Blimix

This really should have been a blog post, not just a Facebook post. Let's remedy that now.

[Regarding National Coming Out Day.] The only thing I've got (that I can think of) is atheist, and I've never been closeted about that.

I don't much participate in the "atheist community," whatever that is (aside from spending some time on the subreddit a while back), but I gather that it is heavy with white males. My suspicion is that this does not represent atheists in general, but rather that "out" atheists skew that way: Toward people with enough privilege that they will suffer fewer social repercussions by being out. I noticed that the atheists on Reddit never pressured people to come out. It was always, "If being known as an atheist would endanger you or otherwise cause problems for you, then keep pretending." In my case, it was more like a complete lack of understanding of social repercussions that helped me along.

I was a Boy Scout for a couple of years. At our summer camp, we had mandatory weekly religious services. I didn't even know enough to realize the absurdity of making all the religious folks have their services at the same time, but I knew it was absurd to make me go to one. Still, I had to pick one, so I chose Jewish. Now, I wasn't raised particularly Jewishly: The only Hebrew I knew was the Hannukah prayer, and I couldn't have translated it. So people were randomly standing and sitting and participating around me, and I had no idea what was going on. This caught the attention of the kid next to me, and I explained that I didn't really belong there, because I was an atheist. He said, "Atheist, huh? Does that mean you sacrifice animals?"

If I lived somewhere else, or had less privilege, that would be the least of the hostility and ignorance I'd have had to deal with. No beheadings for me (yet)! So, um, to all you closeted atheists out there: Paint that frickin' closet whatever calming colors you have to, to make it comfortable. Put a nice mattress in it. And when you decide to come out, start with the people you trust most. Gauge their reactions to see if you want to keep going. If you live where you can be killed for it, get out before you come out.

And to all you white male atheists out there: If you see a lack of people who don't look like you at that conference, it's not because you're more rational than everyone else. It's because the folks you don't see are smart, and they're playing this game at a way deeper level than you know it can go.

The Reason For God, by Timothy Keller, is a work of Christian apologetics. It claims to present a case for god and for Christianity, using reason and logic to appeal to skeptics. It is an example of a class of books that achieve unwarranted sales by virtue of churchgoers buying many copies each, to hand out to unbelievers so that they might be converted. I was one such recipient.

Essentially, these sales constitute a scam. The reasoning presented by the book is so thoroughly and consistently unsound that it cannot appeal to anyone who does not already hold the views of the author. Those buying the book in hopes of winning converts have spent their money (and time) in vain.

I had begun to dissect the logic of the book when I first received it, but quickly lost interest due to the lack of challenge this presented. More recently, a Christian friend of mine began reading the book, and having problems with it. So we began taking notes, and meeting weekly to discuss each chapter. One problem was that Keller's reasoning process was often obscure: There were several points where it was not easy to discern how Keller had intended one idea to support an earlier or later one. The other problem involved the format of the first half of the book: In each chapter, Keller would introduce an objection either to theism or to Christianity in particular, then spend the rest of the chapter trying to argue against that objection. His arguments were so weak (and sometimes incomprehensible) that the still viable objections were pushing my friend toward atheism. I was able to clarify some of the arguments, but even then, they gained no credibility. Keller's system backfired, and in consequence of reading this book, my friend has become more solidly agnostic.

Over the past few months, I have published my notes on the book in serial form. You can find "The Lack of Reason For God" collected here:

• Introduction
  
• Chapter 1: The divisiveness of Christianity.
  
• Chapter 2: Why does god allow evil?
  
• Chapter 3: Christianity's restrictions on intellectual freedom.
  
• Chapter 4: Injustice in the name of Christianity.
  
• Chapter 5: A loving god sends people to Hell.
  
• Chapter 6: The conflict between science and Christianity.
  
• Chapter 7: Can you take the Bible literally?
  
• Intermission: A switch from arguing against skepticism to arguing for theism and Christianity. Also bad epistemology.
  
• Chapter 8: Evidence for the existence of god.
  
• Chapter 9: Atheists really believe in god.
  
• Chapter 10: Building one's identity without god.
  
• Chapter 11: Salvation through god's grace rather than good works.
  
• Chapter 12: The crucifixion.
  
• Chapter 13: The resurrection.
  
• Chapter 14: The holy trinity.
  
• Epilogue: Conversion.
  
  This post, collecting the entries, would be a suitable place to comment on the project as a whole, on the book, or even on the field of Christian apologetics. However, if you are looking for a religion debate with a stranger, look elsewhere. (This includes you, Timothy Keller. Straw man arguments make baby Jesus cry.) If you're a friend of mine looking for a religion debate, I'm game, and we can surely find a better venue than the comments section.