Letters to a Young Atheologist

Letter 5: The Mechanics of Evasion

Dear Mr. Kappus,

Thank you for your kind letter from last week. I'm pleased to hear you are doing better and that you're well again. You had some delightful things to mention about your continuing dialogue with Mr. Dogmass, who still seems convinced that you're going to suffer for eternity simply because you do not share in his god-beliefs.

Dear Mr. Thorn,

Thank you for the kind words while I was recuperating. I'm feeling much better and my outlook is slowly being rejuvenated. While I was in convalescence, I had a visit from our friend Mr. Dogmass, who came by to wish me well and to "water the seeds" of his faith. He just will not give up on me, but so far your advice has been right on! You really peg this guy, even though you've never met him. It's true, the more seriously these fundies take their religious beliefs, the more robotic - and hence, more predictable - they become.

But I've been becoming more and more frustrated with Mr. Dogmass' crafty evasions. He's actually quite a slippery fellow, and he seems to have all kinds of 'half-answers' ready made for our exchanges. But ultimately, I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that Mr. Dogmass cannot put together a decent argument for his god-belief claims, just as you had mentioned in the past. Instead, he merely attempts to challenge my views on things with the hope of detecting some flaw which he will attribute to stemming necessarily from the fact that I am no Christian! (Indeed, Mr. Dogmass' tactics are certainly a turn-off to boot… He would never make a good salesman, in my opinion.)

Your dealings with Mr. Dogmass are all too familiar territory, and resemble far more experiences I've had than I care to remember. If he should continue his evangelizing, then by all means, continue your reasoning!

As you attend to Mr. Dogmass' evangelizing techniques, look for the substance of what he's trying to argue. Take a tactical approach: Always look just beyond the focus of his present discourse. He may be lecturing you about some philosophical detail or theological nuance, but continually ask yourself the question: What is motivating him? I submit that it is this motivation that Mr. Dogmass will do anything not to acknowledge and confess to you. If you ask him what his motivation is, he will feed you some line that he's looking out for your spiritual welfare, or something along those lines. That's pretty typical. But this is only a charade, and indeed there are factors hidden by this cloak. After all, as you've already mentioned, you're perfectly content with your life and you're happy already, so why fix something that's not broken? You are able to reason, to learn new skills to cope with reality, to prioritize your values and proceed on a productive basis to realize those values and incorporate them into an integrated lifestyle of rationality and non-contradictory joy. I'm happy for you, and I'm proud of your achievements. Why would Mr. Dogmass want to persuade you otherwise? This is the big question.

Notice for instance how Christianity loves to tout its affection for destruction, but its own apologists evade this fact. The gloom and doom that this religion generates for this world, fueled by a hatred of reality and a hatred of the good for being good, litter the pages of the New Testament. With deliberately vague forecasts of the coming of 'end times' - as if the universe were awaiting annihilation, the ever-present psychological threat of eternal torment for those who simply do not accept Christianity's god-belief claims, and the constant reminders of a "judgment" inspired only by divine wrath, a wrath that has no purpose but to quench itself through destroying innocence and terrorizing the good, the true face of Christianity as a destructive force is herein revealed.

Many Christians argue that non-Christians have no basis to object to the love for destruction peddled by Christian philosophy. Their argument is that in order for non-Christians to object to the anti-value stance of Christian theism, one must presuppose Christian standards of morality! Not only is this turnabout a grand evasion from the root of the matter, it constitutes a reversal of despicable proportions. This reversal finds its roots in moral subjectivism: that the authority of morality must find its source in a form of consciousness.

This error is mirrored by the error Christianity commits in its metaphysical view: that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness. This is the doctrine of metaphysical subjectivism. In either case, in morality and in metaphysics, it is not the facts of reality that are to be considered in assessing what reality is and what action is moral, but the tantrums of an unknowable consciousness allegedly residing in a magic kingdom from which man is inherently cut off. This fantasy is the basis of the Christian's view of the world and of his ethics. Just as reality is not the standard of the Christian's knowledge, life is not the standard of his values. In both cases, the standards are to be found in the whims of a non-entity that the believer can never produce in his apologetic arguments and evangelizing sermons.

The works of man's mind have been equated with works of the devil. The realm of rational ideas has been incriminated by Christianity as a result of its hatred of reality and its thirst for destruction. From crusade wars implemented to convert or murder entire nations, to inquisitional tribunals chaired by high-ranking religious officials, to purgation and censorship of literature even remotely construed as critical of the church, to the horrid and torturous executions of heretics who dared to quibble over some non-essential doctrine - such as infant baptism [Servetus], to the beheading of a child for striking his parents [Calvin], the record of Christian 'benevolence' is open to view by all. What is never discussed, but swept under the robes of the priestly elites, is the fact that all this insane, man-hating destruction resulted directly from the premises of religious philosophy.

Those premises are: that reality is an invention of some form of consciousness beyond man's perception, that knowledge is ultimately gained by resigning from one's hierarchical cognitive faculties (i.e., from perception to conception); that man is inherently evil, corrupt and depraved, and needs a master in order to correct his nature, and therefore he must be content with a life of slavery and self-sacrifice; that man is to expect this world to suffer deletion from existence at the hand of the wrath-motivated, wrath-generating brute claimed to have created it in the first place; that the end of the world and the establishment of "God's justice" on earth cannot take place until the church assumes authority over it, even at the expense of those who are not believers, even if it means genocidal annihilation of non-believers and heretical factions.

The list of premises responsible for the undeniable bloody record of Christian theism, are found within its own doctrinal foundations. And it is this set of premises, argue Christian apologists, that non-believers must assume in order to justify their objections against Christianity's love for destruction! The record bears witness of what happens when the theory is put into practice. And yet the theory they claim cannot be wrong, only those who put it into practice. And as the new garde replaces the old garde and passes such judgments, claiming essentially that the theory was not put into practice correctly, the announcement that the destructive onslaughts perpetrated by Christianity past was nothing like the destruction its new leaders have in mind, is understood.

I find it humorous when apologists, with striking typicality, will rebuff such challenges with statements to the effect that "it may not be the will of God that your vision be corrected. God may have your vision impaired for a reason." Such statements are farcically evasive, and only affirm the fact that their god-belief claims are impotent from the start. As one non-believer asked, "If whatever happens in the end is said to be God's will any way, then why pray?" Indeed, why pray? But I'll not stop pressing this point to apologists so long as they come at me with their fantasy-drenched doctrines and expect me to believe their otherworldly claims.

In an e-mail a Christian recently observed that he sees no contradiction between "Honor they mother and thy father" and Jesus' statement that "unless you hate your father, mother, sister, brother, yea even yourself... you cannot follow me." In one way, I agree with this Christian. Here's why: While the Bible indeed contains the commandment to "honor thy father and mother" (Exodus 20:12), which Jesus indeed reiterated (Matt. 15:4, Mark 7:10 et al.), the Bible never defines the term "honor," nor does it define what "honor thy father and mother" means or what constitutes honoring one's parents. This semantic indecisiveness is the key that the psychological manipulation of the Bible requires to sustain itself. Since there is no definition of "honor" given in the Bible, one can make up pretty much any seemingly legitimate definition for the term to fit the commandment and at the same time avoid committing that commandment and one's own actions to a contradiction with Jesus' condition to "hate your mother and father" to follow him. We know already that this kind of dishonest behavior is not beneath many Christian apologists.

While the Christian who made this remark in his e-mail to me did not offer any clues as to how he defines his key terms here to show that there is no contradiction (he left all argument for the occurrence of a contradiction up to his critics), he was definitely taking advantage of the semantic elasticity afforded by the Bible's own example of evading commitment to definition. So here we have another manifestation of the mechanics of evasion at work in apologetic ramblings. Rather than show how the two positions cohere without committing a contradiction, he merely claimed that there was no contradiction and left it at that. No explanation was offered to show how the believer can obey the Exodus commandment to honor his parents and follow Jesus' instruction to hate his parents. Can you imagine what constitutes this man's idea of 'honor'?

If we should apply a rational definition to the concept 'honor,' and thus give it legitimate meaning, we find according to Rand that "honor" is "self-esteem made visible in action" ("Philosophy: Who Needs It," Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 10). Here matters of integrity, which are not elucidated in any way in the Bible, at least explicitly, become a focal point of concern. While any honor I show to my parents is never a result of enacting commandments or a 'duty' (as self-esteem is not a result of action without relevance to my own decision making and reasoning), the honor I show my parents is deeply consequential to the values I hold (I value my parents) and my overall self-esteem (I am capable of holding and achieving values). Thus, for me, hating my parents is out of the question, because I value them, and any system that holds such honor (as valuing one's parents) as a virtue (as in Exodus) at the same time it holds hatred for them a virtue (as did Jesus), will cause a conflict for the man of integrity. The two 'virtues' (insomuch as we can assert the concept in this context) are incontrovertibly contradictory to one another.

Dennis McKinsey discusses this matter on page 44 of The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, and makes the following observation:

Amen, Mr. McKinsey!

So, beware of semantic evasions, Mr. Kappus, as they infest many, if not most, apologetic schemes at one level or another. Because the Bible fails to define its own terms, such evasion is part and parcel with defending its doctrines.

In one way, to delve a bit deeper into this matter, the New Testament actually offers a psychological admission to the contradiction pointed out above. Where is that? Take a look at Luke chapter 22. In this chapter is told the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus. Judas, you will remember, is one of Jesus' own apostles who turned the wannabe savior over to Jewish authorities to be tried for capital heresy. As Judas confronts Jesus after the Jewish authorities had been summoned to arrest Jesus, Judas "drew near unto Jesus to kiss him" (Luke 22:47). This kiss was a show of honor. And then we read (Luke 22:48), "But Jesus said unto him, 'Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?'" So here you have someone showing honor to someone he has betrayed, and you also have the betrayed party pointing it out as if there were some kind of discrepancy between thought and action here.

What is so striking about this event is that it mirrors precisely what Christianity demands of its adherents in relation to their parents. The Bible would have each believer treat his parents as Judas treated Jesus. Only the parents are not expected to point out that their believing child is betraying them with a kiss! But see for yourself that this is no stretch: Judas' betrayal of Jesus is to the believer's obedience of Jesus' instruction to hate his parents (Matt. 15:4 and Mark 10:7), as Judas' kissing Jesus is to the believer's obedience of the commandment to honor his parents (Exodus 20:12). If indeed there is a hidden code locked within scripture, that code is not divine, but one of psychological neurosis baring its own devices! For here you have Jesus portrayed as taking his own medicine! Indeed, may we each get what we deserve. What can you expect to deserve if you live by the mechanics of evasion?

I often contemplate what the religionist must believe to be the purpose of all his god-belief notions and disputes over doctrine. What does it all accomplish for him? How does it make his life in the world more successful or enjoyable? Consider an encounter I had here in my own home just a little while ago.

Recently, when coming home from work one day, I ran into my housemate, Vera. Vera is a quasi-militant Christian who rooms in the same house with me. I hardly ever see her, but usually when we do bump into each other, she always makes the point to say something about her "relationship with Christ" or something along those lines, always having to do with her god-belief. As you can imagine, our infrequent encounters are quite salty, as her attempts to proselytize me have been successfully rebuffed. However, she is quite zealous and seems to enjoy the challenge. I welcome her visitations!

Anyway, when I saw her on this occasion, she asked me, "How's life?" Of course, given our conversational history, this is a rather provocative question. I answered, "A success." She was momentarily disarmed by this response, as it is not one that a person expects to hear. Most people do not speak of their own lives as being a success. But she took it as bait and asked me another question, "How is your life a success?" A valid question, I responded, and told her that my life is a success because I am always working to achieve my values. Again, she did not expect this answer, either (you see, I make sure she gets the chance to learn something new when we chat). She didn't have anything to say to this, so I asked her how her life is. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Things are blessed." Then she added, "God is good."

Drawing on our most recent prior conversation, which was probably about a month and a half before this occasion, if not longer, I asked her if God had told her yet if she's going to be going to Hong Kong. You see, in that prior conversation, she mentioned to me that she might be moving to Hong Kong at the request of the company she works for. When I had asked in that prior conversation how she felt about that prospect, she simply said it was the "Lord's will" and that it was God's decision whether or not she would be sent away. So, this occasion being the first time I've had a chance to follow up on that last conversation, I asked her if God had told her yet whether or not she would be sent off to Hong Kong by the "Lord's will."

Taken somewhat aback at my question, she initially tried to wriggle out of answering it. But then I hit her with the more pressing questions that I had for her, such as:

The mind game that must be gripping her thoughts on this topic must be torturous at best, for she attempted to answer this question (after she emotionally recovered from the shock that I had remembered the prospect of her going to Hong Kong at some point) by drawing attention to non-essentials. She said, "Well, you see, my employer will make the request to send me to Hong Kong [which they already have indicated, so this is not news], but it will only be for a temporary period [so, she knows God's plans already? What if God decides she's more useful in Hong Kong than here? Rather presumptuous here, I'd say...], and then they will..."

At this point I stopped her and said that I was not disputing the potential fact that her employer will want to send her overseas, that I already knew, and I didn't have a conflict with that. So, I reiterated my original question and emphasized that I would like to know how she plans to learn of God's decision, and how she'll be able to distinguish it from her own decision, in the event of a conflict between her will as opposed to "god's will" - supposing there were such a thing and she could discover it.

She then tried to attend to this matter by saying that "God will let me know..." But that's the whole question. So again I asked, how so? "Through his word... through reading the Bible..." I pointed out to her that I've never read either her name nor the name of the city of Hong Kong in the Bible, and that the Bible is therefore useless in matters of this decision. She agreed that neither factor were contained in the Bible, and then started to tweak her story a bit. "God will speak to my heart." How will you know it's God? How will you know it's not just your own wish-fulfillment? "You see, the spirit tells you..." Etc. Basically, she resorts to begging the question in order to evade its primary thrust.

At this point, her solution to the problem is a combination of "you just know" (regarding the method of discovering "god's will" for her life) and "you will not understand" because I'm not a Christian myself. This is naked mysticism. Such a ploy is designed to do several things: First of all, it reinforces the surety of her mind-game cues; it is entrenchment in protecting what is incomprehensible to her, being entrenched even deeper. Second, it alleviates her from having to explain what she herself is not willing to question, something she is not willing to try to understand, thus allowing the mind-game to fester unbothered.

And third, insomuch as such a ploy has an outward social impact, it embodies the attempt to present Christianity as attractive to others, hopefully to seduce non-believers to join her in her misery (no one wants to be miserable alone). The unstated premise in operation at this last point is that everybody desires to achieve the unearned, just as the believer does. And since the god-belief doctrines are presented as though they relieved believers from responsibility and offered ready rewards merely for placing faith in the dogma, the pursuit of the unearned integral to the entire mind-game process is undeniable.

I continued with my questioning at this time - pointing out that she had not answered the question at all, merely evaded it - by asking her if she thought it wise to evade the responsibility of her own decision-making. She apparently hadn't thought of it this way before, but managed to suppress the novelty of this perspective by again shrugging her shoulders and saying, "Of course! I put it all into God's hands." So, I asked her if this behavior, the evasion of responsibility and the passivity of leaving important decisions to something she cannot ever hope to comprehend, were a good policy, in essence, a key to a successful life. She said that she thought it was so.

At one point in the conversation I pointed out to her that the priestly elites who had written and compiled the books of the Bible had not even formulated the concept 'consciousness' by this point in history. She said to this, "Oh really?" and seemed to accept it as a statistical fact, but did not seem to have any idea of the dramatic impact this fact has in evaluating the degree of intelligibility of the Bible. The argument can be made that they were aware of the closely related concept 'conscience,' which does appear in the KJV several times, but even then they associated conscious functions with bodily organs not associated with consciousness (e.g., the heart). Then again, how the ancient Jews distinguished between the consciousness of man and that of lower, animal species, is not mentioned. The Bible merely says man has a soul, and only defines this as a 'spirit', which is ambiguous at best, and which deliberately suggests a separate entity all its own, apart from man's body. We know this to be wrong today through objectivity and science.

When I reminded her that I used to be a believer myself at one time, she drew on a conversation she and I had at some point in the past and reminded me that I had told her how when I was a practicing Christian some years ago, I almost lost my life. I acknowledged having said this, and pointed out that in some ways I had lost it, as I gave up the use of my mind to an intense degree during that experience. This is a state I would consider not being alive. Obviously I survived it, but only to the extent that my suppression of my reasoning had been pierced by the necessity of day to day living. In bringing this up, I could tell she was trying to make the point that I had not fully given myself over to god(-belief) in that I had said I almost lost my life, but did not do so totally (which is what is essentially held to be the standard of Christian morality). Thus, she was intimating that I wasn't Christian enough.

In response to her reasoning, which I had anticipated, I asked her if she were alive. She said no. I said, "That's odd, you're speaking to me."

"Well, I'm dead. But Christ lives in me," she said.

"Then I am not talking to Vera, but to Christ, right?" I asked.

"Ummm... that's right," she agreed.

I continued, "But Christ is said to be omniscient. So if I ask you anything, you should be able to come up with the correct answer. Are you omniscient?"

"No, I'm not omniscient," she confessed.

"Then I'm not speaking to Christ then, am I?" I concluded.

Then she became a bit flustered. "You see, you're focusing on the words. This is spiritual. It's in the heart," she explained.

"So then, it's a matter of how you feel?" I asked.

"No, it's not that. It's the condition of your heart. You're focusing on mere words. I'm focusing on God," she explained.

"I see," I said, "but you are not dead. You are speaking to me and it is you, Vera, who inhabits your body, not Christ."

Finally she conceded that I am free to believe and live my life as I choose. I asked her where the Bible said this, supposing that she would make it a point to ensure all her notions were in conformity with those of the Bible. She then pulled her Bible out of her purse, turned to Mark chapter 10, and began reading aloud where Jesus is asked by a young man how he can secure his way into heaven (cf. Mk. 10:17-22). Jesus tells the young man to follow the commandments. The young man said he has done so since his youth. Jesus then tells him to go and sell all that he has and give to the poor. I told her to stop right there and asked her to look at her clothes, the belongings she had with her at that moment, and pointed out that she owns an expensive computer and even an automobile (something I don't have myself). I asked her what's up with that? Why does she preach the Bible, read from this chapter as an attempt to answer my question (which did nothing to answer my question, mind you), yet still have such lavish possessions? She stopped mid-sentence, looked at me and said, "God hasn't given me that commandment." At this point, I just burst out in uncontainable laughter. She started getting a very frustrated now.

I summarized to her that she had a habit of tremendously evasive behavior, both in evading decision-making responsibility as well as in evading the very doctrine she preaches. She offered no rebuttal, but simply quipped, "Well, I'll evade what I choose, and so will you." I quickly pointed out to her that she had found no instance of evasion in my life, while I had found many in her life in the space of a 10-minute conversation. She then said I evade God. I told her that the Muslim says the same thing to me, and so do the Zoroastrians, the Mormons, the Hindus and what have you. I said I just believe in one less than she does, and that's all there is to it. She made some last remark about my life being empty or some other captious sneer, to which I just responded that the Muslim says the same thing, and I ignore his words as well. She finally left in a bit of a huff.

Later my landlord came down and asked if I had met my match. He did not hear the conversation, only our voices, and saw her Bible pulled from her purse as she rushed past him to her room. He figured we had another encounter and was amused to hear my review of my conversation with Vera. My landlord, a conservative Jew, does not care for the persistent proselytizing that accompanies Christianity. We spoke at length about the contrasts between Judaism and Christianity, and we both agreed that the former is the better of the two, insofar as their ability to ensure harmonious relationships in pluralistic society and deal with real-life issues.

So there you have it. The mechanics of evasion in a nutshell. Now, I am in no way suggesting that only Christian apologists will evade your points. I find this behavior among non-Christians as well, especially those attempting to criticize Objectivism. Often, those who are critical of Objectivism simply do not know what they're talking about, and proceed with their critiques by knocking down straw men, as misrepresentation is all they know. But when any individual approaches you, such as kindly Mr. Dogmass, and attempts to persuade you into joining his cult of vicarious zombies, either leave them be, or, if they won't let you alone, press them on the points they so routinely avoid. You'll learn a lot about their psychology in the meantime.

Anyway, Mr. Kappus, I hope these pointers give you some food for thought. I hope you are well and look forward to hearing from you again soon.

Regards,

Anton

___________________________________________________________________