50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (26 page)

People who believe in reincarnation or heaven have always had
the dream of eternal life all to themselves. Nonbelievers in such supernatural claims had no choice but to keep their chin up and pretend to
be brave in the face of inevitable and permanent death. It has been left
to atheists to be the mature minority of humankind, the ones capable
of facing the cruel end without retreating into fantasy or unproven
concepts. Only atheists surrender to death with courage and reason, or
at least that is what they say in public. In private, however, I suspect
that many atheists are a little more bummed out over death than they
let on. But it doesn't have to be that way anymore. Thanks to science
and this tantalizing idea of the Singularity, atheists can now harbor their own crazy dreams of eternal life. Furthermore, people who
believe in a god can no longer justify clinging to their belief in a god
because it is the only hope they have of fending off permanent death.
There is another hope on the table now. Like heaven and hell, it, too,
is short on evidence and nowhere near proven. But it is another option
and it doesn't require belief in a god. If death is so frightening to you
that you can't face it without hope of an escape clause, then try out the
Singularity.

I am highly skeptical about the Singularity creating a secular
heaven for us in this century, but no one can deny that we are heading
somewhere very unusual very fast. It took about a million years to
progress from stone tools to the Wright brothers' airplane, for
example. But then it took less than seventy years after that to land
humans on the moon. Computers recently filled large rooms, now we
carry more powerful ones in our pockets. The next few decades will
be mind-boggling-guaranteed. Of course there is also the important
question of whether or not the Singularity will bring on the wonderful
warm and fuzzy future that Ray Kurzweil predicts, or something more
like the "Terminator" scenario in which super-intelligent machines
exterminate us. Artificial intelligence researcher Hugo de Garis warns
of the latter possibility in his book The Artilect War. Not only is there
the threat of intelligent machines wiping us out, there is also the
chance that terrorists and evil governments will find plenty of uses for
supercomputers, robotics, nanotechnology, and genetics too. So there
is the possibility that the Singularity will indeed occur but then
promptly result in our enslavement or extinction. It is interesting how
closely all of this seems to parallel many traditional religions. Even
the Singularity offers us both a heaven and a hell.

The Singularity presents an intriguing new kind of hope. No
longer are we limited to mummification or begging for help from the
sky when death stalks us. One day soon we may have fleets of microscopic nanobots swimming around inside of us, finding and fixing
wayward cells. We might have cloned body parts tucked away safely
in storage, waiting for the day when we need to replace a liver or heart. If we develop the ability to upload our minds onto a computer hard
drive, we might then enter the age of true immortality. Imagine
keeping a spare copy of your mind, wirelessly updated at regular intervals to keep it current. Then, if you get run over by a truck (or flying
car) someone simply has to download your backup mind into a new
cloned body or robot body and you are back in the game. (At least I
think it would be "you.") All of this might sound like horrifying heresy
to believers and utter nonsense to skeptics, but humankind is heading
in this direction faster than most people realize. Whether or not we
ever get there is an open question. Although I am fascinated by the
Singularity and admit that Kurzweil and others make a compelling
case for it, something prevents me from getting too excited just yet.
Perhaps I just don't want to set myself up for a big disappointment.
With my luck I'll probably die five minutes before the Singularity
arrives.

Those who feel that the promise of an afterlife is a powerful reason
to keep believing in a god might consider that such hope is no longer
limited to religion. Those of us who live long enough to see the Singularity (if it happens) may go on living for a long time, if not forever.
After thousands of years of praying and wishing, humankind might
finally achieve immortality through science, an activity that makes no
use of gods, miracles, or magic. It sounds way too good to be true and
maybe it is. But at least it gives nonbelievers a chance to hope too.

de Garis, Hugo. The Artilect War: Cosmists vs. Terrans. Palm Springs, CA:
ETC Publications, 2005.

Garreau, Joel. Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our
Minds, Our Bodies-and What It Means to Be Human. New York: Doubleday, 2005. A great review of the good and bad of fast-changing technology.

Kaku, Michio. Visions. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.

Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
New York: Viking, 2005.

Naam, Ramez. More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological
Enhancement. New York: Broadway Books, 2005.

To neglect the common ground with other primates,
and to deny the evolutionary roots of human
morality, would be like arriving at the top of a
tower to declare that the rest of the building is
irrelevant, that the precious concept of "tower"
ought to be reserved for its summit.

-Frans de Waal

True character arises from a deeper well than
religion.

-E. 0. Wilson

f my god wasn't real, declare some believers, we would have no
reason to be good. Even worse, they say, we would not have the
innate sense of moral judgment to even be aware that we were doing
wrong. We couldn't possibly understand the difference between good
and evil without a god. Laws would be hollow, without foundation. All
attempts to be a good person or create good societies would ultimately
fail because it is only through my god that we are something more than
mere animals.

This view, common among believers in many religions, makes no sense, of course. Do these believers ever pause to think about what it
is they really are saying? Do they truly believe that people with no
belief in a god are incapable of leading good lives and behaving
morally? I understand why so many believers think like this. It is
because religious leaders repeatedly tell them that their god placed
moral instincts in humans and only their god can keep a lid on our
worst desires. But just because you hear it over and over does not
excuse accepting this absurd claim. To see how ridiculous it is,
believers only have to look out their front door and view the world
today. They are not perfect, of course, but hundreds of millions of nonbelievers are not robbing or killing. They are living peaceful and productive lives, apparently without help from any gods. Meanwhile, not
all, of course, but many millions of believers are raping, robbing, and
killing as if there is no tomorrow. It seems that, for some reason, the
gods failed to inject them with that inner moral sense believers speak
of.

Despite centuries of name calling, prejudice, and persecution, no
one has ever been able to demonstrate that nonbelievers are less moral
or more prone to criminal behavior than believers. ("Moral" refers
here to the most basic concept of positive behavior between humans-
i.e., respecting the life, freedom, and property of others.) Every day
the world's newspapers include stories about believers doing bad
things. The world's prisons are filled with believers who got caught
doing bad things. Why is it that so many people who believe in a god
keep getting themselves into trouble? If belief in a god gives one the
moral high ground, at least compared to atheists, then why aren't nonbelievers more visible as a leading criminal element in society today?
There are, after all, millions of nonbelievers in the United States alone.
If they are the most immoral people in America we should notice their
reign of terror. Strangely, however, atheists are not raping and pillaging and generally clogging America's court systems at a detectable
rate. These people, supposedly immoral by definition, seem eerily
quiet.

I sometimes wonder how so many believers are able to do things that they say contradict their god's wishes. How, for example, can a
male preacher carry on a long-term sexual relationship with a man in
between sermons about god's condemnation of homosexuality? How
do so many priests molest little boys between communion services?
How can any Christian read Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and then
store up millions of dollars for themselves in offshore accounts? How
can any believer anywhere ever fudge their taxes, drive over the speed
limit, or cheat at golf? Isn't their god supposed to be watching them at
all times? If they truly believed that, wouldn't it motivate them to
achieve near-perfect behavior at all times? This has puzzled me to the
point that I suspect many believers may not really believe their god is
real and always present, at least not as confidently as they claim. This
is just a hunch, of course. I can't know what goes on in someone else's
head so I would never accuse anyone of misrepresenting their belief.
Based on what I see, however, I can't help but wonder if most
believers mean what they say. I know that if I really believed that an
invisible god was next to me at all times I am absolutely sure that I
would never again so much as jaywalk or make a face behind my
wife's back when she nags me to take out the trash. This strange disconnect between belief and behavior leads me to wonder if perhaps the
only true believers are the ones we call "fanatics," "zealots," "extremists," and "radicals." Maybe the people who truly believe a god is
beside them are the ones who kill strangers for their god, castrate
themselves, blow themselves up, or give their lives to religion in a
peaceful way such as monks and nuns do. Could it be that the vast
majority of "believers" are just posing and pretending? Are they able
to pull this off without feeling like frauds because they make sure to
never entertain doubts about their god's existence? This might explain
why so many weak reasons continue to be cited as justification for
belief year after year, generation after generation. To be clear, I am not
accusing believers of lying. I am only asking if perhaps they are able
to keep believing because they consciously avoid thinking long and
hard about why they believe.

If the topic is religion and morals, it never takes long for someone to bring up Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.
"These atheists killed millions of people in the twentieth century, more
than religion can ever be blamed for," says the well-worn believer's
line. Somehow they think bad nonbelievers prove that atheism is
wrong and religion is right. It may be a ludicrous idea but it sure is
popular.

Adolf Hitler is always the biggest and baddest name on the
believers' monster atheists list. The problem, however, is that Hitler
does not appear to have been an atheist. He spoke and wrote of God to
support his views. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of Germans who carried out his orders were Christians. (See chapter 17
about Hitler and Nazi Germany.) Late in his life Hitler seemed to have
had some clear disagreements with Christianity but he is not known to
have ever become a nonbeliever. It is a safe bet that if there was any
good evidence that Hitler was an atheist, believers would have found
it by now.

As a child, Pol Pot probably looked like just another cute kid sitting in class at the Christian school he attended. Unfortunately, he
grew up to become one of history's most notorious mass murderers.
As leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot took control of Cambodia
(Democratic Kampuchia) and committed horrific crimes upon the
population. Simply being an intellectual or being educated was reason
enough to be murdered as the Khmer Rouge tightened its grip on the
country. As many as two million people may have been shot or starved
to death in labor camps. This estimate is even more shocking when
you consider that the country's population at the time was only about
eight million. Pol Pot's behavior was bad by any decent person's standards but what did it have to do with belief or nonbelief? I am an
atheist and he was, too, but that does not mean that we share the same
worldview or opinions on morality. I respect human life. He did not. I
think people should be allowed to think freely. He did not. I respect
intellectuals and highly educated people. He did not. I think that it's
wrong to murder millions of people or even one person to achieve
political goals. He believed it was acceptable. Yes, Pol Pot may have been an atheist but no believer has ever explained how his behavior is
a strike against atheism. There is nothing to suggest that his crimes
were caused by or motivated by the absence of belief in a god. If
believers think that Pol Pot, Stalin, or any other atheists who committed great atrocities are proof that nonbelief leads to immoral
behavior, then what about the many more believers who have committed extraordinary crimes? What do they prove about belief in gods?