Where I Stand

It’s always good to know where one stands on things. It puts them in perspective. Allowing others beforehand to know those positions saves time. Thus, I thought I’d compose a list, by all means incomplete, of where I stand on topics that will likely arise.

Assumption: I make one assumption about the world we live in: it follows a set of rules. By observation, we can learn these rules. We can make predictions. These predictions are based upon observations, repeated testing, and verification. That’s it, one assumption.

Claim: Science has improved our lot in life vastly more than religion. The very computer you’re using wasn’t the result of believers praying but the end result of decades of study, which in turn was based on centuries of study. Buildings, cars, medicine, jobs, travel, technology in general, and tons of other improvements to our life have all been because of science and the scientific method. Best of all, it’s a self-correcting approach to reality. When mistakes are made, theories proven false, science adapts and changes according to “revealed truth”.

Claim: Religion hasn’t improved our life to any where near the degree science has. Religion has, in fact, been at the core of such atrocities as wars, racism, slavery, torture, et al. I’m unaware of a war being started over whether or not the atom exists. Religion often makes special claims, saying it’s above provability, testing, and verification.

Claim: All religions are merely adaptations of religions before them, going back to primal religions. Islam is an extension of Judeo-Christian faith. Christianity is a melding of Judaism, Platonism, mystery religions, and others. Judaism was influenced by Zoroastrianism and other surrounding religions of the Levant.

Claim: For the most part, the religion you follow will be based on your upbringing and environment. If you were raised in a Christian home and/or are surrounded by Christians, you likely will be a Christian. If you were raised in India, you will likely be a Hindu or Muslim. If you were raised in the Yoruba culture before the influence of outside faiths, you would have likely have been a practitioner of the Yoruba religion. This isn’t a belief, it’s an observable fact.

Claim: No creator is needed to explain our existence. If one cannot believe the odds of life arising on earth, one needs to remember there are billions of galaxies just in the observable universe. Our own milky way galaxy is estimated to have 200 to 400 billion stars. A billion times 200 billion produces and outstanding sum making the odds of life to develop essentially a given. It should also be noted earth produced a certain type of carbon based life. It’s possible other life forms have developed based on other elements, such as silicon. If one makes the claim nothing was needed to create a creator, one can counter-claim nothing is required to create the universe.

Claim: There’s nothing distinctively reasonable about being a Christian than any other faith or non-faith. Virtually any faith claim about Christianity can be made by another religion. Purpose, existence, afterlife, et al are all covered by other faiths. For Christianity’s faith claims to hold weight, it must offer testable evidence.

Claim: The Bible is a collection of myths, legends, and history. Oftentimes it is difficult to separate the three from each other. It is a fascinating collection of documents that are, however, severely dated and written by men who lacked access to the volume of knowledge present day man has of the world.

Claim: Jesus of Nazareth likely didn’t exist. Perhaps the most controversial position I hold. However, it was a position not achieved lightly nor without a lot of introspection about the data. However, it explains several facts: the diversity of early Christianity; Paul’s lack of mentioning anything of the earthly life of Jesus; the various portrayals of Jesus in the Gospels. It is a detailed and nuanced argument but not, I think, without weight.

Claim: Atheism is a position, not a philosophy. By my reckoning, Buddhists are atheists, although not all are Naturalists (no, Jay, I didn’t say Naturists). Atrocities committed by atheists often cited by apologists often neglect that such individuals are far more shaped by their political and personal agendas rather than their unbelief in a deity. Contrary to this is the full documentation of atrocities committed explicitly in the name of the faith of various individuals and societies.

Claim: The idea of God is incoherent. The Christian deity lacks clarity; its believers are emphatic that God is unknowable and beyond our understanding. Such statements as “fully god” and “fully man”, three yet one, and omniscient yet we still have choice are made with a thorough disregard for the meaning of the words used. If similar statements were made about a flying spaghetti monster (nod to Professor Dawkins), its existence would be dismissed without question.

Claim: The burden of proof falls on the one who asserts the positive. A positive statement should, by definition be easier to prove than a negative one. If I propose unicorns exist yet fail to produce a unicorn or some other valid form of evidence, one would be rational to disregard the existence of unicorns. It would be invalid for me to state that if you can’t prove unicorns don’t exist, then I win by default. Rather, it’s the other way around.

Claim: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (nod to Carl Sagan). Rather than being based on presuppositions, it follows a chain of reasoning. Say you know me very well. Suppose you’re very familiar with my activities, my physical fitness, and my mentality. However, one day I state I competed and won the Olympic gold medal in skiing. Now, this requires no supernatural cause. Skiing is a perfectly natural occurrence and all recognize skiing, as a sport and activity exists. However, you know I’ve never skied in my life. You also know I’ve never had time to learn to ski at all, let alone to the degree required to even make it to the Olympics. You also know the Winter Olympics were last held in Turin, Italy and I was never away from home long enough during that time to go compete. Thus, for you to believe my claim, I’d have to present some extraordinary evidence to convince you. Religious claims are extraordinary. Therefore, they require extraordinary evidence.

All these claims, I propose, are based on observable evidence. They make no special demands of knowledge and are testable and challengeable. They don’t require belief.

As always, I fully acknowledge my positions are certainly subject to fallibility.