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Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists

What happens when a clergy person -- a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam -- realizes he doesn't believe in God?

And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they find each other; when they support each other in coping with their crises, when they help each other with resources and job counseling and other practical assistance? What happens when they encourage each other to come out?

Could this affect more than just these clergy people and their followers? Could it change how society as a whole thinks and feels about religion?

That's what the Clergy Project is finding out. In recent months and years, atheists have been all over the news. But over the last few weeks, a burst of media attention has been focused on atheists of an unexpected stripe: clergy members. And in particular, attention is going to the Clergy Project, an online meeting place and support group that exists specifically for these unexpected additions to the ranks of the godless.

The project was inspired by the 2010 pilot study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, "Preachers Who Are Not Believers" (PDF), which exposed and explored the surprisingly common phenomenon of non-believing clergy. The need to give these people support -- and if possible, an exit strategy -- was immediately recognized in the atheist community, and starter funding for the Clergy Project was quickly provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Founded in March of 2011 with 52 members, the Clergy Project currently has over 270 members -- and since recent news stories about it began appearing, in outlets from MSNBC to NPR to the Religious News Service to CNN, applications to join have been going up at an even more dramatic rate.

The cascade of news stories began when Methodist minister Teresa MacBain came to the American Atheists convention following last March's Reason Rally -- and made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the podium, to announce that she was an atheist. "Being in a group of people with whom I could share openly without fear of persecution gave me the courage to come out," she told me. "The opportunity to stand before the crowd, come out as an atheist and share about the Clergy Project was too good to pass up. I was at the end of my rope and I knew it. It was now or never for me. As I walked up on that stage, I felt fear like no other."

MacBain had been questioning her faith since her early teens, when she came across contradictions in the Bible. "I went to my dad for answers," she said. "He simply shared that God's ways are so much higher than our ways that we can not understand everything in the Bible. Our response should be faith, not doubting. He then told me that doubting was a sin. I left that day and suppressed those questions. This practice followed me for decades."


But eventually, the questions became too much. She let go of her Biblical literalism, which at first helped resolve her doubts about Biblical contradictions -- but this soon made room for other questions to press on her. "Things such as theodicy [the problem of suffering and evil], the question of hell, God's omnipotence yet lack of intervention in heinous events, the historicity of Jesus... all these bubbled to the surface and demanded to be answered," she said. "My work to answer these questions began with the thought that as I discovered the truth, it would create a stronger faith and give me comforting answers to those in my church who were dealing with the same issues. Instead, the truth I found led me away from faith."

This experience is common among members of the Clergy Project. Clergy people, almost by definition, are people who take their faith seriously. They tend to think about religion carefully. They often (although not always) study their religion carefully. Unlike many believers, they actually read the Bible, or Torah, or Koran, or whatever the sacred text of their religion is. They think hard about questions that more casual believers are willing to let slide. After all -- that's their job.

But as many atheists will tell you, thinking carefully about religion is exactly what led them to abandon it. When you ask atheists, "What made you become an atheist?" reading the Bible is one of the highest items on the list. And when I asked Jerry DeWitt -- Recovering From Religion executive director, Clergy Project graduate and new-member screener for CP -- what kinds of ideas and experiences most commonly lead clergy members to question and eventually leave their faith, he answered simply, "Religion's inability to answer for or relieve human suffering."

Lawrence Hunter shares this experience. A former associate minister in the Black Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ, he says that a bad marriage "allowed me to see how life really was instead of the fairy tale versions that are espoused every Sunday... questions about good and evil, the Bible, marriage, suffering, tithes, church corruption and hell filled my mind. I realized that I needed to expand my understanding."

He adds that the failures of religion to meet basic human needs -- and the failures of church leaders to live up to the moral standards they demanded of their flock -- contributed to his questioning. "As a preacher," he says, "I could see that prayers weren't healing people, despite preaching on wealth the only people getting rich were the pastor. I could see that many, many people were mentally disturbed and a host of problems. Not to mention the scandals and adultery. This caused me to look deeper and really find out the true essence of my faith and why the holy spirit wasn't active like it supposedly was back in the Bible days. The rest is history."

And Catherine Dunphy, one of the original 52 members of the Clergy Project, agrees. "I was always curious about the Bible," she told me, "and read it, despite the fact that the church and its priests say, 'Don't bother.' In it I found ridiculous stories that only furthered my confusion." Dunphy, a former Catholic, also had her faith shaken by the widespread child rape scandals in the Catholic Church -- and by the Church's inexplicable response to them. "The bishop of my diocese, an asshole named Colin Campbell, issued a statement saying that the victims were responsible since they kept going back to the predatory priests!"

But for Dunphy, the final nail in the coffin of her faith was realizing that highly trained religious authorities didn't have any better reasons for their beliefs than anyone else. "I remember how frustrated I would become in class," she said, "given that it didn't appear to me that my profs had any more authority than I did!... I came to realize that we were all complicit in making this stuff up as we go."

For many people, questioning and eventually abandoning religion can involve deep emotional and psychological struggles. Atheists commonly say that they do feel relief, even liberation, when they finally relinquish the cognitive dissonance that religion requires, but the process is often difficult. This is often even more pronounced in clergy people... who, again, tend to take religion more seriously than the average believer-in-the-street.

But for clergy people, this internal struggle is only the beginning. For clergy people, losing religion doesn't just mean asking questions like, "How do I accept the permanence of death?" and "What is my place in the universe?" It means asking the question, "How am I going to pay the rent?" For most clergy members, coming out as atheist means the automatic loss of their livelihood. But staying closeted about their atheism means living a lie. As MacBain said, "Once I realized my faith was gone, I began looking for a way out. My conscience nagged at me continually but I felt that the needs of my family required that I work my way out slowly. I took a temporary job (causing me to work 80 hour weeks) in order to pay some bills off which would make the transition easier. As the weeks passed, the turmoil increased exponentially."

And clergy members who leave their faith aren't just faced with losing their livelihoods. They're likely to lose the stature and respect that religious leaders are so commonly given. And while anyone coming out as atheist can be targeted with hostility and bigotry, the venom can get dialed up to eleven when it's a member of the clergy. When Teresa MacBain came home from the American Atheists convention, "The church leadership changed the locks of the church and it took me almost two months to collect my belongings. My email server, mail box and voicemails were filled daily with veiled threats, hateful pronouncements of my impending doom and downright nasty messages. One gentleman stated that he couldn't wait till he stood in heaven and looked down at me in hell while the flesh burned off my body!"

This is exactly why the Clergy Project was founded. In this confidential online community, members can freely discuss the challenges they face in leaving ministry and establishing a new life. This involves emotional and psychological support, of course -- help wrestling with ethical and philosophical issues that often come with becoming atheist, advice on coming out as atheist to family and friends, and so on. But it can also involve practical advice and support: members can share ideas on finding a way out of the ministry and looking for new careers, and can share resources that newcomers to atheism may not be aware of.

Right now, the Clergy Project is primarily a peer support group. But the organization is working to expand its scope, to provide more tangible assistance that atheist clergy people so desperately need. They're preparing now to launch a group of resources that includes re-employment preparation -- resume prep, interviewing techniques, recruiting firms that will work with members to provide leads -- as well as secular counseling, working with the Therapist Project to offer services of secular counselors who are donating their time to Clergy Project members. And they're planning -- soon, they hope -- to provide job training, short-term loans, and temporary housing for atheist clergy members who want to leave.

But they may have their work cut out for them. Nobody knows for sure how many clergy members are secretly atheists (or are secretly on the fence, with serious doubts about their religion). But almost everyone I've spoken with in Clergy Project strongly suspects that the numbers are high -- higher than anyone would expect. MacBain says, "It is definitely more common than anyone thinks." DeWitt agrees: "My experience says it's very common. Over 25 years of ministry I witnessed very few examples of anything other than ministers living 'normal' lives regardless of their supernatural claims. They have to see the disconnect." And Dunphy concurs: "Before I discovered the LaScola Study I thought I was some sort of oddity. I mean, who goes into theology and comes out an atheist? It looks like a lot of people."

The surge of interest in the Clergy Project would seem to bear this out. Since Teresa MacBain outed herself at the American Atheists convention in March, 77 new members have joined the project -- and as of this writing, there are 86 more applicants awaiting interviews. As MacBain says, "This seems to indicate that there are hundreds, if not thousands, who are trapped in the pulpit."

So what does this all mean? Why does this matter, not just to the atheist clergy themselves, but to anyone who cares about religion?

It matters because, if clergy members start publicly abandoning religion, the whole house of cards could collapse.

For most believers, religion isn't something they think about very carefully. Most believers stay with whatever religion they were brought up with as children. Most believers are just trying to get on with their day-to-day lives, and if difficult or complicated questions about their faith occur to them, they often assume that their religious leaders know the answers... the way we assume that pilots know how to keep airplanes in the sky. As Lawrence Hunter said, many believers "are simply unable or unwilling to do the work to read and research their beliefs and other aspects of their lives. It's easier to be told who to believe, vote for and buy from, etc. Religion is the balm that soothes difficult questions."

But if religious authorities start acknowledging that they don't know, either? If religious authorities start acknowledging that they have the exact same questions, and haven't found any good answers? If religious authorities start acknowledging that they've just been making it up as they go along? If religious authorities begin to abandon the tacit agreement among themselves that these questions and doubts should be kept among themselves, and should not be shared with their followers? If religious authorities start saying, out loud, that the best answer they've found to these questions is, "God doesn't exist"? If religious authorities start publicly abandoning their religion? And if they start doing this in significant numbers?

It's going to be much, much harder for ordinary believers to hang on to their beliefs.

I was in the audience at the American Atheists convention when Teresa MacBain came out. It was one of the most dramatic, most powerful moments I've experienced. There aren't that many people in the world who have that much courage, that much integrity, that much fierce passion for the truth. There aren't that many people in the world who are willing to risk losing their families, their communities, their stature, the emotional and philosophical foundation of their lives, even their very livelihood... because they prioritize the truth over their personal well-being.

These people are an inspiration. Regardless of what you think of religion or atheism, they are an inspiration. And there is clearly a place in our society for them. Listen to Lawrence Hunter: "If I were a pastor, who had complete control over my church, I would take the title of 'church' [and change it] to 'community center.' I wouldn't preach from the bible, I would quote from numerous sources of literature and wisdom. As an African American I would focus on neighborhood issues, such as poverty, lack of education and a host of other ills. Gone would be silly rituals of baptism and communion. There's so much that churches can and should do to help their communities, but choose to ignore them."

There is clearly a place in our society for these people. And the Clergy Project is trying to create it.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/155798/biggest_threat_to_religion_clergy_people_coming_out_as_atheists_/?page=1

frosbel: Not necessarily, a remnant remains ,in these days of certain apostasy ,whose sole purpose in worshiping God is because they love him and yearn to see the salvation of mankind.

frosbel: However , even among the rich, there are multitudes who worship God and use their wealth for his glory.

Point is , People who are rich or want to be rich, spend their entire temporary and short lives in anxiety and worry on how to maintain their goods or acquire more. Solomon called this vanity.

Not necessarily, a remnant remains ,in these days of certain apostasy ,whose sole purpose in worshiping God is because they love him and yearn to see the salvation of mankind.

[size=13pt]Atheism To Defeat Religion By 2038[/size]
Countries with the best standard of living are turning atheist. That shift offers a glimpse into the world's future.

Religious people are annoyed by claims that belief in God will go the way of horse transportation, and for much the same reason, specifically an improved standard of living.

The view that religious belief will give way to atheism is known as the secularization thesis. The specific version that I favor (1) is known as the existential security hypothesis. The basic idea is that as people become more affluent, they are less worried about lacking for basic necessities, or dying early from violence or disease. In other words they are secure in their own existence. They do not feel the need to appeal to supernatural entities to calm their fears and insecurities.

The notion that improving living conditions are associated with a decline in religion is supported by a mountain of evidence (1,2,3).

That does not prevent some serious scholars, like political scientist Eric Kaufmann (4), from making the opposite case that religious fundamentalists will outbreed the rest of us. Yet, noisy as they can be, such groups are tiny minorities of the global population and they will become even more marginalized as global prosperity increases and standards of living improve.

Moreover, as religious fundamentalists become economically integrated, young women go to work and produce smaller families, as is currently happening for Utah's Mormons.

The most obvious approach to estimating when the world will switch over to being majority atheist is based on economic growth. This is logical because economic development is the key factor responsible for secularization. In deriving this estimate, I used the nine most godless countries as my touchstone (excluding Estonia as a formerly communist country).

The countries were Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These nine countries averaged out at the atheist transition in 2004 (5) with exactly half of the populations disbelieving in God. Their gross domestic product (GDP) averaged $29,822 compared to $10,855 for the average country in the world. How long will it take before the world economy has expanded sufficiently that the GDP of the average country has caught up to the average for the godless countries in 2004?

Using the average global growth rate of GDP for the past 30 years of 3.33 percent (based on International Monetary Fund data from their website), the atheist transition would occur in 2035.

Belief in God is not the only relevant measure of religion, of course. A person might believe in God in a fairly superficial way without religion affecting his or her daily life. One way of assessing the depth of religious commitment is to ask survey participants whether they think that religion is important in their daily lives as the Gallup Organization has done in worldwide nationally representative surveys.

If fewer than 50 percent of the population agreed that religion was important to them, then the country has effectively crossed over to a secular majority. The godless countries by religiosity were Spain, South Korea, Canada, Switzerland, Uruguay, Germany and France. At a growth rate of 3.33 percent per year it would be 2041 before the average country in the world would be at an equivalent level of affluence as these godless nations.

If national wealth drives secularization, the global population will cross an atheist threshold where the majority see religion as unimportant by 2041.

Averaging across the two measures of atheism, the entire world population would cross the atheist threshold by about 2038 (average of 2035 for disbelief and 2041 for religiosity). Although 2038 may seem improbably fast, this requires only a shift of approximately 1 percent per year whether in religiosity or belief in God. Using the Human Development Index as a clock suggests an even earlier arrival for the atheist transition (1).

Is the loss of religious belief something fear? Contrary to the claims of religious leaders, Godless countries are highly moral nations with an unusual level of social trust, economic equality, low crime and a high level of civic engagement (5). We could do with some of that.

Sources
1. Barber, N. (2012). Why atheism will replace religion: The triumph of earthly pleasures over pie in the sky. E-book, available at: http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Will-Replace-Religion-ebook/dp/B00886ZSJ6/
2. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Barber, N. (2011). A Cross-National test of the uncertainty hypothesis of religious belief Cross-Cultural Research, 45, 318-333.
4. Kaufmann, E. (2010). Shall the religious inherit the earth? London: Profile books.
5. Zuckerman, P. (2008 ). Society without God: What the least religious nations can tell us about contentment. New York: New York University Press.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/atheism-to-defeat-religion-by-2038_b_1565108.html

Deep Sight: Oh no please, the distinction is quite real.

Purist: To be honest, I have no real answer to this question. Considering the fact that words are being constantly defined and redefined nowadays, it is really difficult to apply any theological/philosophical labels to myself (I consider such labels to be highly unnecessary actually, especially as identifying with a particular label would make people have stereotypical views of you).

My answer to that question would depend on what you mean by "atheist". In the broadest sense of the word - non-belief in deities - I would say, yes, I am. But do I think that there could possibly be a god somewhere? I do entertain that thought from time to time and have never for once ruled it out, even though as I am constantly gaining more knowledge, I am beginning to think that it is highly unlikely. Based on this, I mostly consider myself to be agnostic -- an agnostic with largely atheistic tendencies, you know, like an Agnostic Atheist of some sort (although I still think that label does not paint a true picture of my actual position). However, I find myself expressing Ignostic views more often than not. More appropriately though, I think the generic word "Skeptic", suits me better.

But even if somehow, it can be proven that there is a god or gods, do I think it is the Christian/Muslim/AnyOtherReligion God? Certainly NOT! For that, I am fairly certain. The Deist God then? Perhaps. But even then, a belief or disbelief in it would change nothing. It would make no difference, as there are no consequences or rewards for believing or disbelieving in it. See, my position is not a stagnant one; it's not definitive. I am constantly adjusting my views as I gain new insights and new knowledge and as I deem fit. Who knows, I may eventually become a full-fledged atheist some day, or an "evangelical" deist like yourself, but I very much doubt that I will ever be a theist again. Nigeria would probably transform into Utopia first before that would ever happen.

To be honest, I could really care less about whether there is a deity or not, and would barely attempt to even convince anyone about its non-existence. I guess that would make me an implicit atheist then or simply a non-theist, which I feel is the most appropriate (you see, there are many labels that could be applied to me, depending on how you see me). I have so many people around me - including friends - that have not the slightest clue that I am irreligious, and that's because I barely talk about my stance in real life. As a matter of fact, people always instinctively assume that I am a Christian for reasons best known to them, even though they are fully aware that I don't go to church. (Many do in fact often tell of how they find my knowledge of the bible so impressive for a non-church goer.)

Now, when people begin to act based on what they think their God wants, and such actions affect me in some way, then it begins to appear like I actually care about the existence of this deity. When governments begin to make laws that border on theocracy, or people begin to form opinions and make decisions that affect me directly or indirectly, based on their religious convictions (which they always do) - and which I must mention, are NEVER objective - then I begin to take serious offense in these things. Just yesterday, I read that a Jehovah's Witnesses couple were forced by a court in the US to allow their almost-dying daughter have a blood transfusion in order to save her life. These parents genuinely believe that their God would be so pissed should they allow the transfusion. This is just one of countless sick stories you hear and read about on a daily basis.

I do think that it is possible for there to be a god. But I do not think that such a god would be so concerned to bother itself about what we eat, drink or wear, whether we talk to him constantly, thank/praise him for everything, who we choose to marry, who we choose to have s[i]e[/i]x with - including when and how we do it, how we address him, etc. In short, the only type of god I believe there could possibly be would be an impersonal God, which even barely makes sense to me. The gods of the monotheistic religions are so ridiculous that the existence of any one of them is highly improbable. The Christian/Muslim/etc God who has a reputation for being so whimsical and totalitarian could very well decide to change his mind at the last minute and allow only atheists into heaven, and would do so with impunity. After all, "his ways are not our ways."

Uyi Iredia: To say that evolution isn't central to atheism is to be a most uninformed atheist.

Both are beliefs. It's plain dishonesty to disacknowledge this.

logicboy: I dont believe in the tooth fairy. Is that a philosophy?

Purist:
Again, evolution is NOT central to atheism. When will you folks learn to understand that there are NUMEROUS atheists that do not even subscribe to the theory of evolution in the first place? This is the kind of problem you will normally face when you try to lump all atheists into one dubious belief system. You easily forget that the ONLY thing that atheists have in common UNIVERSALLY is their non-belief in deities, and nothing else.

Deep Sight: Oh, and by teh way, as per the OP - one should not bother with these sorts of discussions. The notion that atheism is a religion is just idiotic.

debosky: Again, without personal integrity, there is even less reason to trust his fraudulent and mendacious viewpoints, which include global warming being a communist conspiracy.

musKeeto: U dey mind the educated i[color=#000000]diot[/color]? Na here im show im smelly english... mscheew...

Enigma: Addendum

See e.g. here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/types/humanism.shtml

While atheism is merely the absence of belief, humanism is a positive attitude to the world, centred on human experience, thought, and hopes.

From the same link (on Humanism)

It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.

logicboy: Your post had too much nonsense in it for atheists to be bothered.

abasifo: Masturbation definitely involves constant lustful imaginations which the victim indulges in as a means of vitiating sexual pressures. Students of demonology have discovered that those sexual images which follow masturbation are actually pictures from the marine world juxtaposed on the persons’ sub-conscious and he begins to imagine some sexy looking man or woman. Some persons get initiated into the company of a spirit husband or wife after orgies of masturbation. In addition, a masturbator will definitely get tired of the self indulgence and would want to experiment with actual sex, leading to fornication or adultery.

http://www.nigeriafilms.com/news/17608/56/pastor-chris-oyakhilomes-theory-of-alcoholism-and-.html

Martian: Of course I don't know. The only difference is that I don't make stuff up, call it "extraphysical", then ask people to take a stance.

Image123: and who said its a nigerian or african thing. Too much time playing at game center makes you to think that Christians are only found in nigeria and africa ba? Grow up, and stop having fantasies that devil only operates in nigeria.

Image123: plus I didn't say or suppose that i've never had 'sleep paralysis', you need to learn how to read.

Image123: i can never experience it, and I'm sure you know why.

Image123: you do yourself a disservice. i have no such useless unique experiences, Jesus took care of them for moi, jealous.

Image123: well, you are doing a good job troubleshooting, but i want to assure you that i have gone through the bolded, many times and did not for once have sleep paralysis. Not even by chance or mistake.

Image123: well, you are doing a good job troubleshooting, but i want to assure you that i have gone through the bolded, many times and did not for once have sleep paralysis. Not even by chance or mistake. Try harder, this is jetage?

Why the Big B@ng is No Help to Theists
Quentin Smith

Since the mid-1960s, scientifically informed theists have been ecstatic because of Big B@ng cosmology. Theists believe that the best scientific evidence that God exists is the evidence that the universe began to exist in an explosion about 15 billion years ago, an explosion called the Big B@ng. Theists think it obvious that the universe could not have begun to exist uncaused. They argue that the most reasonable hypothesis is that the cause of the universe is God. This theory hinges on the assumption that it is obviously true that whatever begins to exist has a cause.

The most recent statement of this theist theory is in William Lane Craig's 1994 book Reasonable Faith.[1] In it Craig states his argument like this:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.[2]

In a very interesting quote from this book he discusses the first premise and mentions me as one of the perverse atheists who deny the obviousness of this assumption:

The first step is so intuitively obvious that I think scarcely anyone could sincerely believe it to be false. I therefore think it somewhat unwise to argue in favor of it, for any proof of the principle is likely to be less obvious than the principle itself. And as Aristotle remarked, one ought not to try to prove the obvious via the less obvious. The old axiom that "out of nothing, nothing comes" remains as obvious today as ever. When I first wrote The Kalam Cosmological Argument, I remarked that I found it an attractive feature of this argument that it allows the atheist a way of escape: he can always deny the first premise and assert the universe sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing. I figured that few would take this option, since I believed they would thereby expose themselves as persons interested only in academic refutation of the argument and not in really discovering the truth about the universe. To my surprise, however, atheists seem to be increasingly taking this route. For example, Quentin Smith, commenting that philosophers are too often adversely affected by Heidegger's dread of "the nothing," concludes that "the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing" - a nice ending to a sort of Gettysburg address of atheism, perhaps.[3]


A Baseless Assumption

I'm going to criticize this argument from scientific cosmology, which is the most popular argument that scientifically informed theists and philosophers are now using to argue that God exists.

Let's consider the first premise of the argument, that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause. What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true? It's not self-evident; something is self-evident if and only if everyone who understands it automatically believes it. But many people, including leading theists such as Richard Swinburne, understand this principle very well but think it is false. Many philosophers, scientists, and indeed the majority of graduate and undergraduate students I've had in my classes think this principle is false. This principle is not self-evident, nor can this principle be deduced from any self-evident proposition. Therefore, there's no reason to think it's true. It is either false or it has the status of a statement that we do not know is true or false. At the very least, it is clear that we do not know that it is true.

Now suppose the theist retreats to a weaker version of this principle and says, "Whatever has a beginning to its existence has a cause." Now, this does not say that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause; it allows that it is possible that some things begin to exist without a cause. So we don't need to consider it as a self-evident, necessary truth. Rather, according to the theists, we can consider it to be an empirical generalization based on observation.

But there is a decisive problem with this line of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence that it is true. All of the observations we have are of changes in things - of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence. For example, we have no observations of people coming into existence. Here again, you merely have a change of things. An egg cell and a sperm cell change their state by combining. The combination divides, enlarges, and eventually evolves into an adult human being. Therefore, I conclude that we have no evidence at all that the empirical version of Craig's statement, "Whatever begins to exist has a `cause'," is true. All of the causes we are aware of are changes in pre-existing materials. In Craig's and other theists' causal principle, "cause" means something entirely different: it means creating material from nothingness. It is pure speculation that such a strange sort of causation is even possible, let alone even supported in our observations in our daily lives.

An Uncaused Universe

But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's causal assumption, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the Wave Function of the Universe. It has been developed in the past 15 years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features that our universe possesses, such as containing intelligent organisms. This remaining universe has a very high probability - near 100% - of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. The theory predicts that our universe has evenly distributed matter on a large scale - that is, on the level of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe - our universe has been expanding ever since the Big B@ng - would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called "inflation." Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe.[4]

So scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. If you want to be a rational person and accept the results of rational inquiry into nature, then you must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists uncaused, in accordance with the Wave Function law.

Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big B@ng, and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding.

Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the Wave Function of the Universe implies that there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says that the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is allpowerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective.

So contemporary scientific cosmology is not only not supported by any theistic theory, it is actually logically inconsistent with theism.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/smith_18_2.html

This consistency obtains, since in order to show that it is metaphysically possible that the universe comes to be without a cause, it is not necessary to show it is metaphysically possible that each thing comes to be without a cause in any situation whatsoever. It is sufficient to show that in one possible situation one thing comes to be without a cause and that every other thing is an immediate or remote effect of this one thing. For illustrative purposes, we may take the notion of "the big-bang singularity" from classical or standard hot big-bang cosmology. A finite universe is here thought of as beginning with a physical singularity that is spatially pointlike (i.e., has zero spatial dimensions), that exists for one instant only and that is not governed by any physical laws. The cosmologist Michael Berry writes that at the first instant of time "there is a finite amount of matter and radiation packed into zero initial proper volume; this 'point', however, includes the whole of space-there is nothing 'outside'."8 This point explodes in a "big bang," but this explosion is not governed by any physical law. Paul Davies writes of this singularity: "Anything can come out of a naked singularity-in the case of the big bang the universe came out. Its creation represents the instantaneous suspension of physical laws, the sudden, abrupt flash of lawlessness that allowed something to come out of nothing." The big-bang singularity explodes and becomes a three-dimensional volume of space filled with interacting particles and the universe henceforth evolves in a causally sequential manner.

The fact that the singularity gives rise to a three-dimensional space with matter does not imply that it is a physical law that the singularity give rise to something. There is no physical law in classical big-bang cosmology of the form "If there is a singularity, it must give rise to something at a later time." The singularity in fact gives rise to something, but this fact is unpredictable given the nature of the singularity itself. For example, there is no dispositional property of the instantaneous spatial point that manifests a physical tendency to explode into something else; the singularity could just as well have been followed by nothingness (more precisely put, it could have been the case, consistently with all the laws of classical big-bang cosmology, that the only instant that exists is the instant of the singularity).

Since no physical laws govern the singularity, it is the case that if it gives rise to something at a later time, it is most likely to give rise to random or arbitrary particle configurations (giving an overall state of maximal disorder) and is not likely to give rise to a highly ordered system such as a flower or ant. This, however, is not a physical law that governs the singularity, but is a probability calculation that is based on the fact that no physical law governs the singularity.


I do not want to endorse the claim that each thing but the big-bang singularity comes to be only if it has a cause; I have merely argued that it is possible for the universe to come to be uncaused if this is true. However, I will show how principle (P) can be made plausible. If there is a relevant difference between the big-bang singularity and other things, then (P) will be plausible.

There are two relevant differences, the first being that the singularity is the only thing whose coming to be is not governed by any laws. Each thing that exists later than the big-bang singularity, each particle, organism, etc., is governed by some laws (e.g., the super-symmetry laws, Darwinian laws, etc.). Since definitions of causality often make explicit or implicit reference to laws, it is natural to suppose that, if there is only one completely lawless thing, this thing will also be the only thing exempt from causality.

Second, the big-bang singularity is the simplest possible thing; it has zero spatial dimensions (it is pointlike), zero temporal dimensions (it is instantaneous) and is governed by zero laws. It is plausible that if only one thing can come to be without a cause, this thing will be the simplest possible thing. If this is the case and (P) is true, then the theory that the universe begins with a big-bang singularity will reflect the only metaphysically possible way in which a universe can come to be uncaused.



http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/cause.html

It is this point which is referred to by physicists as the initial cosmological singularity. This singularity is a point at which all the matter of our universe is compressed in an instant of one dimensional space. It is an endpoint without causal or temporal antecedents, existing as a literal border of space time. As a consequence of its inability to be described within the conventions of classical spacetime relations, the singularity is a point at which all the known laws of physics break down. As a consequence of its lawlessness, the singularity is inherently unpredictable, any configuration of particle emissions just as likely as any other. The explosion of this singularity into the present expansionary phase of the universe is what is referred to as the Big Bang.

The inherent lawlessness and unpredictability of the singularity has not fared well with many physicists, most notably the author of general relativity theory himself, Albert Einstein. Einstein found it difficult to accept the indeterministic implications of the singularity and its inherent unpredictability. As physicist George Smoot recalls,

One reason why Einstein initially rejected this implication of his general relativity theory was that, if the universe is currently expanding, then long ago it must have started from a single point. All space and time would have been bound up in that 'point', an infinitely dense, infinitely small 'singularity'. Hence it would be impossible to calculate what happened 'before' the singularity, as any calculations would yield nonsensical results. The singularity would be the ultimate barrier to human knowledge, and this struck Einstein as absurd.

Einstein did everything he could to avoid the singularity, including a failed mathematical attempt at eliminating the dynamic properties of the universe within the paradigm of general relativity. Using an arbitrary and ad hoc cosmological constant he was immediately forced to abandon, Einstein let his own metaphysical prejudices interfere with the acceptance of his own theory.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/greg_scorzo/kalam.html#2

What is Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a feeling of being conscious but unable to move. It occurs when a person passes between stages of wakefulness and sleep. During these transitions, you may be unable to move or speak for a few seconds up to a few minutes. Some people may also feel pressure or a sense of choking. Sleep paralysis may accompany other sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is an overpowering need to sleep caused by a problem with the brain's ability to regulate sleep.

Who Develops Sleep Paralysis?

Up to as many as four out of every 10 people may have sleep paralysis. This common condition is often first noticed in the teen years. But men and women of any age can have it. Sleep paralysis may run in families. Other factors that may be linked to sleep paralysis include:

a lack of sleep
a sleep schedule that changes
mental conditions such as stress or bipolar disorder
sleeping on the back
other sleep problems such as narcolepsy or nighttime leg cramps
use of certain medications
substance abuse


http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-paralysis

The Other Side of Time (2000)
Victor J. Stenger
University of Hawaii


In The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God, physicist Hugh Ross gives the following "proof of creation":





"The universe and everything in it is confined to a single, finite dimension of time. Time in that dimension proceeds only and always forward. The flow of time can never be reversed. Nor can it be stopped. Because it has a beginning and can move in only one direction, time is really just half a dimension. The proof of creation lies in the mathematical observation that any entity confined to such a half dimension of time must have a starting point of origination. That is, that entity must be created. This necessity for creation applies to the whole universe and ultimately everything in it."(Ross 1995, 80)

This claim is based on the ancient kaläm cosmological argument, which has been used in recent years by theistic philosopher William Lane Craig during his frequent debates on the existence of God and by many other theistic debaters who follow his lead. Craig states the argument as a simple syllogism (Craig 1979):



(1) Whatever begins has a cause.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Ross interprets that cause as the creation.

Note that Craig is not saying that everything must have a cause, which is a frequent misinterpretation. Only something with a beginning is supposed to require a cause. However, he gives no reason for (1) other than a kind of "metaphysical intuition."

While (1) can be challenged on a number of fronts, let me just mention one rebuttal that has been made from physics. Quantum electrodynamics is a fifty-year-old theory of the interactions of electrons and photons that has made successful predictions to accuracies as great as twelve significant figures. Fundamental to that theory is the spontaneous appearance of electron-positron (anti-electron) pairs for brief periods of time, literally out of "nothing." Thus we have a counter example to statement (1), something that begins without cause.

However, one might still argue that the quantum process, though random, is still a causal one. Rather than engage in a semantic dispute on this, let me move to statement (2) of the kaläm syllogism and attempt to show that the universe did not necessarily have a beginning. This will also serve to rebut another theist claim:

Ross also uses the kaläm argument to counter the common atheist taunt: "Who created God?" He claims that God is not confined to a "half dimension" of time, and so need not have been created. I take this to mean that if I can demonstrate the universe is not necessarily confined to a half dimension, then Ross, Craig, and other theists who use the kaläm argument will be forced to admit that the universe was not necessarily created. (Of course they won't).

For this purpose, it should be adequate for me to provide a scenario in which the universe occupies both halves of the time axis. I do not feel compelled to prove that this scenario is true, just show how this is possible within the framework of existing knowledge.

My scenario is provided by inflationary big bang cosmology. Ross, Craig, and I agree that the big bang is strongly supported by astronomical observations. Inflation remains less firmly established, but remains the only current theory that successfully explains a wide range of observations. Furthermore, the model is falsifiable, and so maintains good scientific credentials. Indeed, with the 1992 COBE observation of a 1/100,000 fluctuation in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background, inflation passed at least one risky falsification test.

Suppose the universe was at some point in time completely empty of matter, radiation, or energy of any type. It was about as nothing as nothing can be, a void. Physicists can still describe the void in terms of general relativity. It is completely flat geometrically, with space and time axes that run from minus infinity to plus infinity. Anything else and matter, radiation, or spacetime curvature would have to exist and this universe would no longer be a void.

In the absence of matter and radiation, Einstein's equations of general relativity yield the de Sitter solution, which simply expresses the curvature of space as proportional to the cosmological constant. When the universe is flat, this term is zero and the equation then reads: 0 = 0. This denotes the void.

This is the way things would have stayed were it not for quantum mechanics, which we can also apply to an empty void. The uncertainty principle allows for the spontaneous, uncaused appearance of energy in a small region of space without violating energy conservation . If that energy appears as matter (that is, rest energy) or radiation (kinetic energy of massless particles like photons), then it will have to disappear in a short time interval to maintain energy conservation. This can be expected to happen randomly throughout the spacetime void, with no significant permanent result.

However, another possibility exists that can lead to a quite significant and permanent result. The fluctuation energy can appear instead as spacetime curvature within this tiny region, which is called a "bubble of false vacuum." This bubble still contains no matter or radiation, but is no longer a "true vacuum" because of the curvature, as expressed by a non-zero cosmological constant. According to the de Sitter solution, the bubble will expand exponentially in what is called inflation.

The energy density is constant for a brief interval of time. As the volume of the bubble increases exponentially during that interval, the energy contained within also increases exponentially. Although the first law of thermodynamics may seem to be violated, it is not. The pressure is negative and the bubble does work on itself as it expands. By the time it has inflated to the size of a proton, in perhaps 1042 second, the bubble contains sufficient energy to produce all the matter in the visible universe today. Frictional processes (this is all in the equations--see Stenger 1990) bring inflation to a halt, particle production begins, and the familiar Hubble expansion of the big bang takes over.

We can label as t = 0 the time at which the initial quantum fluctuation takes place. The expansion then proceeds on the positive side of the t-axis, as defined by the increasing entropy on that side. As first suggested by Boltzmann a century ago, the direction of time is by definition the direction in which the entropy of the bubble universe increases.

Now, what about the negative side of the t-axis, the other half dimension? If we look at Einstein's equations, nothing forbids an expansion in that direction as well. Physicists usually simply ignore that solution because most share Ross's prejudice, expressed above, that time "proceeds only and always forward." But the equations of classical or quantum physics, including those of general relativity, make no fundamental distinction between the two time directions. Where that distinction appears, it is put in by hand as a boundary condition.

However, a completely time-symmetric solution of Einstein's equations for the vacuum will give exponential inflation on both sides of the time axis, proceeding away from t = 0 where the initial quantum fluctuation was located. This implies the existence of another part of our universe, separated from our present part along the time axis. From our point of view, that part is in our deep past, exponentially deflating to the void prior to the quantum fluctuation that then grew to our current universe. However, from the point of view of an observer in the universe at that time, their future is into our past--the direction of increasing entropy on that side of the axis. They would experience a universe expanding into their future, just as we experience one expanding into our future.

Would these different parts of the universe be identical, kind of mirror images of each other? Not unless physics is completely deterministic, which we do not believe to be the case. The two parts would more likely be two very different worlds, each expanding in its own merry way, filled with all the other random events that lead to the evolution of galaxies, stars, and perhaps some totally different kind of life.

This scenario also serves to explain why we experience such a large asymmetry in time, while our basic equations do not exhibit an asymmetry at all. Fundamentally, the universe as a whole is time-symmetric, running all the way from minus eternity to plus eternity with no preferred direction, no "arrow" of time. Indeed, the whole notion of beginning is meaningless in a time-symmetric universe. And, without a beginning, the kaläm cosmological argument for a creator fails because of the failure of step (2) in Craig's syllogism.

I have described a scenario for an infinite, eternal, and symmetric universe that had no beginning. The quantum fluctuation occurs at one particular spatial point in an infinite void. Obviously it could have happened elsewhere in this void as well. This multiple universe scenario is exactly what is suggested by the chaotic inflationary model of Andre Linde. While multiple universes are not required to deflate the kaläm argument, they can be used to provide a scenario by which the so-called anthropic coincidences may have arisen naturally. Again, this scenario cannot be proven, just presented as a possibility that provides a non-supernatural alternative to the theistic creation. For more discussion and further references, see Stenger (1999).

Finally, by showing that the universe did not necessarily have a beginning, we can counter another common theist line of argument used whenever the claim is made that a spontaneous "creation" violates no known physics. The theist will say, "Where did physics come from?" If their imagined God did not have to come from something, because she had no beginning, then neither did physics.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/vic_stenger/otherside.html

Finally, Flew says, “the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it.” I am surprised that such a noted philosopher cannot see the fatal flaws in the Intelligent Design argument, as exemplified by Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity”11 and William Dembski’s “design inference.”12 They assert that a complex system can only arise out of something with high intelligence. Although complexity is difficult to define, we can reasonably expect a highly intelligent entity to be highly complex. Thus, it can only have arisen out of something even more intelligent and complex, in infinite regress. It’s Intelligent Designers all the way down, not Aristotle’s first cause, as Flew seems to think.

Fortunately, we can avoid an infinite regress. We can just stop at the world. There is no reason why the physical universe cannot be it’s own first cause. As we know from both everyday experience and sophisticated scientific observations, complex systems develop from simpler systems all the time in nature—with not even low intelligence required. A mist of water vapor can freeze into a snowflake. Winds can carve out great cathedrals in rock. Brontosaurs can evolve from bacteria.

And our relatively complex universe could have arisen out of the entity that is the simplest and most mindless of all—the void.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/stenger_25_2.html

Fr0sbel: And atheists make perfect husbands, lol.