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10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On
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The war that's coming between the fundamentalist Christians and the hard-core Atheists probably won't be the most violent of the holy wars. But it has the potential to be the most annoying. We'll, I'm going to try to stop it. So I'm running into this guy basically everywhere I go:
Not that exact guy. People like him. I recognize the type, I had to spend the whole first half of my life around the Christian version of those guys, people who worked it into every conversation. But now I'm running into these really aggressive, sort of evangelical atheists. Ever since 9/11/2001, in fact. The exact day a whole lot of atheists decided this religion thing had to go before it killed us all. These things never end well. But I think we've got more common ground than we admit. For instance, both my atheist and Christian friends (I seem to have an equal number of both these days) tell me they agree with the following statement: Celebrating the death of somebody you disagreed with pretty much makes you a dick.
So how about this: I'm going to throw out a few of these statements - things I think we have to agree on if we want to avoid disaster - and you can read until you see something you disagree with. We'll see how long we can make it last. Why? Because something's brewing. I wander around my local Barnes & Noble and they've got a whole special table set aside: 
But you start cheering his death, you've walked away from the one single baseline every remotely moral person has ever agreed on: the value of human life. And I know we all agree on that, because we can all think of people we could've otherwise stabbed and gotten away with it. And sure, there may be a few of my atheists out there saying that what Falwell was spewing was so hateful, that it surely inspired some murders (of homosexuals or abortion doctors or whatever) and that he thus deserved death on those grounds. But you don't want to live by that rule; you'll wind up in a world where gangsta rappers and video game programmers and political commentators and novelists are considered worthy of death just because some fans claimed their work inspired them to kill. That's the sort of thing a nut from the other side would say. Right? No, people got to have the right to express themselves, good, bad and ugly. Falwell had a family. Friends. He was a human being. You cheer over his corpse and you're just acting like a pecker. And that's another thing both sides agree on, that we hate this modern trend toward peckerfication. So let's see what else we agree on... (NOTE: Per international regulations governing all online religious debate, we are required to insert on each page humorous and inflammatory image macros such as the one below. To prove my objectivity, these have been carefully chosen as to be equally offensive to all belief systems. -MGMT )
We're putting aside the question of which belief system has killed more people by percentage of population, or whether a hypothetical world without religion would have seen fewer or more genocides than ours. We're not going to open a spreadsheet and try to count which belief system manufactures more murderous sociopaths per capita. All I need from you is agreement that it's entirely possible for either an atheist or theist world to devolve into a screaming murder festival. The religious leader sends his people into battle because he thinks God commanded it, the Stalins and Maos of the world do the same because they see their people as nothing more than meaty fuel to be ground up to feed the machinery of The State. In both cases, the people are equally dead. Yeah, yeah, I know the Christians are saying that the guy who fights an unjust or needless war is violating God's law, and thus isn't a good Christian. Meanwhile, the atheists are saying that Stalin was merely bloodthirsty, separate and apart from his disbelief in a higher power. Both believe, then, that it is a corruption of their belief system that allows unjust slaughter to happen. But for this project, All we need to agree on is this: it happens in both cases. And if the opposing belief system vanished tomorrow, war and bloodshed and terror would still take place. And can we further admit it's actually physically impossible to calculate whether, if your side had its way, the volume of terrible things happening would go up, or down, or stay the same? I know you have an opinion on that, and I can guess what it is. But we don't know, and can't state it like it's fact. Right? Everybody still on board? 
2. Both Sides Really Do Believe What They're Saying Christians do this thing that drives atheists nuts, where they talk like God is patently obvious to all mankind, and that atheism is therefore just petty, intentional rebellion against Christians. In other words, that atheists don't honestly believe what they say, and just say it because they're jerks. But atheists do something very similar, particularly when a Christian says: "Only the saved go to Heaven!" ...and what the atheist hears is: "I want everyone else to go to Hell!" It's the same thing, thinking that deep down Christians don't really believe this is the law handed down by a creator, and therefore Christianity is just a petty, intentional rebellion against the non-Christians of the world. In other words, that Christians don't honestly believe what they say, and just say it because they're jerks. But all that is just a way to make cartoon villains out of the people who disagree with us. And if we stop and think about it, we'll see it's asinine. Atheists, you know that Christians have freaking died because they refused to walk away from what they believe. That goes beyond simple human stubbornness. I mean, I can tell you first hand. I was raised in a Pentecostal church (like the one they visited in the Borat movie). 
You can say they're wrong. You can say it all day, you can etch "YOU'RE WRONG" into the surface of the moon with a giant laser. But you'll have a lot less angst if you remember that the thing they're wrong about is something they honestly believe, down to their roots. I guess you could just call them crazy, but it's a little silly to use that word when believers are the norm in human population. But either way, it's not something they intentionally chose just to annoy you. Christians, same deal. Every one of you have got friends and family who aren't believers. And I bet some of them are good people. Earnest people, thoughtful people. Charitable. Kind. So... doesn't that kind of kill the premise that these people are avoiding God out of sinful rebellion or fear of having to live a godly life? After all, you've got people who are doing the hard part (self-sacrifice, patience, giving up all sorts of sinful pleasures) but are avoiding the easy part (praying and listening to a preacher talk for one hour a week). If God and the danger of Hell were that obvious, why wouldn't they just go all the way with it? No, if there is a God, it appears that some good people honestly don't perceive him. For whatever reason. And there has to be some tolerance in God's rules for the Honest Mistake. Has to be. Otherwise we're all going to get screwed by that thing with the Sabbath being on Saturday instead of Sunday. 
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Eshto, you are exactly who the article was written for, I think. Everyone, look: we found the militant atheist!
Just started reading, and number one is already wrong. Atheism is a lack of belief, it doesn't have any content of its own. You can't do something "in the name of" something that isn't anything. You don't even understand what atheism is.
Number two is also wrong. Most atheists do not claim to know for certain there is no God, because atheists tend to be better educated in matters such as science, philosophy and mathematics. We know it is logically impossible to prove a negative. Religious people are the ones who believe in things without evidence or humility.
I'm not going to bother reading the rest, it is sure to be just as uninformed. Needless to say, I don't have to agree with any of it. The burden of proof is on religious people to convince everyone else of their unfounded claims; and it's their obligation to learn about the world and form beliefs that conform to reality, not the other way around.
David Wong for president!
Bravo.
Concepts of morality (justice, guilt, right and wrong) can not be deemed non scientific. Science is the adaptable human sense-maker. It is the amorphous framework of reality as far as we know it.
The science of our morality is young, but not obsolete. Robert Wright's The Moral Animal comes to mind. Evolutionary psychology encompasses many well tested theories that explain the genetic influence on human morality.
If God exist, it does so outside the current realm of human comprehension and it is hence futile to personify God.
Though I do agree with the main gesture of your points, i disagree on the details:
1 and 4: Yes, believing that God(s) exist, or don't exist does not determine whether or not somebody is evil. Nobody ever killed somebody because of this belief or disbelief. Theists and Atheists are equal on this abstract level.
However, there are certain beliefs and ideologies, which do inspire murder, and certain religious beliefs are among them. Religion is more than the pure belief in the existance of gods, it includes dogmas, ideas of good, evil, guilt and virtue.
You can't blame theism or atheism for provoking crimes, but you CAN blame certain religions. Religion can make good people do evil things.
2: I dont think that there are any atheists, who think that most believers don't believe what they claim to believe. This suspicion only arises, when certain people (e.g. some televangelists, quacks, gurus) systematically abuse the beliefs of the people in their community.
3:I strongly disagree with this statement: "...you all still live as if the absolute morality of some magical lawgiver were true"
I agree on the absolute morality part, but the lawgiver idea is inherently theistic. Most atheists think that the "randomly selected" laws of a lawgiver and absolute morality are comepletly independet concepts, even if they happen to be the same. Absolute morality is considered "absolute", because it is more than just the opinion of a powerful person.
5: This is typacally American. Americans are very easyly offended, even if somebody says something, that is not aimed at them. Here in central Europe opinions, statements and beliefs are not consided offensive, unless they are aimed at offending somebody.
Statements of theism or atheism should not offend anybody (thats my "european" opinion)
However, saying that somebody is evil because of his belief or disbelief is offensive!
Sure there may be some areas of agreement. As much as you would like the atheists to stop pointing out the Christian wrongs it's just not going to happen. Why? Because as you said, atheists think if we don't show the absurdities of religious dogmatic thinking the wrongs will just not stop. This is as simple as a parent teaching a child to look both ways before he crosses the street. By the way, it seems like parents don't do that very much. Should the parent make the child learn by his mistakes? This could be as deadly as blindly following religious dogma. Sure everyone should try and not hurt someones feelings needlessly. Sometimes it is needed to make an impression. Unfortunatly the brainwashed need a big dose of reality slapped into their brain. By the way, Christianity succeceded through the sword not by example. Not that I am advocating this barbaric techniqe to teach the truth.
As I'm reading this post I keep seeing how the author seems to think everything is just fine the way things are as long as atheist and Christians quit arguing. Yea, that's what's wrong with the world. Yes religion attempts to define morality. Problem is they think the philosophy in the bible is by a perfect all knowing god. Atheist don't usually claim to have a perfect moral philosophy. The profesor that claimed predetermined mechanical decisions is wrong. The thing about atheist is we look and find differient philosophies to follow. Some are good ones, some are bad. If society wasn't so he'll bent on the god theory we would probably tested and perfected more philosophies. We know some in the bible are bad. Problem is we can't get some people to believe they could possibly be bad. They will inevitably repeat the same mistakes forever. The author seems to think Adam and eve had no conotations of subugating women. Christianity holds this still fairly strong. Ever seen a female catholic preist? Didn't think so. The fact is the author thinks no problem exists still. It's like all in the dark ages or something. As was noted by other blogers, the Christian right is the main reason gay marraige is still illegal in most states. This is a huge problem of injustice. Yes I don't think Christians can easily rationalize morality. Their brain is extra clouded by dogma. Sorry if this offends you but sometimes the honest truth hurts and must be said. How can we atheist show this by example?
Yes moral
People should value human life. Did moses value the human 3,000 human men, women and children he ordered murdered the day some god supposedly engraved commandments for him that said don't murder! Did he value the people who occupied the 'holy land'? God supposedly gave this little piece of land to these 'chosen' people to fight over for all eternity. Yes I believe religious followers believe their god. That's the scary part. I've talked to so many Christians and never came across one that I doubted their dedication to believe in this god that works in mysterious ways. No they don't search for the truth though. They think they found it when they were born into their Christian family. How lucky for them. No true search nessesary. Follow the god that kills and hates and other barbaric rules. Good thing most Christians these days don't truly follow gods words.
Jerry Falwell said the fags in New York were the target for the terrorists. He said the same for the 'act of god' called katrina. His bible supports his theory. Let's get to the root of the problem. Stop trying to dance around it.
I wish Christian philosophy in it's foundation 'bible' followed the moderate philosophy of the author. He even said he made his own religion due to the fact that the 'normal' Christian religion is not moral enough. This fence sitting can be dangerious I also. Wrongly ligitimizes Christianity. As we see in the sign 'god hates fags'. Ligitimizing a religion that promotes hatred for a persons born sex preference is a huge problem. Some may say atheist and Christians are on the same page about this hate thing but I don't see it as the same at all. Atheist may hate how immoral one is being by choice. Christians hate due to gene selections. Someone may do wrong on either side yes but Christians do wrong thinking they are doing right. Atheists don't ussually make this mistake. Yes we would still have war without religion. I would bet they would be shorter. Who is going to fight until death unless one thinks he will live forever. This would slow wars fuel. By the way stalins wars were not fought on atheist theory. Most were orthodox christians. Hitler waged catholic against Jews!
.. This article is too shallow a consideration of the matter to be taken seriously. It's just for fun. If you want to think seriously about it, then realize that all religion is mental illness: an addiction to being lied to and a psychosis... and people with addictions tend to hate anyone who doesn't share their particular addiction... that's where the religious war part comes from... religion is a mind control that gets others to follow you into those religious wars...
Atheism if anything is more of a blank-slate position on the matter, while being a Christian is a position that is full of sorts of things. So you comparing them as if it was democrats/republicans is completely stupid and immature. You made some of the dumbest generalizations, and I bet you think you're better because you walk on the fence. Well one day you're gonna slip and fall on your testicles.
Its obvious that this was written before the gay marriage controversy got into full swing. Boy, those were great times! Back when I thought only the crazy religious zealots like Phelps didn't like gays...
Sweet frosted Christcakes, I wrote a damned essay. That was NOT my intent.
Huh. I think I've figured it out. Clearly, David Wong (if we're looking at it as a spectrum of belief, and not just something you can opt out of) must fall SOMEWHERE on that spectrum, and yet here he is saying something useful to people on both sides. I do believe that if someone showed me a book that was entitled "How to be an Awesome Person" and below that it said, "By: David Wong", I'd be inclined to either buy it, or at least check it out from the library. But it wasn't until this article that I figured out what it was about these articles that rubs me the wrong way.
There seems to be a TON of relativism in there (though in this particular one, of course, there'd have to be - but in ALL David Wong articles, I mean). I agree, for instance, that we shouldn't be assholes to each other. I come from a religious family, and I was pants-shittingly amazed to find that when I told my mother I was an atheist that she wasn't overly bothered by it. We accept each other while still being absolutely unable to comprehend each others' points of view. If we were assholes to each other, that'd just be one more thing in life to suck. And who needs that? But while I do dislike religion, you have to understand that at no point have I ever thought (or known anyone to say) that Christians 'don't actually believe what they're saying'.
But since relativism is such a common point of view in Mr. Wong's articles, and since Christians pretend that atheism is just petty rebellion, then it must be mentioned in the opposing context as well. I'm certainly not going to say that it's never happened in reality. What I will say, though, is that in 33 years, I have never personally seen an example of it. Not in real life and not online.
Don't get me wrong; some things, like morality, could go both ways. "You're an atheist, so you have no morals!" OK, I can accept that people say that, and that that's a dick move. "You're a Christian, and therefore you only act morally when you fear punishment!" I KNOW I've heard that one, so I can accept the same thing. However, I've never heard a Christian call someone stupid for being an atheist. At least not intellectually stupid. Of course, it certainly does happen the other way around. And by that token, perhaps there are some things that religious people do rather commonly that we don't do back - and vice-versa. Perhaps not EVERYTHING is reflexive. Just throwing that idea out there.
This is the crux of my issues with David Wong's writing. To look as his writing, it appears that if 'b' feels a certain way about 'a', then it must work the other way as well. If that's not the specific argument being made, then it comes down to the idea that if 'b' feels a certain way about 'a', then 'b' MUST accept if 'c' feels that way about them. For examples of the former, see any of the above list. For examples of the latter, see David Wong's Paris Hilton->American Hobo->Nigerian Hut-Dweller argument, wherein a hobo complaining about the amount of money Paris Hilton has is then subject to ridicule for his foppish ways from a Nigerian hut-dweller who lives on 3 U.S. dollars a year (even though the Nigerian hut-dweller probably has more wealth relative to his nation's cost-of-living than the hobo does).
I know that Mr. Wong didn't think that all 10 of those examples would pertain to everyone, or even that any one of them would pertain to a measurable number of people on one side or the other. Hell, despite the sound of it, I'm not complaining about the content of this article at all. Heavens, if there IS one atheist out there who says, "Christians are just saying they believe for some weird reason!" then by all means, have at them! I'm just saying (and maybe I'm in the minority, here, I'm just throwing my point of view out there) that some of those things maybe didn't really apply to atheists, so much as theists, and vice-versa. That perhaps the attempt to force examples for each one going both ways was a little . . . over-the-top.
Actually, there was one little thing that bothered me - the notion that for some reason I need to abandon the English language because I believe in logic ("Oh, can't say 'love' without believing in a soul!" What? I think that I can still use words that describe emotions when I feel them without believing in an invisible floating spirit) or that literally billions of neurological reactions in a boiling brain stew are somehow 'totally deterministic and the exact opposite of free will'. Both of those are just a little forced. Examples like those really did detract from the points that were being made, for me. If a word has spiritual connotations for someone else, that doesn't suddenly mean that I can't use it, and instead must throw out the whole wordy definition of it instead, like suddenly I'm no longer allowed to describe emotions with single words just because I think of them as chemical reactions. As for the second example, there's not even any point to arguing against the silliness of it. There is no serious person who thinks that we currently understand biology, biochemistry, physics, psychology and quantum mechanics well enough to actually call human behavior 'deterministic' to the point that it can be predicted, thus the difference between that and 'free will' is pretty much nil.
But then again, that's just simple common sense. And I don't think that Mr. Wong is an unintelligent man (quite the contrary), so perhaps those points weren't FOR me, or people who think like me. Maybe those were meant to create examples for more religious people, based on how they might believe atheists think. Likewise, maybe there are points in there that a religious person would say, "s**t, that's a complete parody of my beliefs! I don't think THAT at all, and no one I know does!" but they got brought up and I accepted them without question because they were playing off my own beliefs of what a religious person would think. I suppose the author would know best.
So in that case, there you have it. Mr. Wong! If ever you read this: great article. But sometimes your attempts to equate one side of an argument to the other side (or to create equivalent arguments) come off as forced - unless that's what you were intending, in which case: fine work!
A f*****g amazing article.
There aren't many things that can change my mind about much, if anything, at all. Fortunately for my peace of mind, logic is one of the things that can do it every time, and leave me aching for more. Here I find a great deal of said scanty commodity. I won't find it impossible to leap in elation at the announced death of anyone ever again, just a tad more difficult. And by the way, "If you want people to live their life in a certain way, based on a certain fact, you can't substitute a threat for evidence." is as putting as simply as one can, yet the words seem to escape me every time someone tells me I will burn for my beliefs. I usually just say I can't just decide to believe, like its a choice as simple as picking between my red striped and green checkered boxers. Belief doesn't work that way. Either you do or you don't. And I, for one, don't.
You know, David. Sometimes I think that Cracked is just a fairly entertaining, somewhat educational, and often hilarious humour website, but then you publish something like this and I have to re-evaluate.
Well done, chap, well done.
I'm an atheist, and won't get into the flame war that I assume is going on (haven't read any comments)...but I do have to say, that regardless of how wrong I know it is: Some part of me will be made to feel warm when any member of the Phelps family dies, particularly Fred.
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