Tag Archives: Islam

Response to “Whatever makes people happy”

A common defense of theism and religion in general is that, while irrational faith-based belief has no grounding in reality, it’s fine because it helps people cope with real life.

The most obvious response is to point out that religion hurts people besides the believer:

  1. War. Obviously.

  2. Intolerance.

  3. Child abuse.

  4. Terrorism.

    On May 21, 2005, LaRose haunted by what appears to be a sad and hard life began drinking heavily. Depressed over her father’s recent death, LaRose in an attempt to take her life, swallowed eight to 10 prescription muscle relaxers. Failing to kill herself, Colleen LaRose was now at a crossroads in her life. After months of receiving counseling for depression and alcoholism, LaRose apparently found spiritual rebirth in the form of Islam. Unfortunately, the brand of Islam that gave her purpose to live was a brand that advocated death to America, the West and Israel.

    When looks can kill: The Story of Jihad Jane AKA Colleen Renee LaRose

  5. Et cetera.

More subtly, but just as valid, is the observation that religion doesn’t even necessarily make the believer happier.

  1. While the most common “benefit” of belief is “coping with death,” studies have shown religious types actually have the hardest time coping with their own death.

    Case closed!

    But if that didn’t convince you, read on.

  2. People I know in real life have been very much hurt by their religion. A family member, for example, is incapable with dealing with human sexuality in any but the most conservative context, to the detriment of this person’s personal life.

  3. A number of friends of mine have broken up with significant others because they found they loved them “more than they loved Jesus.” (This kind of blows my mind, since that means their closest relationship is with an imaginary, Aramaic-speaking friend who wants to send most people to hell.)

  4. As recounted in The God Virus, religion can even make priests miserable. The author of the God Virus tells of a priest so overcome with Catholic-inspired guilt over his occasional masturbation — that he ends up hating himself for it, unable to think of much else.

Diversity of Religion & “Other Religions are Corrupted” Response

The vast numbers of different religions and denominations (parodied here) in the world is possibly the strongest reason to deny any and all religions with any sort of interventionist, personal, or judgment-dealing God.

Deluded Christians and Muslims commonly skirt this accusation by rationalizing that other religions are corrupted by man or “the devil.” However, there is a terrific atheist response to this claim.

A Conversation

Atheist: “Can you explain the diversity of religion in the world?”

Theist: “The devil has caused corruption of the true religion.”

Atheist: “Then I have two challenges for you.

“One: How do you know your religion is correct? Couldn’t it be corrupted in the same way as you claim countless other peoples’ religion is corrupted? Don’t other believers of other religions have the same response to this question that you do?

“Two: Christians, Jews and Muslims pray to the same god, the Abraham’s god Yahweh. If God answers prayer or guides human understanding in any way, should we not expect God to consistently guide understanding for all these earnest believers, resulting in a mass conversion to the ‘correct’ religion and even denomination?”

This is the response that is so very strong. At this point there is nothing the theist apologist can say that holds up to reason without contradicting basic tenets of their religion. For example, saying that God does not actually shape human understanding is to deny all authority of the Pope, pastors, rabbis, imams, and ayatollahs and is more of a deist belief than a theist one; it also contradicts the idea that God plants faith in the hearts/minds of humans, which leads us to science and atheism. No matter the response, it is impossible for a God who is all-loving and all-powerful who cares about orthodoxy (right belief) to ignore the earnest prayers from confused beliefs whose “corrupted beliefs” may earn for them eternal damnation. It may also be pointed out that the theist will rationalize a response to fit the facts everyone knows are true about the variation of belief, despite the way their own beliefs should predict that most of the world (if not all) would have the same religious beliefs they do!

Personal anecdote

The day I came to terms with my budding atheism was the day I voiced my doubts of Christianity to a professor, asking for a bit of guidance. I will never forget the professor’s response. He said something to the effect of, “We should not worry too much about believing the right thing. People have so many different religious beliefs that, if there is a God, He is almost certainly nothing like what you have been told.”

Perhaps the argument discussed in this article is not so strong for everyone, but I found it extremely convincing.

Let me know what you think.