers too, of course, who just believe whatever they are told. But as atheist evangelists are much thinner on the ground, noone goes round prodding them into thought.

In either case, the vast majority of people grow up with assumptions, are bombarded by a variety of opinions, and end up choosing ones that suit them rather than actively deciding which are likely to be correct and living by those standards. Its much easier to just believe whatever is convenient rather than think about it.

At least the door to door evangelists prompt a debate! Unfortunately it is very difficult to have open debate when both parties have an agenda for the outcome - usually both parties are convinced of their own position and are looking to prove the other wrong, rather than come to a consensus.

Interesting topic - but i feel the need for alcohol in hand to discuss further! :)

m

At least the door to door evangelists prompt a debate! Unfortunately it is very difficult to have open debate when both parties have an agenda for the outcome - usually both parties are convinced of their own position and are looking to prove the other wrong, rather than come to a consensus.

I think there's effectively a consensus in place in the UK; no-one's threating agnostics with extermination on the basis of their lack of faith, and no-one's realistically proposing the slaughter of Church of England vicars. In other times and places, one or the other extreme has been considered or implemented.

I think you're describing mutual tolerance, which is great, but not the same as a consensus. It's agreeing to differ rather than holding a discussion with the aim of agreeing on a common conclusion.

I'm all for it of course, live and let live and all that, but i don't think that's what the doorstep evangelists are trying to achieve - I think they would aim to effect change in the other person's beliefs rather than persuading people to refrain from burning them. :)

Ah, indeed, that is true, it is more tolerance than consensus. But then, I think "there is a God, who is worth worshipping" and "there's no reasonable ground for believing in a God, and tensions over worshipping this being has caused untold misery again and again and again in human history, so it's something to be avoided" are like "the sky is purple" versus "the sky is blue"; "consensus," were it to be reached, would have much bearing on reality.

When I was in Palestine, all my room-mates from Cambridge were Christians, and because of where I was it didn't seem like a bad opportunity to give the whole God thing another try just in case. I sat around with them at their Bible readings, and discussed it, and my main problem was the lack of evidence for God. I was given instructions that they told me would prove or disprove God's existence: sit with an open mind in a quiet room, and read Luke's Gospel, and ask God to show himself while doing so. I tried this several times, and guess what: nothing happened. The New Testament God loves everyone, and would talk to me if he existed, so he can't exist.

Add that to a wealth of rational arguments, and there's no reason, need, or evidence for a god of any sort. That'll do for me.

(S)

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God-botheration

shun him deliberately

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