……………………“I’ll report, you decide!”
Presented by Gil Shapiro
Spokesperson, FreeThought Arizona
 This
talk does not
necessarily reflect the views
of members of FreeThought
Arizona or the Secular
Coalition for Arizona.
A priest, rabbi and atheist are asked
when life begins:
The priest says, “At
conception”
The rabbi says, “At birth”
And the atheist
says,…………….
“When the kids leave
and the dog dies!”
ASTROLOGY




Let’s imagine we were governed by astrologers.
All laws and policies were made in line with
astrological beliefs.
Children would be homeschooled and private
schooled on the validity of the Horoscope.
Astrology would be taught in High School because
of its influence on literature such as on
Shakespeare.


Wouldn’t it be logical (as part of
rejecting the imposition of astrology
on our society) to scrutinize the belief
itself?
Indeed, shouldn’t all ideas, including
religious ones, be open to
examination?
Fundamentalist Christian: “All truth is God’s
truth” as reflected in HIS Word…the inerrant
and infallible Christian Bible.
Secular humanism: A conviction that dogmas,
ideologies and traditions, whether religious,
political or social, must be weighed and
tested (for rationality) by each individual and
not simply accepted on faith.
…is the foundational belief which drives many
legislators to enact a wide variety of laws and
public policies.
They are convinced that crafting legislation in
conformity with fundamentalist Christian
beliefs holds the answer to every public and
private issue.
“…Christianity must govern every aspect of public
and private life, and that all―government,
science, history, culture and relationships―must
be understood according to the dictates of
scripture.
There are biblically correct positions on every
issue, from gay marriage to income taxes, and
only those with the right worldview can discern
them.”
…Michelle Goldberg (Kingdom Coming…
The Rise of Christian Nationalism)
“This Christian nationalism movement does not
represent a majority of Americans―it does
not even represent a majority of all
evangelicals―but it does represent a
significant and highly mobilized minority.”
“This group is overwhelmingly Republican and
tends to reject pluralism.”
“Their hold on state Republican
parties, coupled with
overrepresentation of less
populated states in the Senate,
has helped Christian nationalists
win influence in Congress in
excess of their actual numbers.

What is The Great Commission?
 Why
is it important to Christians
today?
 And,
why is it important that nonChristians understand its power
and importance?

According to the Gospel of Matthew
Ch. 28 v. 18-20, (and there are other
versions in each of the other Gospels)
after Jesus Christ’s death on the cross,
burial and resurrection, and before he
ascended into heaven, he appeared to
his disciples in Galilee and gave them
these instructions:



Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority
in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end
of the age."



This is the section of Scripture known as The
Great Commission.
As the last recorded personal directive of the
Savior to his disciples, it holds great
significance to all Christians.
It is the foundation for evangelism.


Because Christ’s instructions went to all
nations; and because he said he would be
with his followers until the very end of the
age, Christians of all generations have
embraced and felt obligated to obey this
command.
As many have said, it's not "The Great
Suggestion." No, the Lord has commanded
Christians to put their faith in action.
 The
Christian Right wants to
modify the public school
curriculum and win school
board elections to propagate
their religious or moral beliefs
as school policy

…the Bible in HS
funded School
Vouchers to pay for
private Christian
schooling.
Gov’t
The
Religious Right
sees homeschooling
and private schooling
as a viable alternative
to public education.


Much of this increase has been attributed to
the desire to incorporate Christian
teachings into the curriculum.
The vast majority of parents who home-and
private-schooled their children cited the
ability to provide religious or moral
instruction as the reason for removing their
children from public schools.
of creationism and
intelligent design as opposed
to the teaching of evolution.
 Teaching
“Academic
fairness/

Teach the
Controversy”
 Removing
sexual education from
public schools
 Providing
incorrect information on
contraception, homosexuality,
etc.
 The
Christian Right takes
the position that sexuality
should be expressed only
within the context of a
marriage.
The
Christian Right
believes that
homosexuality is
immoral and
unhealthy.
 Leaders
in the Christian
Right speak out against
same-sex marriage, civil
unions, and adoption of
children by gays.
 Some
organizations identified
with the Christian Right, including
Exodus International, believe that
gay or bisexual people can
become heterosexual and enjoy
fulfilling marriage relationships
with members of the opposite
sex.

In that regard, concerns have been
expressed by all major US mental
health organizations regarding
therapies promoted to modify sexual
orientation.

None have proven effective.

They can be harmful.
 The
Christian Right sees the
government's proper role as
promoting conservative or
literal interpretations of the
Bible as the basis for moral
values, and enforcing such
values by legislation.


Opposes abortion, believing that life
begins at conception and that
abortion is murder.
Therefore, those in the movement
have worked toward the overturning
of Roe v Wade.
The
Christian
Right also
opposes
euthanasia.
 Too
often non-believers will
say, that while they disagree
with the imposition of the
Christian religion in laws and
policies, they never the less
still respect the religion of the
“imposers”.
 And
just look where that
position has gotten us!
 The
bullying and
church/state separation
breech is worse than ever.
 The
time has come for
secularists to take the highly
politically and socially
incorrect approach and….
dare to challenge the core
theology of Christians who
are behaving so unneighborly.


I will address Christianity because it is
the most influential religious belief in
America.
However, much of my analysis would
apply arguably to any other current
personal God-based belief system.
 What
is it that we value
most in life?
 Our
health, our family
and friends, our country
etc.
Like many of you, I have found the need to
search for the answer to the ultimate
question anyone can ask:
What is it all about?
The most important skill anyone can possess to
answer that question is the ability to tell the
difference between …
justified belief (knowledge) and
unjustified belief (falsehood).
Because,
No amount of belief
makes something a fact.
“If
it’s important,
…….it’s worth
verifying!”

A value we all hold dear is
knowledge.

Knowledge is……….

“Justified true belief” or

An accurate understanding of our
world, of our reality.
 Many
say it is their personal
God-based religion (or faith) that
provides this knowledge.
 For
many others it is science (or
reason) that provides this
accurate understanding of the
world.
 My
goal today is to make
the case that religious
belief (and specifically
Christianity) does not
provide this accurate
understanding of our world.
 Knowledge
gained thru
science has been proved valid
and reliable.
 Faith
and its stepchild religion
(Christianity) should not be
granted any respect in this
regard.
Christianity
is a strong
belief in a specific
personal God that
controls human
destiny.


In the United States and certainly in Arizona,
Christianity is the main local religion.
As it impacts our culture, the important
question to ask is whether this belief, one of
approx 10,000 that have come and gone
worldwide,

…is advancing or retarding the well-being of
Americans?

How do I approach this question of
respect for religious belief and for
Christianity in particular?

I ask myself:

Is the belief justified?

Is it helpful or hurtful?
Rationalism: Knowledge comes wholly from
reason
The optimist: “The glass is half full”
The pessimist: “The glass is half empty”
The rationalist: “The glass is twice
as big as it needs to be.”

In order for Christianity to be accepted
as valid, it must be justified: It must
warrant acceptance by rational standards
just as…..


2+2 must equal 4

Reason and rationality are expressed in the
words…
common
sense
 If
a belief meets the requirements
of these standards it is a rational
belief.
 If
a belief cannot meet the
requirements---but is adopted
nonetheless---it is an irrational
belief….and deserves no respect.

Three minimum requirements that must all
be fulfilled before Christianity can claim the
status of justified belief:





Christianity must :
………………be based on evidence
……………… be internally consistent (not
self-contradictory)
……………… validate knowledge with which it
is to be integrated
Today
‘s talk will
deal with
Christianity’s
God-claim.
 My
position will be to
Christians………



You can’t describe him intelligently.
Your claims are incoherent.
(ex: If He is all good, all knowing, all powerful
and all present then explain evil.
Even if He did exist, does He deserve worship?
(ex: questionable morality, vicarious redemption,
Hell for non-believers, rejections of
homosexuals, etc.

GOD IS AN INCOHERENT CONCEPT
Any argumentation critical of
Christianity will quickly devolve
into an argument about the
existence of its “personal God”.
So let’s start there.
(mono)Theism/Christianity: The belief in a
personal god.
Agnosticism: The belief that knowledge of God is
beyond human grasp and/or that God is an
unknowable concept for humans…...
(The beauty and honesty to say, “I just don’t know.”)
Atheism: The disbelief in gods…based on lack of
evidence.(non-believer)
Traditional descriptions of God: ( in monotheistic religions)

The creator and ruler of the universe, regarded as eternal,
infinite, transcendent (not of time and space)

ALL: powerful, good, knowing, and present;

An entity that loves and gives purpose to his creation;

That listens to and answers prayers;

That performs miracles (interventions that defy natural laws)

And provides salvation and eternal life in heaven for some
while casting others into eternal damnation and torture in hell.
While there is a debate over how this “entity” should
be spelled, I will use the capitalized “G”od ( or He,
Him) to represent the local god of the three
monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam and
Judaism, and the lower case “g”od to represent
gods in general and those of other religions.)
The burden of proof to
establish the coherency of
any God concept is the
responsibility of the (theist,
believer, Christian)
A common question that we are all asked at
sometime in our lives takes two forms:
“Does God exist?” and
“Do you believe in God?”
Most of us are primed to give a knee-jerk answer of
either “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know.”
In my view, however, the correct answer is………..
“I have no idea what you are
talking about---and neither do
you!”
“What is it for which you are
claiming existence?”
Unless the believer can define the term “God”---and why
his particular “God” is defined in that way, ---the
question cannot (and therefore should not) be
answered.
The Moslem, Christian or Jew is now obligated to
present an intelligible description of this God.
Defining God is central to any argument for this entity’s
existence. Otherwise stating “God exists”
communicates nothing!
The
Christian God is no
more special than any of
those thousands of gods
that have been (and
continue to be) part of
human history and culture.
Metaphysics and Epistemology:
Metaphysics:
the study of reality (the
state of things as they actually exist), matter,
consciousness and causality.
Epistemology: the study of knowledge
(justified true belief)………reason and faith are
associated terms.
Therefore:
“What exists?” is a
metaphysical question, whereas
“How does one know it?” is an
epistemological one.
And in more general terms the question becomes:
How do we know, we know?
and,
How do we know, we don’t
know?”
Metaphysics:
The “Natural” and the “Supernatural” are
metaphysical terms that describe different
realities.
The essence of the difference is one of KIND and
not one of degree.
While the supernatural realm is considered
independent from the natural realm, it is able to
communicate with the natural realm. ie: miracles
It is in this difference
of framework where
atheist and Christian
part company.
Non-believers: science states
that, to date, only the natural
reality exists.
Believers: (My) faith reveals
that both a natural and
supernatural reality exist.
The Natural Reality (material reality)
is…
everything in our universe (and in
other possible universes) including
energy/matter, space and time and
yet to be discovered “other
dimensions”.
The Supernatural Reality (non-material)
pertains to anything that lies “beyond or
outside (???)” of natural reality. It is a title
and not a description.
And because the Supernatural cannot be
described; and cannot be definitional; it
borders on being a meaningless term.
The “Supernatural” can pertain to entities, events or
powers regarded as beyond nature in that they
lack clear scientific explanation.
Miracles, spells, curses, divination, the afterlife,
ghosts, gods, resurrections, anointing, angels,
spirits, the paranormal, ESP, leprechauns,
unicorns and holy scripture (the Word of God) are
all considered as representative of the
“supernatural reality”.
Scientists do not conclude that the supernatural
does not exist per se, but rather that it has yet to
be proven.
While there have been many unexplained events,
there has yet to be an occurrence that has been
verified scientifically as “supernatural”.
Remarkable does not mean “supernatural”!
A sole survivor of a plane crash; a cancerous
tumor that suddenly disappears and is
inexplicable medically; the birth of a child;
and the ability of ants to carry many times
their own weight are all remarkable but
hardly supernatural!
INEXPLICABLE does not equal Supernatural!
Indeed,
the world
works exactly as
you would expect if
there were no
personal God!
God is considered an “entity” or “being” existing in
this Supernatural Realm and communicating with
our Natural Realm.
So the first line of challenge by the atheist against
the Christian/theist is a metaphysical one.
It respects the famous quote from the late Carl
Sagan: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence.”
Question #1 for the Christian:
Describe this God which dwells in this
Supernatural Reality?
The Christian will describe God as existing in the
supernatural reality. God is “beyond” natural existence and
exempt from the restrictions of natural laws.
The atheist will counter that this explains what this being is
not---that it is not part of the natural universe. Granted,--but that description still does not tell us anything
about this God!
 Question
 How
2 for the Christian:
does anyone
understand or communicate
with an entity outside or
beyond natural existence?
To repeat and
emphasize:
When a believer makes claim his God exists, he
is, at the same time, making a reality claim
that there exists another reality (the
supernatural) independent from our natural
reality.
He is also asserting that this “other” reality
interacts with our natural reality.
Very few people realize what an
extraordinary claim
that is!
In my opinion, it
is equally if not
more
extraordinary than
the God-claim
itself!
 Consider
 There
the following:
has never been a
scientifically verified
encounter with anything
“outside” of natural
existence.
 Question:
On what basis then
does the Christian claim the
existence of this supernatural
realm?
 There
is some ‘splainin’ to do!
Natural existence is describable
by natural law.
Natural Law pertains to the
presence of regularity (and
regular irregularity) in the
universe.
NATURAL LAW: Entities behave according
to specific causal conditions:
Examples: Given the right conditions
pumpkin seeds will become pumpkins, not
pears; dogs will not give birth to cats; and
when I drop an apple on earth it will fall to
the ground at a calculable and predictable
acceleration.
NATURAL LAW: also pertains to the presence of
certain limitations of living things:
A bird does not have the
capacity to play poker just as
man does not have the
capacity to fly.
In the “Supernatural Realm” all bets are
off…..because that realm CANNOT BE
DESCRIBED, EXPLAINED OR DEFINED.
We have no idea of what a “Supernatural
Reality” is like.
By definition, it is unknowable to us
because we have no way to
communicate with it scientifically.
Right at this point it is important to
anticipate the counterclaim by Christians.
“But yes we do!....Holy scripture!!!
Surely the Bible gives us the assurance of that
supernatural reality in which God dwells!
HOLD THAT
THOUGHT!
The second challenge by the atheist is an
epistemological (knowledge)one.
To exist beyond the sphere of
Natural Law means ….
…to exist beyond the scope of
human knowledge.
And Christians will agree that God is a
supernatural being that transcends
RATIONAL human knowledge:
i.e.: Christians believe that God is
mysterious, unfathomable and
beyond RATIONAL human
comprehension.


Christians are fond of saying that God
(Jesus) “wants” you to do this or that;
that God (Jesus) “knows” this or that;
or even that God (Jesus) “said” this or
that.
So, Christians make the claim that
their personal God is knowable to
some extent and at some level.



their claim stems from their yet to be proved
assertion that their Bible is the WORD of their
God.
But the Bible is a “self-proclaimed authority”.
Christians must provide evidence from
outside their scripture if they are to win over
a skeptic.
If God is supernatural and
transcendent (not of matter, time
or space and unknowable), how
would humans comprehend Him?
How can one know the
unknowable?
The existence of a supernatural/unknowable
being constitutes the major point of
controversy between Christian and atheist.
Amazingly though, the Christian is usually
unimpressed with this line of argumentation.
He will boast,
“See, God transcends human
understanding”!
But how can one
possibly know that something
exists
without some knowledge of
what it is
that is existing or at least what
is being called into question?
“To deny all the qualities of a being is
equivalent to denying the being
himself.
….A being without qualities is one
which cannot become an object to the
mind, and such a being is virtually
non-existent.”
(19th century philosopher Ludwig
Feuerbach)
 “To
claim that a thing is
unknowable, one must
first know that it exists--but then one already has
knowledge of it, to that
extent.” Nathaniel Branden
REASON SAYS:
If God is RATIONALLY
unknowable,…. the concept of
“God” is devoid of content, an
empty claim, and the word
“God” becomes a meaningless
sound.
To claim that God is incomprehensible
is to say that one’s concept of God is
unintelligible, which is to confess,
therefore, that when one is talking
about God…
one does not know what
one is talking about!!!!!!!
Indeed, the Christian
is basically saying, “I
will explain the
concept of my God by
pointing out that it
cannot be explained.”
The idea of claiming the
existence of an entity
that is unknowable is an
insult to man’s intellect
and furthermore renders
God and theism wholly
implausible.
Conclusion:
If knowledge of the unknowable
is a contradiction, then
knowledge of the supernatural
is a contradiction as well.
Additional
critiques of
Christianity……..
 Man
has been around for, at
some estimates
 200,000-100,000
years……..
 “Name
one moral
statement or action, said
or done by a believer,
that cannot be done by a
non-believer.”

(C.H. said never heard a coherent
answer!)


There is no mechanism within
Christianity for self-correction.
(Science has peer review,
reproducibility, consensus, the power
of prediction, integration with
previous knowledge, falsification.)

If they can not properly answer the question:
 What
evidence would
convince you to give up
your belief in Christianity?



Statement of Beliefs of the Arizona Origins
(emphasis mine) Association.
Science!!!
The universe and everything in it was created by
God rather than by spontaneous generation and
development from one kind to another.
All creation was accomplished in six consecutive
literal days, not over millions of years, and the
earth is relatively young (thousands not billions
of years).


There is a Divine Design and purpose in nature
as opposed to an unorganized random and
chance development.
A world-wide, historical Flood, caused by God,
occurred at the time of Noah. It was not just a
local flood.

The Bible is the inspired, revealed Word of God to
man and is accurate in all areas.

Jesus Christ is God and is the only substitute and
Savior through whom man is redeemed from sin.
 In
other words Christians
believe……..
The
Flintstones
 ……….was
a documentary!
 “The
whole history of the
last thousands of years has
been a history of religious
persecutions and wars,
pogroms, jihads, crusades.
I find it all very regrettable,
to say the least.”
 “Religion
is an insult to human
dignity. With or without it you
would have good people doing
good things and evil people
doing evil things. But for good
people to do evil things, that
takes religion.”


“I can hope that this long sad story,
this progression of priests, ministers,
rabbis and imams …..will come to an
end.
I hope this is something to which
science can contribute … it may be the
most important contribution that we
can make.”
“This
is one of the
great social functions
of science — to free
people from
superstition.”
Therefore,
Christianity is
excluded from the
sphere of rational
consideration.
REALITY CHECK:
“The criteria that honest investigators use when
comparing God-ly vs. God-less interpretations
include the following:
their predictive capacity,
their explanatory power,
the number of testable new branches of science
and technology they lead to,
the amounts of mystery and otherwise hopeless
bewilderment they eliminate and so on.
So superior have the God-less
interpretations of nature proved to
be over the God-based ones that
science has now come to the
point where it no longer entertains
any interpretations that carry
even the slightest hint of
supernaturalism.”
Based on the complete absence of
any verifiable human interaction--ever---with any reality other than
natural reality, science can
confidently (yet always provisionally)
say that the supernatural realm has
yet to be established and cannot and
must not be used for investigative,
explanatory, or belief purposes.
Christianity’s
claims are
inconsistent with
known facts
But alas, if it were only that easy!
Many Christians will admit that while God may not
be understood (ie: knowable) through rational
thought, there is another pathway to certify His
existence:
FAITH
In my next talk, I will challenge faith’s
claim as a valid and reliable pathway
to knowledge of the supernatural.
 "It
is far better to grasp
the universe as it really is
than to persist in
delusion, however
satisfying and
reassuring." - Carl Sagan
“It
pays to keep an
open mind, but not
so open your brains
fall out.” - Carl Sagan
Thank You