Kevin DeGraaf’s Blog

Since I have previously commented disparagingly about religion on this blog, this announcement shouldn’t be too surprising…

After over two decades of unanswered questions and two years of serious study, I have completely rejected not only Christianity but faith itself.

I wholeheartedly embrace the position of atheism. My mind is finally free of the burden of delusion!

Following are the contents of three emails that I have recently sent. The first is my initial announcement, and the second and third are responses to a family member and a former pastor, respectively.

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Am I hearing right that you have turned [atheist]? May I ask you what brought you to this decision?

That is correct, and I’d be happy to explain.

After a period of doubt and a great deal of reading and thinking, I came to the conclusion that there is no reliable, specific evidence to support a belief in the existence of a god or gods. Furthermore, there is plenty of solid evidence against such a belief.

I didn’t want to “de-convert”. As I struggled with ever-increasing doubt and tried to find answers to a wide variety of tough questions, I read plenty of Christian apologetics books and websites, trying to figure out how to remain a believer in light of all the problems and contradictions inherent in theism in general, and Christianity in particular.

Ultimately, I found all of the pro-God arguments to be unsatisfying rationalizations. I finally realized that the notion of “faith” itself is without merit — saying that something must be taken on faith is an admission that it can’t be supported with evidence and reason.

If you are interested, I will be glad to provide a slew of concrete examples and recommend some books and websites. However, it is not my intention to push atheism onto anyone against their will; I will understand if you don’t want to hear more.

I realize that this is a difficult thing to hear, because, as far as I am aware, you all take Christianity very seriously. Rest assured that my rejection of faith was based on analytical reason, not anger or bitterness of any kind.

I very much hope that all of my family relationships will remain intact and as un-stressed as possible. Lisa’s family all but turned their back on her when they initially heard about her decision (made about the same time as mine), and that was a very painful experience.

P.S. I suspect that you are going to worry that I am in danger of Hell. I realize that this would be a terrible feeling. The only consolation I can offer is that if you really think about it, the idea of a loving God damning people to eternal torture for the “crime” of thinking logically about religion is, to put it gently, absurd and barbaric.

Feel free to respond with any questions or comments.

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Kevin, what about your entire family?

As I said, I sincerely hope that my decision won’t negatively impact my family relationships. I’m still just as happy to visit you, attend family parties, help you with computer questions, etc. as I was before.

My faith in the Lord has been proven over and over again during my lifetime.

You are perfectly free to believe that, but unfortunately, that’s not evidence, and evidence is the only thing that will change my mind.

I do not believe faith has to be proven, the Lord said come unto me with child like faith, did you not have faith in you earthly Father to take care of you, so how much more your Heavenly Father loves and takes care of you I just cannot accept your reasoming, you are thinking much too deep. The Lord wants you to take Him on simple faith

Plenty of other religions (Islam, for example) have holy books that say that you should have faith in their god. Why do you reject Islam and Allah? It’s because you realize that there’s no evidence for their beliefs, and there’s a large amount of evidence disproving them. We can easily agree that Muslims have delusional beliefs.

All I’m doing is applying the same standard of logic and reason to Christianity.

Your own Scriptures claim that your god provided plenty of evidence for his existence back in ancient times. Why would it be so hard for an all-powerful deity to continue to provide solid evidence?

For example (and these are just a few of the many possible examples), one scientifically-observable pillar of fire, talking burning bush, or resurrection of a dead person, here in the modern age, would be far more than enough evidence to convince every atheist on the planet to convert.

I don’t understand why you think that I’m “thinking much too deep[ly]“. If Christianity were true, it would have nothing to fear from deep, probing, critical inquiry and analysis.

can you see the wind blow?

No. I’m not sure what that has to do with the subject at hand. My guess is that you’re trying to say that we know that wind exists even though it’s invisible.

My response would be that we know that wind exists because it’s very easy to see its direct effects (e.g. moving leaves, breeze on your skin, etc.) and to explain it scientifically (differences in air temperature).

We can agree that wind exists not because of blind faith, but because of evidence and reason.

I am praying that you will listen for His Holy Spirit and pray the day will soon come that that your entire generations cannot be wrong,Kevin I love you so much, Yes He is a God of Judgement and there is a heaven and hell

A belief is not automatically true just because it has been around for a long time or has been accepted by many people.

For a long time, it was widely accepted that lightning was produced by the imaginary god Zeus whenever he was angry. We now know, despite a large number of people believing that for a long time, that that is completely absurd.

This knowledge came to us through science. Rather than the blind-faith Zeus explanation, evidence and logic allowed us to study lightning and figure out what’s really behind it (electrical charges).

I am sorry but I must share my strong. strong faith in My Lord.

Thank you for sharing it. I don’t agree with it, but I’m glad that we can have a discussion nonetheless.

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Pastor (name withheld for his privacy):Thanks for your reply. I would like to address the points that you have made.

Wow! You took me by surprise with this note! I wish that you had spoken with me about your struggles with your faith in God before committing yourself to the path on which you are now travelling.

I should clarify for the record that I have not committed myself to atheism per se, but rather to the position that my worldview must be founded on logic, reason, and evidence. (Atheism is simply the inevitable result.)

This worldview is hardly indefensible. We all use logic, reason and evidence every day. We observe the world around us, gather knowledge from these observations, and put that knowledge to work in positive ways. All I’ve decided is to apply rational thinking to all aspects of my life; there is no longer any room for unproven superstition.

If you or any other religious apologist could provide a compelling rational (non-faith-based) case for a particular theistic belief system, I would gladly convert, as would, I suspect, virtually every other atheist on the planet.

It appears that you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book — subjecting God to the very limited resources of your (and my) puny mind. Do you really think that if God were small enough for our minds to understand fully or if he were governed by the very limited confines of human “rationality” that he would be a God worthy of our worship? Please. Satan used this trick on Adam and Eve long ago and has used it successfully with you and Lisa.

You are entitled to your opinion that I have fallen for a trick. I am equally entitled to my opinion, which is that religion is a delusion and that its existence can be explained through psychology and sociology.

(Please understand that I do not mean any disrespect when I use the word “delusion”. I am aware of its connotations, but I request that my usage
of that word be interpreted in the strictly denotative sense: a firm belief held in the face of contradictory evidence.)

The “God’s-ways-are-beyond-our-comprehension” argument is merely a rationalization.

Why do you reject Islam (or any other non-Christian religion)? Isn’t it because that belief system is not supported by evidence? Would you
accept a Muslim’s argument that a lack of evidence for Islam is not a bar to accepting it because Allah is too great or holy to be understood
by the “puny mind[s]” of mere mortals?

To quote a wise man: “Please.”

I invite you to consider the following: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts

Put more simply: why do you reject Allah, Zeus, Thor, Baal, and the tooth fairy? There’s no more evidence to support their existence than there is to support the existence of Yahweh.

Kevin, there are lots of things that you and Lisa and others who call themselves “atheists” still believe that are completely irrational.

Such as?

Let me defuse one popular anti-atheist argument right away: that we claim to know with absolute certainty that gods (Judeo-Christian or otherwise) do not exist. If I (or any other atheist) claimed any such thing, you would be justified in calling my worldview irrational.

However, that’s a particularly egregious straw man argument (a logical fallacy). The only safe generalization about atheists is that we lack theistic beliefs, principally (though not exclusively) because we are thoroughly unconvinced of their veracity. This is wholly different from claiming that deities absolutely do not exist.

(You might reply that I have described agnosticism, not atheism. This is a common misconception — atheism is a matter of belief, while
agnosticism is a matter of knowledge. I will be glad to elaborate further and/or provide references upon request.)

I don’t think that you are prepared to think about that just now but someday you might be. Give me a call when that day comes. I don’t mean to sound dismissive. You are sincere in your beliefs, I’m sure. It sounds like you’ve done some limited research and study. But if you’re serious about getting at the heart of the matter you will subject “atheism” to the same irrational criteria to which you have subjected theism.

I am very serious about “getting at the heart of the matter” and I’m somewhat rankled by your allegations that I am not “prepared to think about” these issues, or that my research and study have been “limited”.

I gladly welcome a discussion. I would prefer that it take place via email. Thank you for your time.

Is there any rational justification for this whatsoever?

Christian fundamentalists: if you enjoy being a group of grown human beings with an invisible friend, that’s your business. If you want to ignore the portion of your “holy” book that claims that the alleged son of said invisible friend magically produced alcohol for a party (and thereby endorsed its consumption), that is also your prerogative.

However, your religious blue laws have absolutely no place in free, civilized societies. How dare you push your delusional beliefs onto the rest of us, interfering with the right of private parties to utilize their property as they see fit and using the power of the government to suppress perfectly moral behavior because it, in your opinion, offends your imaginary friend?

For what it’s worth, I’m issuing a plea to email users everywhere: if you receive a message and feel the urge to forward it along, please engage your critical thinking skills instead of blasting it out to everyone in your address book. If an email makes too-good-to-be-true promises, warns of dire consequences for failing to take some action, or spreads vicious rumors about well-known people, there’s a good chance that it’s complete nonsense. Don’t assume that something is true simply because it came to you through the series of tubes in the interwebs.

Note: In this particular blog post, I’m not really arguing against the forwarding of jokes, optical illusions, brain-teasers, tests, religious stories and the like. While such forwards are irritating to most technically-savvy users of email, what I’m really complaining about are those email chain letters that make specific, absurd, and easily debunked claims about the nature of reality.

Example #1:

REMINDER 11 days from today, all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls. You will be charged for these calls! Even if you do not answer, the telemarketer will end up in your voice mail and you will be charged for all of the minutes the incoming (usually recorded) message takes to complete. You will then also be charged when you call your voice mail to retrieve your messages. To prevent this, call 888-382-1222 from your cell phone. This is the national DO NOT CALL list; it takes only a minute to register your cell phone number and it blocks most telemarketers calls for five years.

Example #2:

My name is Bill Palmer, founder of Applebees. In an attempt to get our name out to more people in the rural communities where we are not currently located, we are offering a $50 gift certificate to anyone who forwards this email to 9 of their friends. Just send this email to them and you will receive an email back with a confirmation number to claim your gift certificate.

Example #3:

Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided that a Black man named Alex Rackley needed to die. [...] Rackley was first tied to a chair. Safely immobilized his “friends” tortured him for hours by, among other things, pouring boiling water on him. When they got tired of torturing Rackley Black Panther member Warren Kimbro took Mr. Rackley’s outside and put a bullet in his head. [...] How in the world do you think that these killers got off so easy? Well, maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who came to the defense of the Panthers. These two people actually went so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers during their trial. [...] O.K., so who was the other Panther defender? [...] The other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical law student at Yale University at that time. She is now known as The Smartest Woman in the World. She is none other than the unofficial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from the State of New York - our lovely First Lady, the incredible Hillary Rodham Clinton. [...] And now, as Paul Harvey said; You know the rest of the story. Pass this on! This deserves the widest possible press. Also remember it when she runs for President.

All three of these letters either made it to my inbox directly, or were submitted to me for analysis. All three are, to put it gently, crap. The offer mentioned in Example #2 is ludicrous on its face. Example #1 is a well-intentioned, plausible-sounding warning, but it, too, is false. Example #3 is not only fabricated, but a disgusting personal attack.

A little bit of Googling will reveal the truth about these deceptive emails. In particular, I’d like to mention the excellent Urban Legends Reference Pages (a.k.a “Snopes”) website. This site contains an enormous repository of refuted hoaxes, including the three I mentioned: cell phones, Applebee’s, and Hillary. If you receive a suspicious email, verify its claims against Google and Snopes. It will almost certainly turn out to be garbage, and you should delete the email and/or set the sender straight.

The latter myth deserves further commentary. I am aware that several of my readers are die-hard Republicans who passionately loathe Hillary Clinton. Although I am not a Republican, I am not a Democrat either (as explained elsewhere, I am a Libertarian) and I’m not a fan of Hillary’s policies. However, when presented with blatantly-false trash-talk about someone, I feel compelled to stand up for the truth and protest the spread of bald-faced lies.

It’s one thing to vote Republican because you have given serious thought to a wide range of issues (not just abortion and gay marriage) and have come to honest conclusions, but it’s quite another to deepen an existing hatred of a Democratic candidate based on a completely fabricated story. It’s even worse to spread such misinformation, uncritically, due to a strong confirmation bias.