Disclaimer: If you're a Christian, this dialogue is likely to upset you so you probably shouldn't read it. Please don't send me a bunch of e-mail about how I'm going to hell or whatnot. I'm happy for you that you find comfort in your faith. I don't...that's just the way it is. Sorry.

Okay, so I'm an atheist. Probably a reluctant atheist would be a better way of describing it. I like the concept of God, heaven, eternal life, and all that jazz, but there are some problems with it that I just can't get past. The primary argument is that this concept just doesn't pass the "reasonableness" test.

To understand what I mean by that, you need to know that I'm an engineer. Engineers are often tasked with figuring out problems of one sort or another. After working through a problem, an engineer will look at the answer he/she arrived at and ask, "Does this answer seem reasonable?" It's amazing how many stupid errors you can catch just by asking this question.

So say, for example, that you are faced with the following problem: A car leaves from L.A. traveling 60mph heading towards New York. If New York is 2847 miles away, how long does it take to get there? So you run through the numbers and come up with an answer of 1.2 hours. Ask yourself...does that answer seem reasonable? No! Of course not! ...so there must be some problem with your calculation.

That's what I mean by the test of "reasonableness"

Here's a few difficulties that I can think of right now. Some are directly related to not passing the "reasonableness" test, and others are miscellaneous thoughts.

1. A lot of friends have tried over the years to show proof how the earth must have come to be through creation. ...or how life must have been created (not evolved). The problem with this is that "proof" and "faith" are contradictory. You can't have both faith and proof. Look it up if don't believe me. ...and it says in the bible that the only way to God is through faith. (Galatians 3:11) I don't know that the big bang theory is right, or that evolution is what really happened, but it surely seems like a more reasonable explanation than creation. And trying to "prove" the Christian point of view is pretty much a self-defeating tact, don't you think?
2. Ok...moving on...Here's another thing that bothers me about Christianity. Christians can't differentiate between "truth" and "fact". THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. Christians say God sent his son to earth and he died to pay for our sins, and that's the truth. Well, maybe...but is it factual? Let me use an example to illustrate the difference between truth and fact. Let's say one night, three people witness a hit-and-run. The policeman takes down each person's account of what happened. Witness #1 says it was a dark blue car. Witness #2 says it was a black car. Witness #3 says it was a dark green car. Were they all telling the truth? Yes! But none of their accounts are factual. In fact, the car was dark purple. ...so fact means exactly what happened...whereas truth involves human perception...which is fallible.
3. Christians are not objective when it comes to Christianity. I associate with some Christians that are pretty smart people, but they can't seem to understand this. When a scientist comes up with a theory that explains some natural process and, later on, new evidence is found that contradicts the theory, the theory will either need to get revised or thrown out completely. When it comes to Christianity, any evidence that contradicts the bible gets thrown out. By definition, a Christian with faith simply cannot accept that they could be wrong. I'm an atheist and I can definitely accept the possibility that I might be wrong. Actually I hope I am. It's much more pleasing to think that there is life after death and all that, but it doesn't seem reasonable to me.
4. The omnipotence card is just too convenient. No matter what logical arguments I can give, a Christian can just say "...well God is all-powerful and all-knowing and He doesn't have to play by the rules of Physics or logic or anything else." Ok...if one assumes there is an omnipotent being out there, then sure...all bets are off. But it seems an awfully convenient method of arguing a point. Especially considering that this argument not only eliminates the need for proof, but also eliminates all possibility of ever getting any proof.
5. You are all probably familiar with the Hubble telescope, right? Well, a while back, they used the Hubble for what NASA called their "Hubble Deep Field" (or HDF) study. For the HDF study, NASA engineers focused the Hubble on a tiny, unremarkable, section of sky. I'm talking a little, tiny section of sky...like a dime as seen from 75 feet away. They exposed the Hubble's sensors for several days and came up with an image that contained over 1,500 galaxies! How many stars are in a galaxy? I dunno, but it's gotta be in the millions. And if there are 1,500 galaxies in that little section of sky, how many stars does that add up to? A lot, that's for sure. Figuring every star has only one planet on average, we're talking about a lot of planets out there. That's a lot of freakin' planets. Why doesn't the bible talk about any of that? What about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe? Why did God do so much less on Days 2 through 7 than he did on the first day? Was he tired? Maybe he should have rested on the second day instead of on the 7th. Frankly, I find it really pretty arrogant for us to think that we're so important as to warrant all this attention. It also doesn't pass my reasonableness test. Instead, it seems much more reasonable that the story of how the universe came into being was developed by people that didn't understand something and wanted a nice comfortable explanation. That's a trend that can be seen throughout history...as mankind understands more about himself and his environment, less and less things need to be explained as "God's will". If you follow this train of thought to it's logical conclusion, mankind will eventually understand all of the things that were once explained through divinity.
6. This concept of God, heaven, and hell implies there is some kind of life after death. And that, in turn implies the existence of a "soul" of some kind...something that continues to exist after a person's body has died. So here are a few questions about that: Where is the soul? Is it located in one spot on the body or is it all spread out? So if a person loses an arm in an accident, do they lose part of their soul? I doubt many Christians would say yes. Let's say they lose both arms and both legs...are they partly in heaven (or hell) at that point? What if someone dies, except for a tiny specimen of cells kept in a petri dish? Does their soul stay with that little clump of cells until the scientist-in-charge decides to destroy them? Only then can the person finally get to heaven? If you ask me, it makes much more sense that what makes a person who they are is their brain. If their brain is alive, the essence of that person is alive. As soon as the brain dies, the essence of that person is gone...regardless of whether their body is kept alive on life-support machines. The next question I would expect to get from a Christian is "where do you think you go when you die?" Well first I'd like to point out that I think that question itself is flawed. It assumes that you go somewhere. I suspect the sad truth is that when a person dies, oblivion is what awaits. Nothing at all. So when I get asked, "where do you think you go when you die?", I usually answer, "either a coffin or an oven." Please don't misunderstand...I hope I'm wrong about this. After all, it'd be a terrible waste if all the great thinkers, artists, humanitarians, etc. are all consigned to oblivion upon death. I hope I'm wrong...but I don't think I am.
7. Supposedly heaven is just for people. Well, anyone who has loved a dog should well know that they are far more deserving of going to heaven than just about anyone I know (myself included). And if there aren't any dogs in heaven, I think I'd rather not go.
8. With respect to religion (or anything else for that matter), The strength that someone believes in something has nothing to do with whether their belief is reality. Likewise, the number of people that believe in the same thing also has nothing to do with whether their collective belief is reality.

Update 4/18/2011: I recently had a dialogue with a thoughtful young man who e-mailed me to discuss our differing viewpoints. He agreed to allow me to post the discussion here. I hope someone finds it useful. My responses are in blue.

Hi, Pat. I occasionally get letters from folks about my atheism page, and generally don't answer them, but I decided to in this case. My thoughts are inline below:

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 3:17 AM, Patrick wrote:

Hey, my name is Pat and I read your page about christianity vs. atheism. Before I start I will tell you I'm not going to give you the crap you asked me not to say like "you're going to hell" and all that because where will it get either of us? Here are my biases just so you know : I am a born again christian, I am 18 years old and a freshman in college, I used to be an atheist for most of my teens, I have thoroughly researched both sides of the argument, and I come from a roman catholic family. Also, this email is not meant to bash your beliefs, just to challenge them and I hope you challenge me back.

I used to be an atheist and through your page I really think that you and I are very alike in how we think. Especially so when you said that you hope there's an afterlife, but it just doesn't seem logical. I truly thought the same thing and although I am a christian, I still am a little nervous about it because in all honesty it seems too good to be true doesn't it? If there is a God then why do such awful things happen to everyone, good or bad? This was the question that kept me from believing and I just didn't see it as logical as I said before. I am going to try to give you facts instead of the truth because I don't want to sound like an idiot that was raised christian and blindly goes by what his parents taught him.

So for your first point you are correct in that the only way to God is through faith, but faith doesn't have to be blind idiocy. I don't know if you've researched Creationalism at all but answersingenesis.com is a good place to go if you are truly curious. I do admire the seeming open mindedness that you portray so I'll give you a few examples of why I moved away from evolution and the big bang theory and towards creation. I'll also try not to give Bible verses because if you don't believe in them then what good are they? Ok so, the big bang theory states that all material in the universe was clumped into a mass of hot, rapidly expanding matter and it eventually cooled and created our universe. The problem with this theory is where did this matter originate from? Matter cannot be created or destroyed and the big bang fails to explain where the matter came from. Any scientist, christian or not, would tell you that scientifically they just don't know. Here are the two possibilities, as far as I know, that people can explain the creation of the cosmos. Either it always was, it was created, or it just came into being. Science would have to argue with itself by saying that anything could create itself and it would also argue that nothing could have always existed. The big bang doesn't state the origins, it just tries to explain the processes disguised as an origin. (If I'm wrong please let me know) That only leaves creation. That God created the cosmos and that He always was there. If you want me to go into this further please tell me but I think you get my point whether or not you agree.

With regard to creation vs. big bang:

Carl Sagan posed this statement and question (I'm going to paraphrase from memory): The furthest galaxies we see are >13 billion light years away. That means that the light we're seeing from them had to travel for 13 billion years to arrive at our telescopes. But if you add up the lineage leading from Adam and Eve to Christ, and also count the 2011 years since his birth, you arrive at a conclusion that the universe is ~6000 years old. If the universe is indeed only 6000 years old, that means God must have placed photons in the empty space between those distant galaxies and the earth in order for us to believe the universe is 13 billion light years old. Why would a supreme being be so interested in deceiving us as to the age of the universe? Why the deception? Isn't it more reasonable to believe that the universe is indeed ~13 billion years old and that the people who wrote the bible just got it wrong?

Where did the big bang come from? I don't know. Some years ago, I had actually come up with a theory of my own that would have the universe expanding until it reversed, collapsed down on itself, then formed an anti-universe which would itself expand, slow, then collapse, to have the cycle start over again. Kind of like how a sine wave crosses zero. If you look at the zero crossing (or sum the positive and negative parts), you get nothing, but as we know from the electricity coming out of our outlets or music from our speakers, sine waves do indeed exist and have tangible effect. I did a bit of reading once, though, that showed my idea wasn't original and is out of favor among astrophysicists for one reason or another. Sigh...I guess I'll stick to engineering.

At least science is trying to test as much of their theories as possible. Particle collider experiments, for example. Creation is untestable and thus not science.

Evolution is once again a theory, just like creation, that states over time less sophisticated life forms developed into highly sophisticated life forms. Darwin, and any other scientist since him couldn't explain away the eye. The eye is so brilliantly constructed that without any of its parts, it would fail. Darwin said that the eye gave him a cold shudder. I have a question that has never been answered before by anyone. If species evolved into other species, ex: amphibians evolved into dinosaurs (the evolutionary belief) than why are there no transitional fossils? Why is every fossil either full amphibian or full dinosaur? If, by evolutionary standards, it took millions of years for them to evolve surely some hybrid transitional creature must have been fossilized. Also, where did evolutionists get their time spans from? They use the layers of the earth to explain their huge huge huge time lines but a simple flood could uplift or bury a layer on the top of the earth's crust. Another problem is that paleontologists have unearthed dinosaur fossils that still have flesh on them. I don't care where in the crust this body was found, there is no way flesh could remain on bone for hundreds of millions of years. It is impossible.

I have read a bit on the concept of intelligent design vs. evolution. The problem is that intelligent design isn't science. If it proposed a theory that was testable to some degree or another, then maybe it would qualify as science, however, it doesn't...it just says that life is so complex that it can't have come about through any way other than through intelligent design (god). There you have it...a convenient rationalization all packaged up into a completely non-testable "theory". The negative consequence of accepting this "theory" is that it strips humanity of the need (or ability) to stretch to understand things it currently doesn't.

There was a show on PBS about a year ago that described some of the latest science and developments in understanding the evolutionary process. I wish I could recall the title, but I think it could address some of your concerns, but surely not all. I really don't know about how the eye evolved, but a quick google search turned up a few theories...whether any evidence turns up to support those theories is yet to be determined.

I found your second point very interesting because it was true. It was well said and I have trouble retaliating to it. I cannot prove to you that Jesus came here to save us but in the end neither of us can prove either of our beliefs and in the end we shall either realize it is fact, or realize nothing because we're dead forever. Your third point is also interesting but you didn't give any examples that prove christianity wrong. If you have one please tell me so I can try to be objective. I was an atheist too so I understand where you're coming from and I am far from "just agreeing" with christianity.

It's impossible to prove Christianity is wrong. It's called "disproving a negative", which is impossible. Using a good example off Yahoo answers to illustrate the concept:

Scientists! True or False; you can't disprove a negative?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
True, as positive evidence may turn up in the future. For example, there's presently
no known evidence whatsoever showing Britain has an endemic population of pixies.
However, there could be a family of them living in a mushroom in a village outside
of Blackburn or Brighton. I can't demonstrate that isn't the case.

You are correct in your fourth point and this was another hinderance to my conversion. It's pretty convenient to just play the God is almighty card and that's it. You could argue that people have been explaining phenomena in nature by gods since the very beginning of mankind. Anything like fire, lightning, love, war, hatred, ect have been attributed to gods because the people didn't understand how to scientifically explain these. My argument is this, the Bible has never been proven wrong about anything, and the Bible gives A LOT of room for error. I'll give two examples, one is that God told us FAR before Columbus that the earth was a sphere. Isaiah 40:22 (NIV) "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." So how is this relevant? Well, as I'm sure you know, the globally accepted belief at the time was that the earth was flat. Why would the Bible go against a fundamental belief of the time that could prove it wrong and put EVERYTHING in it at risk of being seen as flawed? Either it was a reckless move or it was divinely inspired and correct. My next example is when in the desert, in the story of Abraham, God made Abraham and all of Abraham's descendants get circumcised. This sounds cruel doesn't it? It wasn't meant to be, it was God trying to preserve His people. If a man isn't circumcised he will most likely get an infection, especially in the dusty, dirty, sandy environment of Abraham, and this infection could lead to sterility. No other peoples had this practice at the time and it was spread to other people through the Jewish people. God basically gave Abraham medical advice to keep his people going. "Your descendants will be as numerable as the stars in the sky."

Again, using anything from the Bible as support for Christianity is a bit like writing a term paper, then citing the term paper itself as a reference for the argument made in the paper:

-----

Title: Leprechauns.  Fact of Fiction?
Author: Mike Cencula

As noted in citation (1), there is definitive proof that Leprechauns exist.  Thus, they exist.  Case closed.

List of citations:
(1) Cencula, M. (2011). Leprechauns.  Fact or Fiction?  Available from Dissertations on Mythical
Creatures database. (UMI No. 1395513)

-----

This is known as "circular reasoning" and is a formal logical fallacy. I'm pretty sure none of your college professors would accept such an argument. ;-)

So onto five. My simple argument for you is that we have not found any evidence for extraterrestrial life and until we do, I can't agree with you. I don't think it is likely for other life forms outside of earth because I don't know if you comprehend HOW complex life is. A single celled life form is more complicated than the most sophisticated machine we have ever built. The oxygen we need to breath to sustain life is so complicated that it's chances of being any where else is so minimal that I would wager we never find life forms outside earth. So many things need to go EXACTLY right for life to start and continue that I argue to you that it takes more faith to believe in evolution/big bang/ extraterrestrial life than it does to believe in God. I may have jumped off topic for a sec, sorry. So back to what you said about the creation story and how God didn't do much on day 2-7. You're right, He didn't do much on day 7, but days 2-6 He sure did! He created the sky, then the seas, land and plants, then stars, sun and moon, then sea creatures and fly creatures, then land animals and humans. That is A LOT of incredibly complicated processes that I have no time to explain but I challenge you to look into them because they are not simple tasks.

I did a calculation a while back to determine the percent of the volume of the visible universe which the earth occupies. It's really small:

0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,003

I actually had too look it up on the 'net how to say such a small number. Here it is: The earth occupies only three novemcentillionths of the visible universe.

...And that's just the visible universe. The universe may be much, much larger, but due to the speed of light, we can't tell. Thus, we may even be an even smaller part of the universe. Does it seem reasonable that god created all this extra space just for us?

Another (from memory) quote from Carl Sagan: "Any life that evolves on any planet will magically find itself ideally suited to it's environment". If the environment on earth was predominantly silicon (not carbon) based, we probably wouldn't be here...but maybe some other form of life would be that would thrive in such an environment...who knows?

I recall a similar discussion with a colleague some 15 years ago. He was a staunch Christian and he stated that "in the entire history of mankind, we haven't found a *single* other planet"...and he used this as evidence that there probably aren't many other planets or opportunities for life elsewhere in the universe. He was right at the time, but since then we've found *hundreds* of planets...and we're just getting started. It's starting to look like it's the norm for stars to have planets. If so, the Drake equation would lead us to believe there's probably life all around us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

To use the lack of extraterrestrial evidence as an argument that it doesn't exist seems kind of silly when we've only been searching the universe for a few hundred years.

The soul is another tough concept to comprehend. Where is the soul? Is it in our arms, legs, head, brain? The answer is none. Our soul is a part of our being, not physical. Ask yourself this, is your mind a tangible being? It is associated with our brain yes, but it is not physical. It is a concept. The soul is also a concept, but it is not associated with a specific body part but the person who that body is possessed by. Animals are bodies but they do not have a soul. Animals can not choose between good and evil and therefore can't get into heaven. They have no say in their lives because they work by instinct. You may say that humans too have instincts but we don't. We are so socially constructed that we have no instincts when we can think rationally, so outside of infancy. When you are walking past a person don't you take your finger out of your nose? It's a socially constructed part of us so yes you would. My point here is that if we are in an environment that treats us like an animal, like a prison camp, we can choose to become an animal or rise above that. Our soul is the part of us that transcends all instinct and raises us to human beings. We are not a victim of instinct like a dog is. We are in full control. Psychologist, and holocaust victim, Viktor Frankl wrote an amazing book about this, "Man's Search For Meaning". He was an agnostic, but the transcendence is a part of the soul. If I did a poor job explaining please tell me.

This may be over my head. I tend to let Occam's Razor be my guide.

Heaven is just for people. Your human love for your dog is just that, human love. This reminds me of the story of "The Great Divorce"written by C.S. Lewis. The excerpt I am referring to is midway through the book where a woman is trying to get into heaven just to see her son that she loves. She is denied entry into heaven because she is stuck in her love for her son because it is merely how any human can love, not how God loves. This concept is difficult to grasp but heres what I mean. Is a dog, as the example you gave, worth more than a human? You probably say yes, I disagree. I am here telling you that Adolf Hitler is worth more than a dog. Yes, Adolf Hitler, perhaps one of the most evil people ever in existence. So why is this? Well, a dog bound by instincts. That is, that dog can NEVER praise God, he can never love, he can never change the world to be a better place and he can never choose good or evil. Adolf could do ALL those things! He chose not to, but the choice was there. There was a potential to do good. I don't agree with ANYTHING Hitler did so don't take that example as me worshipping Hitler because I deplore everything he did, but the point is valid.

I put this in mostly to be humorous, but we're going to have to agree to disagree on the relative worth of Adoph Hitler and my dog. ;-)

Finally, your 9th point I must disagree with, at least for me. I was an atheist as I said before and would NEVER have converted had I not seen Christianity as reality and giving better, more believable alternatives than the science I had been feed since birth. If you want more explanation then you need to develop your question better because I want a specific argument for that point.

Pat, I really am happy that you find your faith to be a positive influence for you. In our day-to-day grind, that's probably more important than whether one view or the other is actually "right". I'm at the end of my response and I'm quite hesitant to send it. I find myself in a no-win situation:

If my arguments are unsuccessful, I haven't done anything but waste both my time and yours. However, if my arguments are successful, and you decide to give up on Christianity as a result, all I've accomplished is taking something of value away from you (your faith). I have no desire to do that.

This is probably why I generally don' t respond to these kinds of e-mails.

I know this was long but please read it all and take it seriously. I am not trying to bash as stated before, just challenge and maybe spread the message of God to someone I feel I can relate to. I hope you don't attack me if you respond, but I am open to anything you say and can back up or any questions you may have.

I've been engaging in discussions like this for ~20 years and never in that time has either side convinced the other of their viewpoint. I expect this instance to be no different. I wish you the best, but I'm not going to continue this dialogue...not because I'm upset or disinterested, but rather because I have too many other draws on my time.

Take care and good luck in your studies, Mike

Hope to hear from you, Pat