In the context it is most often heard, it is advice to evangelical Christians in their efforts to evangelise their religion. It suggests the evangelist should not get too concerned about whether they are successful or not, it is not by their power that they convert people, so they need not feel bad if or when they fail. It also helps them not be too pushy/aggressive, their role is only to share the Truth, beyond that it is out of their hands, their job is done.

With that description, it isn’t much of a universal truth, is it? It sounds like a Christian truth, specific and limited to the context and language of Christianity. Or other monotheistic religions maybe. However, I suspect my regulars already know where I’m going to go with this…

I consider it a universal truth, not limited to a theistic deity, that can be quite easily translated to, or seen from, a post-theistic context. Let me try to rephrase / explain the concepts in a non-theistic fashion. Mining out these universal aspects, separating it from the theistic context:

• God is Truth… Yes, that’s a theological statement, not a simple equality statement. But even theists would often happily substitute Truth. “We can’t convert people, that’s the work of Truth“, personified.
• God is “something inside”. This is a stance explicitly taken by some liberal theologians and explicitly warned against by some “conservatives”, but I’d expect all Christians and most other monotheistic religions (hopefully all religions, but anyway…) would accept and agree that God operates “from the inside”, causes a shift of mindset, rather than physically forcing you to act differently by overpowering your muscles. Non-theists, secular humanists, etc. might consider God an idea that influences believers in the idea, an influence, again, from the inside, something pretty much “owned” by the individual, a part of them.
• Conversion as Metanoia. Metanoia, or repentance, or spiritual conversion, or the changing of one’s mind (in some fundamental way, a paradigm shift), this is something much more fundamental and “internal” than a mere confessing to a different creed, or attending a different faith community. (What metanoia refers to in Carl Jung’s psychology is quite interesting, but I think only tangentially related.)

The point is this: a true metanoia, a true shift in mindset, a true “conversion”, no matter from what to what, cannot be achieved by power, cannot be done by the sword. And it cannot be done by us, it is done by truth and in the person undergoing metanoia, it happens from within. It is up to them and their relationship with Truth.

Consider a scientific theory, and the awe-inspiring experience of an Eureka! moment of understanding something, often way beyond the powers of our imagination, more amazing than we could dream: Being dumbfounded by how much bigger the universe is than we can even conceive of. Or mountain ranges forming by tectonic plates moving about over millions of years, rather than being created as-is six thousand years ago. I sometimes just sit and stare at the folded crust of the earth (recently, some mountains in the Alps), and imagine, awe-struck, the geological forces of these huge plates that crumple the crust like that. WOW! These things are truly amazing, but for that kind of metanoia, truth has to work from the inside, the discovery has to be made by the individual searching for truth. Otherwise it is just a bunch of facts given by an authority, learned by a student, and no true metanoia happens.

I’ve seen cases where people seem to have no faith in the power of truth itself, believing/feeling they must convert others to their way of seeing things (rather than trusting truth to do its thing, trusting the seeds to grow when the soil is fertile), and they try to do so by their own power… It’s the kind of attitude that ends with “look what *I* have achieved!” with regards to those they have influenced, a self-focused victory, rather than a celebration with the other person, for the other person, for having discovered truth by their own means, even if you “helped out”.

So yes, I’m erring towards the other side rather: I want to convert no-one from anything to anything else, in fact, I even have some kind of fear of that happening. It helps me stay out of the way, and “let truth”. All I want to contribute, is to encourage better understanding between people, create an environment where truth is able to spread, to be sought, to be understood. At that point, I believe it is out of my hands, truth will do the rest, in its own time. In fact, I go so far as to say, sometimes in our efforts to “force the truth”, we end up harming it, we get in the way.

To borrow from Lewontin’s review of Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World” (and this doesn’t follow directly on the previous paragraph, I have the utmost respect for Carl Sagan and for what he does):

Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power.

He was pointing out that much of Carl Sagan’s science-popularisation and education was effectively an argument “from authority” again. Because yes, scientists are authority figures, in their fields of expertise. They can teach, the learner can pick up knowledge. But if it is to be about more than just teaching and learning of simple facts, the seeker‘s role in seeking for truth, their relationship with that truth, that is really the most important!

I have much faith in truth. (Perhaps too much? ) I would like to be a vehicle for truth, to be an enabler for truth to spread. (And I’m talking broader truths than just “scientific facts”, I’m specifically including compassion/empathy as well, a way of life, a life-stance, an attitude… I also call these “truths”.) Beyond that, beyond playing an active role in promoting the propagation of truth, I want to stay out of the way, and let truth do its work.

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God by Matthew Parris, Times Online
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset

Share your thoughts! Feel free to be passionate, but do be thoughtful, motivate your opinions well, and as always, respect differences of opinion.

Nog meer ekstreem kies party vir fundamentalisme, wat vir jou sê dat net hierdie kerk (ja, ek weet hulle sê die Bybel, maar daarmee bedoel hulle eintlik net my interpretasie van die Bybel, en dus per implikasie net my kerk) die antwoorde het, en vertel jou dis sonde om op ander plekke in die wêreld te gaan luister.

If you understand Afrikaans, go read the original post to see what he was on about. In the case of this post of mine, I’m focusing on the ideas and implications of the concept of fundamentalism that his post inspired. In short, the relevant clause from Cobus’ post is this:

Fundamentalism: it tells you that only “this church” has the answers, and that it is sinful to go listen to other sources.

What concept does this “fundamentalism” word point to then? The basic principle is this: “we are right, those that disagree are wrong — listen to the right sources, avoid the wrong sources — believe/think these correct things, reject those incorrect things”. Combine with that principle the realisation that everyone is right about some things and wrong about some other things, then the “fundamentalism” label points to a concept unrelated to being right or wrong, and rather to a certain attitude.

(For the purpose of this post, expand your concept of believe or belief to extend to those things you think — “I don’t believe anything” is an absolutely lame cop-out.)

Now… we all believe the things we believe, because we believe those things to be true/correct — assuming we really believe them. (Yes, I’m stating a tautology, please bear with me. And read that sentence again and think about it.) If we give up on believing something is true, we… um… we stop believing it. (Duh.) Are we on the same page so far?

In contemplating the meaning of “fundamentalism” in this context, two cases or understandings present themselves to me (and unfortunately so — I was hoping to focus on one, but I can’t neglect the other).

Personal Fundamentalism

The first is personal fundamentalism. This concept of fundamentalism deals with personal beliefs and how they are constructed and developed. How firmly are these beliefs held? Can they be changed, developed, replaced? Beliefs/thoughts/ideas which are non-negotiable to the believer/thinker/philosopher are their fundamental beliefs — with respect to those beliefs, the believer/thinker/philosopher is a fundamentalist.

Fundamentalism started out as a positive term used by a group to describe themselves. (Source: Wikipedia – fundamentalism, citing two sources.) When understood in this sense, we all have fundamentals, and are all therefore fundamentalists of some sort.

When Richard Dawkins or his fans argue that he or they are not fundamentalists, they are typically arguing about personal fundamentalism, and they typically mean they will revise any of their beliefs if presented with evidence to the contrary. They are arguing that their epistemology is a non-fundamentalistic one, leaving them open to new understandings and ideas. (Epistemology: the study of the nature knowledge and justification, and the extent to which we have either. [src])

Thus: their ideas about epistemology are the right ideas, and other ideas, lower standards, are wrong. See where I’m going with this? They have as their fundamentals a certain epistemological standard. Keep on digging, and you should be able to find anyone’s fundamentals, fundamentals about which they could be proud to be called fundamentalists. Even, dare I say, nihilists! While my first thought was that they’d be an example of no fundamentals, I think maybe it requires a certain fundamental mindset to take you to nihilism: insisting, as a fundamental, that you don’t accept any fundamentals that are unprovable…?

As much as I like high epistemological standards and appreciate the particular ways in which Dawkins and fans are not fundamentalists, I will continue to insist on pointing out the other ways in which they are. When I do something like point out ways in which we are all fundamentalists, I hope to disarm name-calling and start talking about the actual concepts at hand.

Developing good fundamentals is certainly fundamental to living a good life. (Take as broad a view as you can on the meaning of “good” here.)

Interpersonal Fundamentalism

In personal beliefs, you can have an intense conviction of a particular belief/idea, living by it fully, but still be open to replacing or revising that belief/idea. Rephrased: being prepared to reexamine and change your beliefs or ideas does not mean you cannot be very serious about those beliefs or ideas while holding them. (Hint: all you need is humility to be able to let go of older ideas, and eagerness and a positive mindset in embracing new ones.) So I have no qualms about ideas and beliefs held strongly and dearly. Instead…

Introduce the big complicator for all aspects of human expression: interpersonal relationships. In moving away from the ego-centric concerns of personal fundamentalism, we discover an interpersonal version of the concept:

I’m right and you’re wrong. Period.

…what I do have qualms about, is the way we communicate and interact about our ideas and beliefs.

The interpersonal version of “fundamentalism” is the one I care about most, because it impacts other people. As I mentioned earlier, we are all right about some things, and wrong about others, and often it is a real waste of time — or even actively harmful to our well-being — to critically analyse every belief or thought/idea we have. Since we sincerely believe we are right about the things we are right about (there’s that tautology again), we effectively believe that those that don’t believe the same things have incorrect beliefs.

Given that this is the case for all of us, the concern should rather be about the way we interact about our differences. If we all try to convert everyone over to our way of seeing things, convince them to let go of the things we believe they are wrong about and start believing/thinking the things we believe we are right about, and we do so for everything, we will be fighting for ever. It will get us nowhere.

And this will always be the case, because there is too much that we disagree about and always will disagree about. (Never mind factual claims right now, we are talking about interpretive things, subjective things, we’re talking about Meh. Arguably that is all we really have to go by: consider (Re?)Introducing Meh and Lah and discuss it there if you want some clarity on this idea.)

This is where democracy comes in, for example: we know there are many things we will never agree on, and it is a waste of time arguing about many of these things, so we develop compromising systems by which we can settle on a decision or course of action that we decide is good enough for now. This works in some spheres, but not in others.

Getting back to the point… the interpersonal understanding of “fundamentalism” deals with how people interact, not about whether they are right or wrong. If using this understanding of the word, many Richard Dawkins fans would certainly be fundamentalists as much as any religious fundamentalist: they approach interpersonal conversations with the attitude and thesis of “we are right and you are wrong”, and often whack you over the head with it as often and as hard as they can. Ditto for religious fundamentalists. Who is right and who is wrong is not the point, because, remember, we are all wrong and we are all right. The point here is how we interact. I think this is the concept pointed to by the word “fundamentalist”, when people label Richard Dawkins or his fans as such.

Here are then some of my suggestions to those that wish to avoid coming across as fundamentalists in this interpersonal sense:

• Remind yourself that you are wrong about a great many things, and that there are many things that you do not yet know and never will know.
• With some momentum picked up from the previous point, consider, even if for only a moment, that you may indeed be wrong about the belief in question, and that the other might be right. Basically, try to mentally take yourself a notch closer to center on the “Dawkins scale”, even if only temporarily for the purpose of a particular interaction.
• Approach interactions with the knowledge that you agree about some things and disagree about other things. Build and develop some common ground based on your agreements. Try as best you can to understand the experience and worldview of the other and how they see things and experience things. In that regard, stretch and challenge your talent for empathy to the point that it becomes a trained skill.
• When discussing disagreements, have some goal or purpose in mind. Know why you are discussing or debating a particular disagreement, and focus on that purpose or goal. Be clear about it: explain the reason you are disagreeing and why you consider this particular issue to be important.
• Listen! Be helpful and proactive in encouraging the other to formulate their concerns — in order to clearly demarcate what the discussion is about.
• As soon as you realise a discussion is only about you being right and them being wrong, rather than about some actually useful purpose, stop! Think for a moment. There is most likely a better use of your time, one that makes a much greater or useful contribution in the grand scheme of things. Maybe you could encourage the other to focus on positive contributions rather than fighting about the trivialities. (For my use of the word in this context, it is a triviality if you cannot identify a good reason or purpose for arguing about it.)
• Be humble in you demeanor, don’t allow confidence about your message, belief or idea turn you into a bully.
• Be prepared to walk away with the disagreement unresolved. Better yet, make it your intent to do so. I suggest aiming to avoid resolving the issue, as I believe the aim should be to stretch and encourage thinking. You shouldn’t be aiming to establish a new authoritarian relationship (where one is right and the other is wrong), but rather to try to create a mutually nurturing mindset. The ideal is to encourage something akin to metanoia (Wiktionary: “A fundamental change of mind; Spiritual conversion”), which is something personal and internal. And it should be for both of you.

  With regards to the purpose that drove the conversation, let the other draw up conclusions for themselves, in their own time, maybe after the conversation is finished (even long after). Don’t break your head over it though… while there was a purpose or focus for the conversation, what you should carry away from it for yourself, is a better understanding of the other, a better understanding of how their mind works, what makes them tick, why they operate the way they do. Ideally it should lead to something of a metanoia in yourself as well.

  Whether this happens gradually or in a sudden flash of Eureka! does not matter. Life’s a journey. May any eventual conclusion be one of mutual cooperation rather than one of victory and defeat.

These are just my suggestions. You are of course welcome to not follow them. You are welcome to have fun being a bully, as much as others are welcome to call you a fundamentalist.

If, however, you think I may be onto something here, or you want to discuss these ideas, in agreement or disagreement, or in figuring out how they can be applied, please do so!

Bear in mind I’m a bridge builder, my goal is to facilitate trade and travel between two banks — cross pollination is beautifully creative, in memes just as much as in genes. Here is a potentially worthwhile exercise: reread this post while mentally role-playing a resident of the opposite bank. The most useful contributions for my goals are those that work both ways.

Suggested thought-provoking reading material that can also serve as more food for discussion: Richard Lewontin: Billions and Billions of Demons, a critical review of Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.”

I have been talking about “Walking the Streets of Athens” in a number of places. This idea applies to anyone wanting to make a difference in other people’s lives. You need to walk their streets, understand their culture, understand their needs, and figure out whether you have something to offer that would make a positive contribution to their lives, and what that would be.

For example, if you are serious about dealing with “the problems in the middle east” in the most effective way possible, and are prepared to give your life to the cause, the first step is to become one of them, in the sense of walking among them, immersing yourself in their culture, to experience and understand it. You need to understand the reasons for their culture, the benefits of their culture, the source of their culture… If you cannot recognise the good, be careful, because you run the risk of doing more harm than good. You run the risk of being the typical colonialist. Rather support the people that are prepared to go the distance.

This idea seems like common sense, but time and again I see people not heeding it. By all means, criticise elements that need criticism, point out the problems. Have discussions. Inspire other people to become more involved. To revisit the topic that I’ve been beating to death and back to life again many times over, Dawkins’ The God Delusion: the good contribution this book makes, is to make people more aware of the important issues. It provides those that lacked self-confidence with a naturalistic worldview with more confidence and faith in their lack of belief in the supernatural. It also inspires action. Unfortunately, I disagree with the kind of action it all too often inspires. /me bites my tongue to avoid criticising the bad yet again.

Anyway, the “Walking the Streets of Athens” idea was presented in a “sermon” (ugh, find another word?) presented by Erwin McManus at Stellenbosch Gemeente on 11 June 2007. While Stellenbosch Gemeente is mostly Afrikaans, Erwin is a visitor from far away (Los Angeles). His “sermons” are in English. The “Walking the Streets of Athens” sermon was given in the morning, titled Street Walker. (If you are interested, you can find an mp3 of the sermon by following that link then clicking on the image on the right that says “Luister”.)

The first time I used the Street Walker idea on my blog, was in my How To Convert An Atheist post. I wrote that series of three posts while embracing the “secular humanist” label, effectively considering myself an atheist at the time. That means that series was written while pondering “How To Convert Myself“. (Quite surprising how well that actually worked… ) The key idea behind the series was “You need to learn to think, like an atheist does”. It was intending to educate Christians, rather than to convert atheists.

In the “Street Walker” sermon Erwin also mentions a person he invited to attend his congregation, who only realised it was a “church” after three weeks. (This was the inspiration for the You Have Been Tricked post.) And then he took his first steps into following Jesus…

This being a sermon delivered at a church full of people that speak Christianese, it should come as no surprise that Erwin speaks Christianese in this sermon. If you’re an atheist, you likely don’t understand Christianese, and you likely have a very specific set of connotations attached to the idea of “giving your life to Jesus”, and the alarm bells will likely ring in your head when you read this post or listen to the sermon. And you will be wrong. Most likely. Chances are, you’ve been brainwashed by fundamentalists, brainwashed into thinking that all Christians are fundamentalists, brainwashed into thinking that “Christianity” is about rejecting science and obsessing about the afterlife, brainwashed into thinking that following Jesus means what they want you to think it means. So be careful. Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions when you listen to a language you don’t understand. (I should drop my silly brainwashing rhetoric. Rather, the point is this: consider the early Christian movement, even before it was called “Christianity”, especially before it got wedded to government and became a state-sponsored authoritarian religion. There is a lot of baggage from the last few hundred years which I/we assert is hiding the original meaning. We’re trying to get back at that meaning.)

I’d love to attend his church and see how he runs things. I will have to look it up if I’m ever in the area. (I heard Erwin’s congregation also includes Buddhists and Atheists. Sweet! I want to go check out his language…)

Erwin’s evening sermon was about Beauty. The legendary snippet that I will always remember, where he talks about eating meat (I’ll not spoil any of it yet), starts at 6:10 (mins:secs) into the mp3, and continues to about 9:50. After that, he talks some more about how meat cuts are selected, before he talks about coffee. If you don’t want to hear any Christianese, you can stop listening at 11:45. Before 6:10 and after 11:45 contains Christianese. While you can read my transcript of the “eating meat” part below (from 6:10 to 9:50), a transcript really cannot do Erwin McManus any justice.

The Transcript

Is it possible to train yourself to be blind to beauty? And only enjoy the ugliness or the common? Now I love meat. (Anybody love meat?) I love red meat. I love pretty much anything that moves on four legs. And whenever I want vegetables, I just eat chicken. And in LA, people are vegetarians, and they’re very… they look down on people like me who are carnivores. And I tell them, the reason I am a carnivore and not a vegetarian, is because of ethical reasons. Cause I don’t believe you should eat anything that cannot run for its life. And fruit and vegetables don’t have a fair (?) escape, they’re just hanging there trapped in the ground hoping that no-one sees them, and (snip, dunno) I’m far too compassionate for that. It’s not my fault that cows are under-motivated to escape, and that chickens are not that bright.

But I’m also from a country called El Salvador, so whenever we ate our meat we’d always burn it. We’d have it well done, which seems like it would be the best way to do it is well done, because well done is better than poorly done, and so I would always have my meat well done, because for me, carbon was a food group, and… and I remember when I was fifteen, and we’d moved to the United States, and I was living in Miami Florida, and I found, my parents found this great restaurant, it had the best meat, and steak, and ribs, and… So I got a job there, so I could eat there, and I went ahead and begged for employment, and they gave me a job even though I was under-age and I couldn’t wait because I could eat all the meat I wanted, for free.

And my first steak, I ordered it… well done. And they came back from the kitchen and said, “The chef said no.” What do you mean, the chef said no?! “He said he would not cook it well done.” Tell him it’s my steak, I want it well done! And they went back, and they came back, and they said, “The chef said… no!” It’s my free steak, I want it, well… done…! And then the chef came out, and he was from Cuba, and he was very animated, and he said “I want to see the man that wants to ruin my meat!” Now I just want my steak well done. And he said, “No! You never cook a steak well done, you cook it medium rare, at most!” No… I don’t want medium rare, I don’t want a bloody steak, can the blood… s’everywhere, it goes into the mashed potatoes, I… I don’t want it medium rare! I want my steak well done!

And he made me a deal. He said, “I’ll cook it for you medium rare. You take one bite, and if you don’t like it, I’ll burn a steak for you.” And I thought, two steaks! That’ll work. So I said sure, and he cooked me a steak, and it was medium rare, and it came out, and it looked so terrible. It was all bloody and… undercooked, and… there was nowhere I could identify charcoal burns, and it just seemed so wrong, but, he was there, and he waited, so I cut into that steak, and I didn’t want the fact that it sliced like butter to deceive me, and… then I… I put it into my mouth. It began melting. My steak began to sing. And, I met God… that day… My life was changed forever, and after that, it was prime rib, give me it so rare, it still has the memory of being a cow. I want my meat rare! I love sashimi, you just bring me rare meat, and it’s just wonderful!

This piece was included to gratuitously offend Bertus!, who is a vegetarian. (Dave, you’re more than welcome to be offended as well, if you like.)

What this world needs, is good old-fashioned, nay, ancient, evangelism and missionary work. Yes, you read that right. Evangelism and missionary work in the style of the pre-colonial, pre-modernistic era. Missionaries that understand the power of syncretism and are able to recognise the good, nay, the God, in everything they find. Missionaries that know how to communicate. Christianity spread so successfully because the missionaries wielded syncretism, they understood what it means to communicate from within a contrasting culture.

Humans are irrational. The human is not a rational animal. The human merely has access to rationality. This combination is known as the human condition. To deny this, is to deny humanity, to deny nature, to commit the great sin that is “abstinence-only sex education”.

Humanity has lost the ability to communicate. Modernism, or fact-fundamentalism, has destroyed our ability to listen and understand one another. Colonialism forces our culture down onto other people, rather than seeking to understand and see the value and truth of their culture. Only once we understand another culture, can we contribute directly.

What this world needs, is good, old-fashioned, highly skilled missionaries and evangelists, that are able to combine the wisdom and communication skills of a pre-modern era, with the knowledge we have gained during the modern era. Viva post-modernism!

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How do you share good news that does not sound like good news? You feel you should be shouting the supposed good news from the mountain tops, but you cannot. Because it does not make sense to you. This forces you to consider many methods, many different ways, to share news with people, any news, good or bad. You become very knowledgeable at the best ways of sharing such news, but it doesn’t help, because it still doesn’t seem like something you can share in good faith. It does not feel honest. It does not feel true. So still you seek. You also want and need to hear good news.

You start devouring literature. You read the best of what the news has to offer, as well as the worst. However, you specifically focus on trying to find the good. If so many millions of people think there is good news there, there must be at least some of it, somewhere? Your optimism and hope refuses to relent, until the good is found.

Eventually, after considering all perspectives possible, you see some light in the distance. There is something there! Excitement grabs you, so you pick up the pace. There is light, there are answers, clarity seems within your grasp. You realise your baggage is slowing you down, so you drop the stuff you were carrying, and break into a run.

You are looking for Jesus, the tracks you are following seem fresh. Very fresh. They shine with hope. You are gaining on him, you could meet him any time… An incredible story emerges, a story a few thousand years old, spanning many centuries, in a context you couldn’t hope to understand without some serious study. Years and years of scholarly research is made accessible to you, condensed into a couple of books. The penny drops.

You have found the light. You see good news, in fact, excellent news! And it is so liberating! It sets you free, completely free! The world suddenly makes sense, everything falls into place! It is news that is worth sharing, news that gets you really passionate, news that you are just dying to share with everyone, you can barely help yourself! So this is what they meant by sharing good news? News so powerful and liberating that you are simply unable to keep it to yourself! Your sins fall away… you are free.

It all comes together, the mountain tops beckon, you just want to go and shout. You have found your voice, and you find it is clear and confident. Suddenly you have an opportunity to put everything into practise, you can draw on the years of thought you put into the best approaches to evangelism.

You have found Jesus. The real historical Jesus, that lived, breathed, taught the way. Except, things are not as you had been told they would be, everything ironically seems ever so slightly upside down. Completely upside down, in fact. What was right, now looks wrong, what was wrong, now right. What was first, is now last, what was last, is now first… and your friends won’t understand. Your family won’t understand. It could bring a schism between you and your parents, families could be torn apart.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

The only difference between theists and atheists, is that we speak different languages.

This post proved much more difficult to write than I had hoped. The draft I wrote nine days ago, when I sketched out my schedule, was completely inadequate. In fact, there really is a lot of ground-work and foundations that should have been laid before I tackled this post. As such, this post became a long one…

The Search for God

Humanity as a whole, has been “searching for God” possibly for longer than the age of the earth according to creationists. This search has been a journey that has passed along many potential “destinations” en-route. Still the journey does not end, understanding develops more, our “relationship with God” continues to change and grow.

A long time ago, the polytheistic understanding of “God” was common. “God” consisted of a whole pantheon of gods, and humanity was at the mercy of the soap-opera playing out on Mount Olympus (or equivalent). As the power shifted amongst the gods, the humans’ loyalties also shifted, to whichever god then supposedly had the upper hand.

(Dealing with middle-eastern religion now:) A contrasting, revolutionary perspective of “God”, is that there aren’t many different gods that need to be worshipped. “God” became understood to be a “single entity”. Monotheism revolutionised human culture, and removed a lot of insecurity. Humans were no longer at the mercy of the big soap-opera in the sky.

I feel this really is less a case of humans being “atheistic” about all the other gods, than it is an understanding that consolidates all the gods into one God. A development, an improvement, in our understanding of the abstract notion of “God”, that thing “beyond human comprehension”. This is why that cliché popularised by Richard Dawkins irks me so much: “We are all atheistic about all those other gods, some of us just go one god further.” If I hear that many more times, it might start to irritate me as much as some creationism seminars do…

What is the difference between Islam, Judaism and Christianity? All three are monotheistic, all three worship “the only God there is”. Defined that way, they all have to be worshipping the same God (the only God there is…) The difference then, is merely in their understanding of that one God. Each of the three think they have a better understanding of that God than the other two. Possibly all three claim “God is beyond our comprehension”.

The (controversial?) question then becomes: might each not learn something about God from the other?

My discussion here is the difference between “atheism” and “theistic belief as a whole”, rather than between “atheism” and any particular form of Christianity. There is already great diversity within the Christian tradition. If I recall correctly, there may be something like 33000 different denominations? Many of these denominations probably think they have a monopoly on The Truth. Denominations with such monopolies on truth, should not bother trying to reach atheists, in my opinion. This post is addressed to the more humble denominations.

Humble denominations recognise that there will necessarily be diverse understandings of something that is “beyond human comprehension”, and recognise that inter-denominational conversation would be valuable to understand “God” more accurately. Each group can learn from every other, and in the process each group can also teach.

Christians that are humble enough, will be able to recognise there is value to be found in Islam and Judaism as well, that Christianity does not have a monopoly on “God”, and that each religion can learn from every other. In the process, again, each religion can teach. Only once the Christian has learned from the Jew what they believe and what they do not believe, can they open up a conversation which is mutually beneficial, where the Christian can maybe teach the Jew of other aspects of “God” which they might have missed, and vice versa of course. Amongst others, Brian McLaren has opened up such inter-faith conversations. He goes so far as to say:

“I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” –A Generous Orthodoxy (found on Theopedia.)

I have yet to read A Generous Orthodoxy. Many more conservative Christians do not like Brian McLaren’s earlier works much. Do not let that frighten you away from The Secret Message of Jesus though, I have seen reviews saying something along the lines of: “no matter what your perspectives were of Brian McLaren’s previous works, you should give The Secret Message of Jesus a chance”. (amazon, kalahari)

To get back to the point, then, Christianity is very diverse. Monotheism is even more diverse than that. Pull in Polytheism, Deism and Pantheism, and in-betweens such as Panentheism, Pandeism and Panendeism… and you realise how broad and diverse humanity’s understanding of “God” is. And each tradition surely has at least some fragments of “The Truth”.

So, what about atheism then?

Godly versus Godless

I lack the right words, unfortunately. “Godly” and “godless” are not perfect, but they will have to do for now. Consider this Dutch quote:

“Ateis: zonder God,
maar niet goddeloos.”

Filosofie Magazine (hat tip to Auke at Psychohistorian).

Translated: “Atheist: without God, but not godless”. This defines the essence of what I mean by “godly” and “godless”. I am suggesting we could talk about two kinds of atheists, the godly kind, and the godless kind.

Atheism has been stereotyped, stigmatised or demonised in certain circles. The impression the word “atheism” gives in such circles, is someone without appreciation, without a sense wonder, someone who lacks humility or has no appreciation for mystery, someone who is not at all thankful or appreciative of his or her existence (because they supposedly show no thanks to “God”), someone that lacks a sense of morality, an immoral person.

What such theists are effectively doing, is projecting their worldview onto the atheist, and then adding an anti-God sentiment. In the theist’s worldview, the concept of “God” encompasses all of the aspects mentioned in the previous paragraph – claim you have no belief in “God”, and they think you are throwing out all of the above. They think you are a “godless” atheist. There may be “godless” atheists, but I have yet to meet one… on the other hand, I know many “godly” atheists.

What is a “godly” atheist, then? “Godly” atheists do have an incredible sense of wonder and awe at the majesty of the universe, sometimes much more so than the theist. Sometimes the atheist is much more aware of the incredible mystery that is out there. Often atheists have an incredible sense of thankfulness and appreciation for their existence. This may be hard for the theist to believe, as the theist directs his or her thankfulness and appreciation towards a personified God. (Humans understand how to be thankful much better, when dealing with a “person”, or a “personified” entity. “Personifying” things is a very human thing to do.) The atheist’s thankfulness and appreciation is more abstract, directed at “an unknown god” if you will. The lack of a clear notion of a personified God to whom the thankfulness can be directed, can even lead to a more overwhelming experience of appreciation and “majesty”.

Some atheists have an incredibly strong sense of morality as well. Some details may differ, they likely think fundamentalist religions’ homophobia is an example of immorality, or that discouraging contraceptive use or HPV vaccinations are some of the most immoral things done in the name of religion. Atheists are often shocked to hear that some Christians would not think twice about cheating on their spouse if it were not for the seventh commandment.

CS Lewis argues for the existence of God based on the existence of morality. Effectively, he defines the source of morality as “God”. The atheists have morality, they have a source of morality, why not call that “God” then? There has long been a tradition of attributing things we do not understand, to “God”. What’s wrong then with an atheist calling the mystery in the universe, the “original cause”, that which is beyond our comprehension, “God”? Can we personify the abstract thing to which atheists express their thankfulness and appreciation, and call that “God”? Some call any sense of a “higher power”, even our community or interconnectedness, “God”.

The only difference, therefore, is that atheists have a different understanding of “God”. I personally don’t feel this difference is greater than the diversity already found within theism and religion, which is why I state “the only difference between theists and atheists, is that we speak different languages”. In the language of the theists, “God” has a rather specific meaning. Because of this, the atheist does not use the word “God” to describe his or her notion of “God”, as it could be too misleading.

In “3001: The Final Odyssey”, Arthur C. Clarke had a thousand years of history to play with. He used this freedom to remove religion, and even ban the word “God”. (If the notion of banning the word “God” frightens you, what do you think about the notion of banning the word “Allah”?) However, they still needed a word with which to refer to “God”, abstract notion or not, so they created a new word…

Concluding Remarks

Understand the language differences, and honestly and humbly investigate what you can learn about God from an atheist. (After all, if God can talk to you through the mouth of a donkey, surely God can talk to you through the mouth of an atheist?) Learn what the Gospel is, go find out what Jesus taught. Then, we can have us a conversation.

What exactly is the “Good News”? Evangelising Christianity is about sharing the “Good News”. As such, it is important that the news is actually good. What might seem like good news to you, might not seem like good news from another perspective. It is important to understand this. As mentioned last time, it is important to look at it from an atheist’s perspective. This exercise may also help you understand the good news better yourself.

Below is a video titled “Kissing Hank’s Ass”. Be warned, this video tries to offend. Do not let it offend you, otherwise you will be unable to learn anything. Learn to turn the other cheek. Furthermore, I suspect if you are offended, it might be as a result of viewing it with an egocentric perspective. Instead, look at the video with compassion or empathy. Place yourself in the atheist’s shoes, try your best to understand how the atheist thinks. Also avoid the trap of feeling “pity”, that would also suppress a good understanding. Only when you understand how they think, will you have any chance to actually converse with them in a meaningful manner.

The clip is just over seven and a half minutes long. If your bandwidth is limited, you may read the script that inspired the video clip instead. There is also a sanitised version available, which replaces the words “ass” and “shit” with “butt” and “snot”. (The video clip also includes profanities. If such things bother you, read the sanitised version instead.)

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It is now assumed that you have read the script or watched the video clip. If you have not yet done so, go do it! Also, think it over. Maybe come back to this post later, even.

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What I think you should have learned from this (please share what you learned, let’s have a discussion!): “you are going to hell” is not Good News. All too often, however, this is the core of the news that evangelicals give to atheists. “You are going to hell (but I can show you how to avoid it).” There is no way you will get them interested with such news. Amongst other things, they do not fear a literal hell. So, what to do?

If this is a problem you are facing, it may be that you do not fully comprehend what aspects of the gospel would be considered good news by non-believers. I would suggest you read The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren (amazon, kalahari). That should get you started. I believe a lot of it is based on the work of NT Wright, a Bible scholar. I have yet to read NT Wright’s stuff itself, however, to the scholarly minded (or even the atheist), I could recommend reading Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg (amazon, kalahari), another Bible scholar. If you are in the Stellenbosch area, you are welcome to borrow my books.

If either of these books do not increase your respect for Jesus or your excitement about or your understanding of his message, let me buy you a meal at a decent restaurant if I know you personally, otherwise a cup of coffee or something similar, or maybe a beer: I’d like to hear your feedback.

Please be friendly in the comments. That doesn’t mean you can’t disagree, I love friendly disagreements. This blog is my home in cyberspace, and you are my guests – ideally, my friends even. (If we have not yet met, maybe we should…) Be sure to give a valid email address.

I suppose one of the biggest accomplishments an Evangelical Christian could hope for, is to convert a hard-core atheist to Christianity. The biggest problem is that evangelical Christians and atheists do not speak the same language.

The most important thing you need to do, before you start sharing with atheists, is to learn how they think. Like Paul, you need to walk the streets of Athens, you need to immerse yourselves in their culture, to walk their streets, to see and understand their altars “to an unknown god”. Only once you understand, once you can speak their language, will you be able to share the Good News. In fact, only then will you be able to fully understand the Good News yourselves. I repeat, the crux of the matter is this:

You need to learn to think, like they do.

This more or less concludes the advice in the first post in this series. Continue thinking until next time, and please keep in mind that arguments such as this one by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort:

are not at all effective. Such arguments will merely turn you into the laughing stock of the rational scientific world. (Update: If the clip stops working, try e.g. a Google search for ray comfort banana.)

This series will continue next week, when we will look at the gap in communication between atheists and Christians. We will show you what not to do, how not to share the Good News, as it will immediately push them away. The third post is the clincher, and will accomplish what Kirk and Ray can only dream about. Please share this series with your friends. May the world become a better place, may the kingdom come!