Dan Barker on Religion

“Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that
it can’t be taken on its own merits.”
-Dan Barker

“I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God.
That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 87.

“The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed I am that I ever believed Christian notions.”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 106.

“If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 108.

“To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and
bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. That implies
that everyone else (such as the opposing football team, driver, student,
parent) is de-selected, unfavored by God, and that I am special, above it all.”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 109.

“Some theists, observing that all ‘effects’ need a cause, assert that
God is a cause but not an effect. But no one has ever observed an
uncaused cause and simply inventing one merely assumes what the argument wishes to prove.”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 109.

“The next time believers tell you that ‘separation of church and state’
does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the
word ‘trinity.’ The word ‘trinity’ appears nowhere in the bible.
Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are
still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience,
Omnipresence, Supernatural,Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity,
Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas,
Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope,
Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation,
Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility,
Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord’s Prayer,
Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden
Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy,
Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy,
Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic,
Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 109.

“Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.” Dan BarkerConcurred! And thus so many false faiths. For reason must be the way to discriminate the true from the false.
“If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?”
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
(Madison, WI: FFRF, 1992), p. 108.We pray so that we know that God hears us.

Of course what we will pray is already known by God and is already part of his will. It is not that if we did not pray it would not happen, but it happened because God knows that we will pray for it, ie our prayers, even future, unprayed prayers, are already part of God’s will.

But having said that we must also discriminate between true prayer and testing God. A possible example of the latter is asking God to let your favourite NBA team wins.

It is hard to apply temporal logic to things of God, for God sees all of time at one time, anytime. :smiley:

Hi Sagesound,

I can understand Dan Barker quite well. The logical contradiction spoken of in the many statements you have quoted is apparent - even if Chan still thinks that “reason must be the way to discriminate the true from the false”. There are things in life that are clearly in opposition to the portrayal of divine intervention in the Bible. It is clear that if the kind of divine intervention that fundamentalists proclaim is so elusive for the inquisitive eye, then it obviously isn’t as straightforward as the believers claim, or they are projecting every good occurrence in they lives on God.

Anybody who has had basic psychological training can see textbook examples of many psychological phenomena in fundamentalism. That is where the danger lies for those people of our age who are superficial and unstable. The theology of today us very much wrapped around archaic power structures and is basically critical of democracy and dissidence - especially in the case of fundamentalist teaching. It is no wonder that the ‘Almighty’ is favoured in such circles in comparison to Wonderful Counsellor, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace etc. These and other names encourage the understanding that ‘God’ too is a metaphor and that the jewish practise of writing ‘G-d’ (or however) only accentuate the ‘otherliness’ of what we call God.

People who become tied up in the web of such ‘power-theology’ but maintain their ability to think often break radically with their churches. Some have still an awareness of the Absolute, many have never attained that kind of depth. But this ‘awareness’ isn’t logically explainable, it is a subjective experience and it can only be judged by it’s fruits - which is good biblical argumentation.

Shalom
Bob

“Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. To be a scientist one must believe in an objective reality. That knowledge is not gained by any process of reasoning. It is a metaphysical belief.”
–Max Planck, quantum physicist

(I just thought as long as we’re quoting people…)

Hi Bob!

There are few who can’t as I understand it.

Interesting argument, and well said, I might add. Reason and Logic are the only tools we know of that are effective assistants to claiming our interpretations. For the religious, it is Faith which they use as a tool to assist their interpretations. GalacticHeart, a new poster, said it best: “WE ARE THE UNIVERSE, OBSERVING OURSELVES FROM WITHIN OURSELVES.”

Mental conditioning is a bitch that needs to be bitch-slapped.

In Amadeus, someone asked Mozart to play Handel, he replied: “I don’t like him.”

If the old Hebrew had vowels, would God still be religiously called “G-D” because of the sacredness of the name?

Heh…you can’t have a religion without having more than one denomination under its wing.

Same to you Bob…even if I’m not Jewish…

and if your favorite team wins than god passes the test, if your team loses you find other things to blame besides god letting you down.

if god is all knowing (like you claim in your post:

if god is all knowing he knows who won’t pray too, right? so it still begs the question as to what’s the point, if you pray or not the outcome is determined by other factors (I discuss this more in my meta-religion post, that I just posted this afternoon).

I agree and disagree. Faith is too all encompassing, to say that every type of faith is intellectual bankruptcy. Like we have faith in a friend (until they prove otherwise) that you can count on them in hard times. You have faith that the earth won’t be struck by a meteorite today. (honestly would you even bother getting out of bed if you had faith otherwise?)

Are certain types of faith disadvantageous? yes. When faith is used to gap facts. barker states this in your quote:

while for a majority of things I would agree, there comes a time where we’ve got to stand on a limb and believe in something unwarranted. That’s the only way we can grow. (not just as individuals but as a species.) The question becomes do you believe the limb your standing on is a solid foundation or do you acknowledge it for what it is?

Only irrational thinkers hate God. He/Her is just a great thinker.

Just what are you insinuating?? I don’t think you grasped the idea that was being explained…Dan Barker doesn’t hate god, and I can’t think of any great thinker who “hates” god. Dan Barker, like all Aethiests, don’t believe in god, therefore, how can he hate god? If a person believes in god, they either hate or love him/her/it. However, if a person doesn’t, then emotional responses to a diety is unfound.

You should rethink your comment.

By the way, how can you call Dan Barker a great thinker if you first-off called him irrational?

Nope that’s not what I mean by test. See Jesus’ response to the devil’s second temptation in Luke 4 to know what testing God means.

I do not see how it begs the question. God foreknew whether you will pray or not, and have factored these into the future. How does that begs the question?

And these are? and how do you discriminate them?

I thought I made myself clear in my original post, but it’s possible I didn’t.

the types of faith are those that require you to believe in something unbelievable, putting yourself out on a limb.

The point is to realize your out on a limb and not a secure truth.

no one has ever observed what the first thing that started the universe was. and they cant. either we find out that an uncaused cause has nothing to do with humans, or it does, or somehow there is an infinite regression.

which is easier to believe? infinite regression or that the process of time is a product of some creation just like everything else? one option contains the ever vigilant guardian of errant equations: infinite, one potentially avoids it.

if something created everything that we see, why cant it create the idea of time? i cant understand how some would say its easier to believe in an infinite regression over the non-universality of time. an answer of infinite has always meant that you are looking at it wrong.

say the answer is “crappy limb that sounds stupid” and you are happy and secure. if you didnt believe this silly faith of yours you wouldnt be so happy, and you would still work towards the good of humanity just as much. should you try your best to verify this shaky but gratifying belief that only contributes good to the world?

what im saying is that the beleifs that people have should be tested on a standard that is not merely how believable they are to us, but how useful they are for everybody. Stab Yourself in the Head Day, not so useful. worldwide love and equality? thats useful, and perhaps some communities would have a hard time embracing such an idea without their stupid irrational religion to pacify them, make them happy and grateful to god.

so religions that get in the way of useful objectives are obviously wrong. religions that only create happiness and work towards the useful objectives are good. just like everything else in the world.

well if they are basing their happiness and security on a shaky limb belief, than perhaps they need to re-evaluate their lives eh?

happiness and security should be a little more secure than belief in god.

I do not know if you realise it, but you are circular all over in what you are saying. “Putting yourself out on a limb” is a meaningless jargon.

Could that be similar to Kierkregaard’s leap of faith?

To “Sagesound,”

Just meant something in his life might have happened to make him lose his faith that quick, might of boiled hate. If not just trying to see the image of God in a different point of view.

You seem to be focused on the idea that hate is the only cause of what Mr. Barker wrote. Something did happen in his life, he opened his eyes, and he did not lose his faith, but rather put his faith into something else rather than the myth that had trapped him for many years.

So, do you even know what an aethiest is?

so do you feel faith is meaningless?

ANY faith you put yourself on a limb.

Soooo…am I the only guy here that originally saw Bob Barker? :blush: My first though was honestly “who cares what a damn game show host thinks!” Not trying to make light, just thought it was funny.

I’ll never understand how anyone can claim that Atheists “hate God.” :confused: That’s an oxymoron- how can what hate what he/she knows doesn’t exist? True, he could hate religion, or the hypocracy of some (not all) people of faith, but he can’t truly hate God.

The way you phrase your thoughts. You didn’t get my second sentence. I basically say in sentence 2, that he could just be a inspiring philosopher trying to see why people do certain things. Obviously you were two big headed to understand my second sentence. Because you attack me, like its my fault for not wanting to read a man’s life work. And by doing this your making assumptions I’m stupid, bland, ect. stereotyping in doing so. Not everything in life that you read, and hear is straight forward. If it was like that, wouldn’t we have world peace in every nation, if everything was straight up. Like killing is bad, so we all live not to kill, when thats not other countrys beliefs.

Hopefully other people see this. That I also only attack new ideas to get my point across, like it should be when it comes to stereotyping things, or people.

And every religion has 1 God figure. And who carrys more then one religion?? Buddhism is based off one man’s belief, Christiananity is based off God’s words out of Jesus’s mouth, ect. How can you not want to believe in one figure like a fair being like God depicts, in others peoples religions?? Even if we find that God is just a morality issue in people.