50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (23 page)

The problem many believers have with human evolution is not
about monkeys specifically, of course. It's the connection to anything
nonhuman. They feel the suggestion of such a link is insulting. It's not
like these believers would embrace Australopithecines if they knew
about them. Evolution-phobic believers don't like any cracks in their
imagined wall between humans and the rest of nature. They resist
being pulled down from their pedestal into the animal kingdom. We
are better than animals, declare these believers. We are above nature, blessed with a divine spark from a god, they say. I'm not so sure. I
know history and follow current news so I have my doubts about that.

Contrary to the fears of some believers, admitting who we are,
where we come from, and who we are related to does not condemn us
to savagery. We have the most powerful brains on earth. We can use
them to think ourselves clear of the destructive instincts we may have
within us. We do not have to foul our own nest as we currently do. We
do not have to kill our neighbors as we currently do. We do not have
to be ignorant of our origins as most of us currently are. Believers who
are anxious to put as much distance as possible between humankind
and the rest of the animal kingdom should encourage science education rather than resist it. After all, it is science and science education,
more than anything that keep us out of the jungle.

The Top Ten Myths about Evolution (Smith and Sullivan 2007) is
a fine book that tackles common misunderstandings people have about
evolution. Copies of it should be air-dropped over every country with
a population in denial about evolution. It even includes a chapter
named "People come from monkeys." Authors Cameron Smith and
Charles Sullivan write:

We can dismiss some critics' lamentation that believing in evolution
will drag us down into the world of primates: we're already in it.
And stacks of data make it equally clear, to any thinking person, that
people don't come from monkeys. Around thirty million years ago,
the African primates diverged into two distinct groups, taking up different diets, habits and habitats, as their environments changed and
opportunities arose. One group developed into apes, which
included-much later-chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. The
other group developed into monkeys, and DNA and other studies
prove that we belong in the ape group instead of the monkey group.
Do people come from monkeys? Not at all. We do share a common
ancestor with chimpanzees, and before them, with the group that
became monkeys. But to say we come from monkeys is simply
wrong, and evolution has never claimed it. (Smith and Sullivan
2007,99-100)

Monkeys aside, religious people who say that accepting human evolution is incompatible with religion don't know much about religion.
Today there are hundreds of millions of people in a wide variety of
religions who accept the obvious truth that humans evolved. For
example, the late Pope John Paul II made it clear in 1996 that
Catholics' belief in their god need not conflict with human evolution.
The official Catholic position is that human evolution was their god's
process of creation. Of course, there is no evidence that a god guides
evolution but I suppose it is possible. There are Muslims, Hindus,
Mormons, even Baptists who accept evolution. Clearly it is possible to
believe in a god or gods without running away from human evolution.
Many believers recognize that there simply is too much evidence to
deny it so they make their belief conform accordingly. Some people
call it "theistic evolution." I call it a good start.

Lynch, John, and Louise Barrett. Walking with Cavemen. New York: DK
Publishing, 2003. This book contains an abundance of information but it
is the outstanding photographs of actors in makeup portraying a variety
of hominids that make it special. This is the companion book to the
memorable BBC documentary of the same name.

McKie, Robin. Dawn of Man: The Story of Human Evolution. New York: DK
Publishing, 2000.

Sloan, Christopher. The Human Story: Our Evolution from Prehistoric
Ancestors to Today. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2004.

Smith, Cameron M., and Charles Sullivan. The Top Ten Myths about Evolution. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007.

Tattersall, Ian, and Jeffrey H. Schwartz. Extinct Humans. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. This is an excellent survey of the field. Includes many
brilliant photographs of important fossils.

Wells, Spencer. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2002.

Death, the most dreaded of all evils, is therefore of
no concern to us; for while we exist death is not
present, and when death is present we no longer
exist.

-Epicurus

any people say that their fear of hell is one of the reasons
they believe in a god. But why? A desire to avoid ending up
in hell is not a good reason to believe in a god. It might be a good
reason to worship a particular god and to follow his or her rules but it
is not a reason to conclude that the god exists in the first place. Before
one can fear hell one must first believe that the god who created hell
is real. For example I don't believe in any gods, including those who
might have created a hell for people like me to suffer in. Therefore, I
don't worry about hell. I couldn't if I tried because it's just not real to
me. Maybe it really does exist somewhere deep in the earth's mantle
or maybe at the core itself. Maybe hell is in another dimension. It
could be that I am in for a terrible surprise after I die. But I doubt it.
I'm open-minded and willing to be convinced that hell is real, but until
then I simply can't bring myself to fear something that no one in history has ever been able to show is real or even come up with any evidence for. It's just another story, no different than stories about trolls
or haunted houses.

If I believed in a god and hell, I imagine that an atheist's fearless
attitude toward hell would bother me. How could I explain the lack of
concern? Assuming the atheist was sane and had a normal distaste for
fire and pain, how could she or he not be worried about hell? Something must be wrong here. Why would a god set up this horrible place
of punishment and then make its existence appear so vague and uncertain that hundreds of millions of thoughtful and well-meaning people
don't believe that it even exists? Surely a god with any sense of justice would not want to trick people into hell. Whatever purpose hell is
supposed to serve, shouldn't the god who sends people there make
sure that the danger is obvious to everyone? Wouldn't that be the least
a god could do for us? It all seems a bit devious and evil otherwise.
It's as if hell is meant not only to scare and motivate true believers but
also to work as a cruel trap to snare all those who made the mistake of
being skeptical and thinking critically about religious claims.

If hell is real, isn't spending eternity there a bit much? Who in
their right mind can possibly believe that punishing someone forever
is reasonable? Have you ever thought about how long eternity is? Wait
a trillion years and you will be no closer to the end than you are right
now. But these gods who create hells, we are told, seem to have no
problem tossing atheists and people who believe in the wrong god into
the fire forever. And for what? Because they doubted? Because they
thought? Because they were born and raised in the "wrong" belief
system? People deserve eternal punishment for that? Are you serious?

Worst of all, in my opinion, is the claim by many believers that
those who believe in the wrong gods will be condemned to hell. Okay,
the atheists may have thought things over and decided to pass on
belief, but many people were born into families and societies that
strongly pushed a particular god or gods on them virtually from birth.
They hardly had much of a chance to think for themselves and find the
"real" god. If I had been born into a poor family in rural Pakistan, for
example, I might have ended up with the same views on gods that I
have now, but the odds would have been heavily against it. Chances
are I would be a fundamentalist Muslim today and well on my way to spending eternity in the Christian hell. Had I been born in Utah to
Mormon parents, however, chances are I would be a devout Mormon
right now and well on my way to the Islamic hell. Believers who care
about other people and about justice must ask themselves if it is really
a crime to believe in the "wrong" god or in no gods. If so, are they
crimes that deserve eternal punishment? By the way, I am aware that
some people prefer to believe in a softer, cooler hell, one in which
there is no torturing and no fire. Where they get these details from I
have no idea, but they claim hell is nothing more than existing apart
from a god's love. It sounds like the ultimate time out for bad
behavior. Nobody spanks you but you can't see your friends or play in
heaven. You just have to stand in the corner-forever. While it sounds
better than roasting in a lake of fire forever, it is still a severe punishment. If heaven is real, being excluded from the best thing ever just
because you trusted what your misguided parents or society told you
about religion seems too harsh. By the way, will the one billion Hindus
alive today eventually go to both the Christian and the Islamic hell
simultaneously or will they somehow split time between both? How
does that work?

During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US and Coalition forces, there was a flood of government press conferences, TV
documentaries, and news reports that described the despicable
behavior of Saddam Hussein and his sons. Their apparent fondness for
having rivals and enemies tortured was condemned repeatedly by
appalled politicians, generals, pundits, and scholars. I noticed a recurring theme that stressed how these acts by Iraq's ruling family were
immoral and unjustified, no matter what the victims had been accused
or convicted of. What struck me as odd was that many of those who
were upset by Saddam's use of torture-President George W. Bush,
for one-claimed to be followers of a belief system that is supposed
to include eternal torture for billions of people. It seemed inconsistent,
I thought, for people to get so worked up about one dictator who had
a few hundred or a few thousand people tortured over a period of several years when they did not seem troubled at all by their god who, according to them, has been torturing billions of people for thousands
of years and will continue to torture them forever. Why is it that so
often our sense of morality and fairness seems to be of a higher standard than the gods'?

Hell is just one more unproven religious claim. But it is special as
the most barbaric and immoral one of all. By the measure of common
human decency, isn't it obviously wrong for an all-powerful god to
brutalize people forever because they failed to believe, failed to worship in the correct way, failed to behave in the correct way, or simply
made the honest mistake of worshipping the wrong god? If my baby
jammed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into my new DVD player,
I would forgive him within minutes. I once interviewed a woman who
was subjected to cruel medical experiments as a child by the infamous
Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. While she never
forgot, she did forgive. Why is forgiveness so much easier for us than
it is for some gods? If my children were to turn their backs on me one
day and deny me love and respect, I would not wish them pain for five
seconds, much less eternity. There is nothing they could do that would
make me want to punish them forever. People who believe in a hell
might consider asking why their god is so mean and unforgiving.
Better yet, they might ask why their god left no clear evidence of hell
so that all of us would at least know to fear it and try to avoid ending
up there.

Finally, I would encourage believers to consider how it is they can
believe in the existence of both a good god and a bad hell. I know that
it is very important for most believers to think of their god as not only
good but very good. But how could such a god operate a torture
chamber? Believers cannot have it both ways. Either your good god is
not real or your hell is not real.

The invisible and the non-existent look very much
alike.

-Delos B. McKown

lthough the intelligent design argument may get more attention these days, a justification for belief that is more difficult
to challenge is the claim by many believers that they "feel" the presence of their god or gods when they pray. Many believers in many religions have told me that they know god is real simply because they
"feel him."