10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On

6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy

Cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson wrote in one of his books - and this was probably just moments before the character was split in half by a robot weilding a samurai sword - that the only real sign of intelligence was the ability to detect subtlety.

Anybody can memorize facts. But you remain a clumsy, intellectual oaf of a person as long as you keep looking for sheer black and white in every situation. That's what's so frustrating about politics, the way everybody wants to paint the two parties as angels vs. devils. And if you just said to yourself, "Yeah! Those evil ________ are always trying to polarize us that way!" then, guess what, you just did the same thing.

So please, please, please, when we get into these atheist vs. Christian arguments, can the atheists stop acting like Christians want to abolish all science and live in grass huts? Just because some Christians reject the science on evolution, doesn't mean they reject all science.

I mean, give me a break. America has been full of Christians since the day we invaded it, and has been a scientific and technological freaking superpower. So please stop waving your arms and warning that if Christians get their way, we'll all be sacrificing virgins on altars and replacing surgeons with priests.

And Christians, will you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, stop implying that the atheist lifestyle is one long drug-riddled blood orgy? You take a country like Japan, where just 12% of the people say religion is important to their lives and yet have some of the lowest crime rates in the world.

Japan

Okay, so maybe Japan is a bad example. But it doesn't matter. To move on, we only need to agree that rejecting science on one subject doesn't mean you reject all science on all subjects, and that rejecting Christian morality doesn't mean rejecting all morality.

And if we agree that we tend to exaggerate about the other guy, can we also agree that...

7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too

If you're like me, there's this weird process that happens when you encounter somebody who believes the opposite as you, especially when they're really pushy about it. You actually go the other direction. I secretly think the Yankees are good enough to win 80 games this year and maybe make the playoffs, the other guy snorts in my face and tells me they'll be lucky to finish last. I roar back that they're going to win 100 and take home the title.

It's like that other guy is so irritating, I want to position myself further away. Or maybe it's like haggling over the price of a used car, you start low so that once the compromise happens, you'll be closer to your end than his.

It's often the same thing here. It looks like this:

"I believe the Bible is true."

"There is no evidence that this one religious text is any truer than other texts like it."

"EVERY LETTER IN THIS BOOK IS ETCHED DIRECTLY FROM THE HAND OF THE ALMIGHTY AND ANY ONE SYLLABLE CAN REDUCE ALL OF THE WORK OF ALL THE WORLD'S SCIENTISTS TO RUBBLE!"

"YOUR BRAINWASHED DEVOTION TO A RIDICULOUS BOOK OF SUPERSTITIOUS LIES HAS DESTROYED CIVILIZATION AND KILLED BILLIONS!!!!"

In reality, there are very few Christians who do or even try to follow the Bible exactly, including all the obscure rules about church women staying silent and hatted. Word of God or not, the faith changes, adapts with the times. That is, in fact, the entire point of Christianity. Jesus was a reformer, and set that precedent. It continues to this day, it's what I like about it.

Now Christians hate to admit that, because it opens the door for the other guy to say, "See! If it's not the word of God then you admit it's all a big pile of fly-ridden crap and that atheism is the one true belief system!" So, the Christian digs in and pretends they've never experienced a moment of religious doubt in their lives.

Conversely, atheists like to pretend they're islands of pure, rational thought in a sea of wild-eyed craziness. But we all have a little crazy in our world, and we all depend on some fantasy that floats outside the boundaries of cold reason.

Atheists still tell their girlfriends they "love" them, and not that they simply feel a psychological artifact of a biochemical bond generated by the mating instinct. They still refer to their "mind" as if it's something more than chemical switches. And remember what we talked about with "justice" and "right" and "wrong." None of it is scientific.

Even weirder? Free will. Remember, to a neuroscientist, free will is every bit as real as the Tooth Fairy. They can watch your neurons light up at the moment you make moral decisions, can trace the exact electrochemical pathways. If there is nothing beyond the physical, then your ability to choose your actions vanishes along with God and Heaven and the angels. It was an atheist professor who told me that, in a class on ethics.

Two days later, he told me if I was ever late to class again, he'd knock 100 points off my grade.

To deter me from being late in the future.

As if I had the free will to be late or on time.

So we all got those contradictions, that's my point. None of us are 100% on board.

You don't have to admit this one out loud. I know you lose debate points for it. Just keep reading if you agree.

8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid

That guy, the "God Hates Fags" guy who runs the protests I mentioned back on the first page? Fred Phelps? His church (Westboro Baptist) has become world famous for those dickish demonstrations.

Which is amazing, considering that the "church" is made up entirely of Phelps' family and a few friends. That's it. And they're world famous, mainly because atheists looooooove to hold them up as an example of what dicks Christians are. When you need an icon of intolerance, they're as useful to have around as Hitler.

And please don't come at me with the, "Christians hate Phelps because they know he's saying out loud what they're secretly thinking! They secretly hate homosexuals just as much!"

Please. The White House and Congress and the Supreme Court are full of Christians, always have been. If all Christians thought like Phelps, American gays would be in concentration camps. There'd be nobody to stop it.

Smearing all Christians with Phelps' bile is a cheap shot, like saying all atheist schoolkids are potential Columbine shooters. At worst, that kind of stereotyping is dehumanizing and divisive. At best, it's a recipe for mediocrity.

I compare myself to the worst so that I don't have to try to be the best. I can spend all day on my sofa, playing Wii Boxing and helping no one, and I'll still be a better man than Phelps. But I think we've got to shoot higher here.

It's just another form of hypocrisy, and if there's one thing we can agree on, it's that hypocrisy sucks.

We're almost done here.

Now, if only we can agree that...

9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table

Okay, bear with me here.

Christians, I'm not saying that atheists have brought good things to the world by telling people not to believe in God. I'm talking about the thing that drives atheism, the philosophy behind it.

I'm talking about rationalism. I'm talking about the philosophy that started saying, centuries ago, that it's not demons that cause disease. It's microbes, and genetic defects, and chemistry. And that we can find those causes and we can find cures. Cures in the physical world, without consulting the priest, without going through a ceremony.

Think about what I said before. If atheism is wrong, it's only wrong in that it takes rationalism too far, beyond the edges of the universe. But you don't have a problem with the rationalism itself. There are people you love who would not be alive without it. You can pray that grandpa's heart holds out for another year, but rational thinking invented the pacemaker.

So even if you detest atheism, you can at least agree that it grew out of something good.

Atheists. You hate wars. You hate genocide, you hate iron-fisted dictators who line up peasants and jump over them with monster trucks. You hate it when corporations steal your money, and when fat suburbanites will let a million Africans starve before they'll donate. You hate guys who treat women like lifeless sex dolls, guys who lie and leave.

You hate all of that, because you know that the ability to have empathy for other humans (even those who don't benefit us) is the only thing that separates us from the cockroaches. And when that fails, it's terrifying and awful in countless ways.

In the middle of a religious debate, you may say that religion and superstition are the prime evil in human society. But you look behind it, and you'll find that other monster is bigger. Humans doing the opposite, acting like animals. Treating other humans as nothing but engines for their own pleasure.

Religion - whether it was handed down by God or just invented by a bunch of guys- serves mainly to fight that. It makes humanity sacred, and the moral law moreso. You can hate the methods it uses, you can say that there are other ways, you can say that it only replaces one cancer with another. But most of what it's trying to get you to do - treat other humans as sacred and put morality above your own impulses - you already do. And you criticize religion mainly for not doing it.

You're going to come back here and say that you're not criticizing that part of religion, the concept of things being sacred, or morality, or any of that flowery stuff. It's the intolerance and manipulation and superstition and ignorance you hate, the zealots demanding evolution be stripped from the textbooks.

But from the Christian's point of view, when you attack one, you attack the other. The story of Christianity (or mythology, if you prefer) is bound to the morality. Humanity is sacred because were were planted here in a six-day act of divine intervention. Lying is wrong because God said so. You should work to preserve a marriage because God made that bond sacred with Adam and Eve.

So when you attack that mythology, Christians hear you attacking the morality along with it. And that is why they fight so hard for it.

Seriously, what did you think the creationism thing was about? It's about keeping humanity sacred. They think that once you dash the idea of a created humanity, then there'll be nothing to stop strong humans from treating weak ones as cannon fodder.

And logically, there won't be anything. You can't defend morality with logic. Once you explain it away as an artifact of the genetic herd instinct, well, hey, we've got the genome mapped out, right? Couldn't we just cut that morality gene right out of there?

If you're saying, "But that would be retarded! The world would go down the toilet if we did that!" Guess what, that's just your morality gene talking. Your objection is merely based on a genetic disposition toward social behavior, and can be ignored with the proper genetic changes.

Do you see how weird this gets? There's no logical conclusion to it, it just gets more and more strange. So what's their motivation to go that way?

After all, you know as well as I do that there are two kinds of people who attack Christianity: those who love rationalism, and those who just have a knee-jerk reaction to being told what to do. You've got people who are right for the wrong reasons, and others who are wrong for the right reasons, and some who are right for the right reasons and others who are wrong for the wrong reasons.

It's like all my friends are with me on the beach, looking out at the ocean. Half of them look at the water and say:

"This is Oceanis, the living Blue God! He is sacred!"

While the other half say,

"Here is a convenient place to dump our sewage."

The truth has to be somewhere in between.

Right?

Whew. Last one, for the people who are still reading. Can all zero of you agree that:

10. You'll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence

Remember when I said that, when somebody comes on too strong, no matter what they're selling, we tend to run the other way? I mean, sure, the "God Hates Fags" guy has changed tens of thousands of minds. But not in the direction he intended.

People are not convinced that way. The sarcasm, the disdain, the laughter. It makes you feel better, and rallies your friends, but it does exactly nothing to change minds on the other side. Conservatives may like to read Ann Coulter, but nobody else does.

No, in reality, if changing minds is your thing, there's only one way to do it:

Lead by Example.

There's a thing the church has been doing for centuries, that I don't think it can do any longer. It goes like this:

"Jesus is the son of God."

"How do I know that?"

"Because if you don't know that, then you will burn in Hell for eternity."

No. Uh-uh. 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.

You have to lead by example.

Atheists, same thing. you want to show me that atheism is the key to a balanced, satisfying, confident life? Show me.

Trust me, if they introduce a new energy drink tomorrow and I observe that everybody who drinks it suddenly can dunk a basketball from their knees, I'm going to notice. So will everyone else.

That drink will be unstoppable.

So if you want to criticize the Christians' intolerance, then be tolerant. Show them how it's done. Shame them with your tolerance. You won't have to say they're awful. They'll look awful by sheer comparison to you.

And don't show up in a room full of Christians and start making fun of their taboos, immediately talking about boobs or whatever, as if the only reason people adhere to a rule is out of fear of experiencing the awesomeness of breaking it. You've got taboos, too. All of you. Things you don't like to see or hear in polite conversation. This is the internet, I can show you the pictures.

Be tolerant. Lead by example.

Both of you.

And don't think of it as a tactic to win converts. Think of it as common courtesy.

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528 Comments

Suntiger

Thank you for this article!
Sme details might have rubbed some people the wrong way but the intention is very laudable and sorely missed, especially on the internet.

Spoken like a true rational christian or moral atheist, which incidentally is what most christians and atheists I have met face to face actually are like.

Based on that, that's how I presume the ones I only communicate via text with are too even if some of them try hard to prove otherwise. :P

I wish there would be more articles like this one. They're needed.

Posted on 11/15/2008 6:42:04 PM

yael

i am so glad i got to read this article. i have been very disillusioned in the past few years at the hate between people of different belief systems. i enjoyed this article because i was previously an atheist, and have now come to believe in God, so i identified with both sides (even though i have never been christian, other religions can relate to most of it). i remember always being so uncomfortable and miserable around my atheist friends because they seemed to spend all of their of their time bashing other beliefs than atheism and ridiculing other people just for not being atheists, and then i encountered much the same thing whenever atheism was mentioned in religious circles. the hateful remarks that have already been posted here in response to an article that is doing nothing but trying to create peace and understanding between people just make me feel so sick inside. i just read a large comment by somebody who completely dissected your article and everytime he read something he disagreed with he kept saying how he wanted to hunt you down and punch you in the face! he talked about how when seeing an anti-abortionist protesting on the street, he went up to her and made and incredibly insensitive remark to her. i can't understand how people can be so unable to see things from other perspectives. i mean, i am very pro-choice, but i still can understand that pro-life people sincerely believe that abortion is killing another human being. since they believe it is murder to kill a fetus, it is their moral obligation to do everything they can to stop it! if i thought somebody was being murdered, i would do everything i possibly could to prevent it too! i would be horrified if pro-life people did NOT protest abortion, because that would mean that they believed people were being murdered and they were doing nothing about it. even though i don't agree with them that abortion is murder, i certainly would never disrespect somebody who, from their perspective if not my own, was trying to save lives. i can understand that this person has no choice but to do everything she can to oppose abortion.

recently i heard a story about a famous rabbi who lived a while ago in eastern europe who had two sons, and the older was smaller than the younger. jealous, he shoved his younger brother down to the ground and asked "who is the bigger one now?" and when their father heard would happened, he took the two boys together and made the older one stand on a chair, and he said "see? in order to make yourself bigger than your fellow, you don't need to push him down - you only need to raise yourself up." who is better - a person who is right but treats other people like garbage, or a person who isn't right but treats others with respect and kindness and empathy? is defending your point of view worth sacrificing other people's human dignity? if a person's beliefs are wrong, and you know it, does that mean you no longer have to treat them with integrity and kindness?

Posted on 11/1/2008 2:06:57 AM

Mustilicor

Ancient as it might be, I, too, feel compelled to point out my issue with the third point. Not only is it, yes, a little condescending - easily forgiven in a humorous article - but your presumptions about at least this atheist's outlook are fundamentally wrong.

I have personally made a choice to act in a way which I feels benefits my species. I do not, however, feel that this is intrinsically the right thing to do. I do not believe in ANY intrinsically right thing to do. At all. It is a decision I've made simply because it's the one I feel will make me the most content.

I am a social animal. I have instincts to help me thrive in a social situation. I can grasp this and, when I feel it meshes with my goals, act on it. I can, however, brush my instincts aside when logic says I should. It takes effort, yes, but I can - and I do. By realizing my animal, I am able to, in a limited way, transcend my animal, much in a way a Christian might describe himself as defeating sin by forgiving that sinful part of himself. But in the end? Everything I do is to please that animal.

I become angry with someone for stealing my things because I no longer have them, and they were pleasing to my animal. It's as simple as that.

Posted on 10/29/2008 8:24:20 AM

rahuston

I take issue with number three. Right and wrong is an opinion, with religious its based on a religion, with athiests its just a personal opinion. Yr. molecule speak is condescending.

Posted on 10/25/2008 11:53:31 PM

nova_NIN

Wow how weird to find an article encouragin tolerance in a comedy site... Amazing.

But yeah, my mom told me the same thing, when someone wrongs you, be kind to them, not because you're a wussy but because that's the best way to end the discussion.

The day an atheist realizes that people might want to believe in some higher power, and the day that christians realize that not everyone wants to be saved will be a happy day indeed.

Seriously people, it's ok to be different, it's ok to have different opinions the key is to realize there are many other opinions out there

By the way I'm an agnostic so i'm kind off in the middle (there possibly may be a God out there but I' dont care And/or I don't wanna know)

Posted on 10/23/2008 1:10:55 PM

steph1985

I'm a Christian who is far from perfect and I don't believe that if someone is living a good life they will go to hell. Why would Fred Phelps and people who bomb abortion clinics go to Heaven, while a gay person, non believer etc who helps other, lives a good, moral life etc goes to hell?

It makes no sense, and I don't believe it for a second. If you believe in God, you have to believe he created us and therefore has a more superior mind to us, he created our moral values - so why would he turn his back on people who live their whole lives according to these morals but make the one mistake of not believing in him or live a lifestyle that they did not choose but were born with like homosexuality and end them to eternal damnation and support people who believe in him but are filled with hatered towards other people such as Phelps?

In my opinion the Bible is just a guide to live by and is open to interpretation - the basic message is there, loving others as yourself, peace, respect, etc. But people remember, there is no book written by Jesus, they were all written by people - like you an me - and when people write and recount events things get left out, personal opinions and biases get put in etc. The books of the New Testament were written as letters, I'm sure when they were written they had no idea they'd be published to form the New Testament.

Maybe back when the bible was first written converting people was the only way to make them live a moral life. Which is why there is such an emphasis on it... Whereas now most people choose to live a good moral life, regardless of religion. Remember, the New Testament was written 2000 years ago, the main message of love etc is timeless, but some messages (the need to convert everyone) aren't necessary anymore to get people to live a moral life, which is the main message of the Bible.

I think people need to be more tollerant of others beliefs...

So yeah, all Christians aren't Fred Phelps, there are a lot of us out there who find fulfillment and happiness in our religion and if you athiests find happiness in your life by not believing I'm happy for you... I think this world would be better if we were all more tollerant of one another

Posted on 10/12/2008 4:19:49 AM

Administrator

Awesome!
My previous comment here was deleted, i am so badass.

Posted on 10/10/2008 6:54:36 PM

Indigo_Dingo

If you can't tell, the second "not" in the above post is a typo.

Posted on 10/1/2008 12:20:42 AM

You're not quite getting the picture...the ideal that it is a bad thing to not kill someone who didn't have the sense to figure out they were going to be killed is not a natural thing. Logically, we would be totally involved within our ideals of achieving our own ends, at the expense iof all around us - society wouldn't enter into it, as our own prosperity is more important than others.

Its funny you can say that there is no God, but still cling to these ideas of good or bad as if they were anything other than situational and heavily driven by personal viewpoint.

Posted on 10/1/2008 12:12:39 AM

lizimajig

This.

Posted on 9/29/2008 4:13:42 PM

Blork

"hisownspace--did you actually read Wong's article? He says over and over that atheists can still be moral and ethical people."

It's true that he says that atheists can be moral people, but throughout the article this is constantly treated as if they are basically taking a religious idea and using it themselves, the idea that they could make moral judgements based on philosophical or pragmatic reasoning is never considered. One of his points is that atheists act as if there's a moral lawgiver by getting angry when people wrong them, this is patently ridiculous - if a person robs, kills and rapes then they are a terrible person not because they defied the arbitrary rules of some deity or other, but because they deliberately caused harm to their fellow humans.

For that matter, even if there was a god its statements would not automatically be a guide to morality any more than the law of a country is guaranteed to be perfectly moral. If the god's rules are good then they should stand on their own, if they are bad then this god is an amoral jerk and we shouldn't listen to it.

Posted on 9/26/2008 4:29:05 AM

Brownian

Speaking of cutsy comments, thehardclose363 may or may not be aware that the exact same argument may be used to claim monotheists don't really exist either: after all, you can't really claim your god is the only god unless you've scoured the entire universe and looked under every rock just in case your god has a retarded-half brother he chooses not to invite to reunions, right?

While I'm certainly pleased that JWs won't be coming to my door anymore due to their newly-proved non-existence, I think the more pragmatic of us who have also passed freshman logic are willing to accept that there is a working definition of certainty at play here and those that call themselves atheists, Christians, Muslims, or Jews are certain enough regarding the non-existence of all or all but one deity, respectively, to deserve their appellations.

Unless, of course, thehardclose363 is advocating that we all abandon our faiths or non-faiths and call ourselves agnostic. I'd be cool with that. At the very least, it'd stop 'moral majority' politicians from trying to overturn judgements like Roe Vs. Wade. After all, who's to say that there ain't a mini-deity living under my big toe commanding us all in a voice too quiet to hear to abort our babies the first Thursday to occur 54 days or more after the last of the Perseids are seen? No one, that's who. And don't you forget it either, because The Sub-Big Toe God Who Refuses To Be Named gets pretty pissed-off when people don't obey his infrasonic commandments, you heathens.

Posted on 9/24/2008 12:56:28 PM

MissFit

hisownspace--did you actually read Wong's article? He says over and over that atheists can still be moral and ethical people. This article deserves to be read, pondered, re-read and discussed in complete seriousness. Except when it's being funny. :-)

Posted on 9/23/2008 5:40:41 PM

MichaelFurlong

Nice article. Problem is, I dont like people, where does that put me?

Posted on 9/23/2008 8:11:25 AM

ardmore

Mr. Wong, you are like G.K. Chesterton with c**k jokes. And please believe that I mean that in an absolutely complimentary sense. I love the c**k. (I mean, not in a gay way. But--well--yeah.)

Posted on 9/14/2008 11:15:44 PM

brandonel1

wow damn that actually may have changed my views that is not what i was expecting at all good work very good work

Posted on 9/6/2008 2:42:03 PM

Winkelstein21

wong is f*****g awesome, if u think hes a moron, dont read his articles b***h

Posted on 9/5/2008 6:14:07 PM

hisownspace

this is f*****g embarrassingly retarded. i'm only going to address one thing (since this article doesn't actually deserve to be taken too seriously). YOU CAN HAVE A f*****g SENSE OF MORALITY WITHOUT BEING A RELIGIOUS,ABSOLUTEST JACKASS. you don't need god, religion, or christianity to have a sense of right and wrong. wong is a f*****g moron (who also happens to be real f*****g funny).

Posted on 9/2/2008 5:07:37 PM

dudes, dont u see what youre doing. STOP THE VIOLENCE!!!!!1 cnat we all just get along? davo, just be quiet. no one cares. and the fact that u laugh at retarded people is horrible, u should really stop that. and alex, look what uve done. uve made peole mad at u!! these people have better things to do that calling u a "retarded atheist a*****e stereotyoe" but they still do, because u pissed them off. for absolutekly no reason. U CAN NEVER LAUGH AT SOMEONES DEATH!!!!!!!!! if u think he was a hateful monster, then what r u? u become the insensitive p***k who defiled a life, because he was mad at what the former living person said. u r now effectively lower than him, in every single way.
jeese, now u made me angry.

Posted on 8/28/2008 2:57:57 PM

Sonicsceam2

Nice comment davo!
----
On another note, let's try not to be such dicks to each other.

Posted on 8/21/2008 12:02:01 AM

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