I
was slow in leaving the church and the faith because I was blinded by faith and
discouraged to ask for evidence. This line of brainwashing caused me to just
eschew doubt and accept nonsense without question. Things did start to needle
me, however, and I just could no longer believe that which had no proof and
insulted my soul. I started to learn. I started to let my own mind take the
helm and stop squashing my intuition. In the journey, it became apparent that
there were necessary steps to take to be free from nonsense. After I left the
church there were very many people ready to just make me another member of
another stupid religion even if it was just vague spiritual woo woo, I wasn’t
having it if it didn’t meet up to snuff of these criteria. The first step I
took was to question all I had been taught. The questions needed answers that
would finally satisfy my mind so I looked at what I needed to accept for
evidence. Then I realized that I did not have time to learn all the science and
math necessary to learn my own evidence so I had to learn which of the
authorities out there were the ones I could trust. I did not want to be taken
in again. It is terribly important to know the rules of logic. I wanted to know
when someone was presenting something not based on sound reasoning the logical
fallacies were the starting point of Christianity’s undoing in my mind. Because
my mind is my own and it will never be fleeced again, I learned to test my
thoughts and assumptions on a regular basis. On my one year anniversary of
official deconversion, I reassessed.
The
first step in walking away from the cult of Christianity was constant questions. Socrates taught that once one had all the answers, their growth stopped. The only way to keep learning, keep growing was to constantly ask
questions. This way, we are constantly improving. The people who started the most important fields of study weren’t satisfied
with answers. They were the greatest scientists and philosophers. Firm answers
are easy. It I hard to have nagging questions with crazy curiosity. However,
answers are stultifying and breed ignorance. We could still be satisfied with
the answer that the world is flat and where would we be? This article says it perfectly, “Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate
issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought. Only
when an answer generates a further question does thought continue its life as
such. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really
thinking and learning. Moreover, the quality of the questions students ask
determines the quality of the thinking they are doing. It is possible to give
students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the
questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by
their first list of questions. That we do not test students by asking them to
list questions and explain their significance is again evidence of the
privileged status we give to answers isolated from questions. That is, we ask
questions only to get thought-stopping answers, not to generate further
questions.” Socrates is right we need to keep asking and keep growing.
Adopting
a new world view was not simple and it took me forever to figure out what I
needed to change my view on my deep faith. The missing piece after I asked all
of those questions was evidence. I needed more than the tired refrain, “Your
faith is all you need to believe. It is faith that saves.” No. I needed records
of Jesus, dates to match up, stories to match up, a census from the year that
would have been anywhere near the supposed time Jesus was born, proof that
people had to go their birth homes to register (there is none), and an
originality about the story. The story has no proof and is not original. Much
of it was copied from mythologies of other people from that time. The Mithra
tradition one of them. There is not one shred of evidence that any of the Jesus
story happened or any that he was an extraordinary man. Because there was no
empirical evidence for a real Jesus, I saw the Bible as no more than creative
fiction based on an already existing mythology of the time and started to look
for what real evidence is. I learned about observable, reliable, repeatable. It was overwhelming to think
about all that I needed to learn. I had questions. I needed more thought
provoking answers and questions! I did not have any time to learn about all the
underlying knowledge to be able to perform experiments at that level.
Trustworthy teachers were what I needed.
Demagogues
and smooth talkers were my past. Reliable leaders needed to be my future.
Looking into what “peer review” was I learned that the respected names of science—Einstein, Krauss, Hawking, etc..—were respected because they had been
proven correct over and over again by their intellectual peers. These were the question
askers, thinkers, seekers, and scientists I was looking for. I purchased the
book, The Universe in a Nutshell, by Hawking, and was blown away by how
simple it was to read and understand. Mr. Hawking is really, very funny, too. I
could trust his conclusions over say, Ken Ham’s because Mr. Hawking had been so
completely tested and his ideas keep coming up accurate. Ken Ham however has
been reviewed by several superiors and peers and keeps coming up lacking. Ken
just does not have any proof for any of the declarations he makes. The difference
is the bias they place on the evidence. Ken completely denies that which
contradicts his faith in Genesis. With such a heavy bias, Ken could not be
trusted. A true scientist of the caliber that deserves my trust, is one that
will dismiss all he thought before if a better, proven, repeatable truth is
found. If it meets the evidence above, a true scientist will adopt it over the
previous assumptions and thinking. A faithful believer will reject prove-able
truth if it contradicts with his faith, making him unreliable, untrustworthy,
and not much better than a third-rate charlatan. If we all still clung to
religious assumptions, we would all think that the Earth is the center of our
galaxy and the sun rotates around it.
Next
up, I learned in college that if a logical fallacy was present in an argument,
it weakened the premise and pointed to the fact that the entire premise is
flawed. All critical thinkers have lived this moment on the internet. Our
critically thinking friend has made a supported, reviewed, thoughtful post to
her facebook page. She is then met with someone yelling at her that she is
wrong. She then politely asks her accuser for reasons that she is wrong because
critical thinkers are always ready to admit that they might be. Her accuser
comes at her with, “You’re a doody head and we all know that doody heads don’t
think good thoughts,” or “Well, you failed to include religious reasoning from
Xenu the great god of us all! I can’t accept any idea that does not bow to
Xenu!” or “Well, that is just ludicrous. I can’t believe you would think that
because the idea is ridiculous to me.” These three are the three most common
fallacies I see every day. The first is Ad hominem. Instead of speaking to my
argument or idea, this person wants to discredit me personally to attempt to
render what I say as invalid. When the truth is I could be a raving lunatic,
but if my assertion is sound, it is sound. For example, my assertion could be, “My
candidate is experienced at diplomacy. The other candidates are not and this
scares me.” My support is that over the course of history, diplomacy skills
have saved nations from wars, protected peace, and improved the lives of women.
Without the experience needed to attend stressful meetings with egomaniacal
dictators, I fear the other candidates would not be able to avoid war. I may
very well be a “doody head,” but it does not diminish my argument’s veracity.
The second fallacy is made from the flawed, “moral high ground” fallacy. It
simply states, “I believe in Xenu, you don’t. Therefore, I am better than you.”
Which is again, not addressing my original assertion. The last is simply put, “Your
idea offends me, so therefore it can’t be true.” It is the fallacy of
incredulity. This person just gave up thinking years ago and only goes with
what “feels right.” It does not matter how an idea makes you feel. What matters
is whether the idea is supported by evidence, true, and solidly made. A really great list of fallacies is over on this Wikipedia page.
Last and most importantly, do not grow comfortable in your
own thoughts, challenge them often. Get thinking friends together just to
discuss ideas. Be like Socrates, ask questions about your own ideas and
beliefs. Make sure often they are supported by sound thinking, if not, ask why.
When we stop thinking and rest on faith alone, we mentally die
