Tag Archives: kentucky state fair

Don’t need God to tell us what is good

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“How do you know what is good without God?”

This is a question that one of the visitors to the Louisville Atheists booth at the Ky State Fair asked me after he read our banner slogan “Millions are good without God!” It was not hard for me to come up with a quick answer. “We define ‘good’ in human terms. We don’t need a God to tell us what is good.”

I’d like to expand on that answer a bit. After spending 10+ years as an atheist, it still shocks me a bit that some religious people seem to think we require supernatural revelation to tell us what is good.  When you eat a delicious and satisfying meal, do you need someone to tell you that it is good? When you feel wonderful about yourself after helping someone in need, do you need someone to tell you that your action was good? If you are angry and lash out at another person in your anger, do you need supernatural revelation to tell you that your action was not good?

I think not, and it doesn’t matter if you believe in any gods or not. We know that there are certain things and actions that bring love, and happiness, and fulfillment, and we call these things “good.” Others bring fear, and hate, and disgust, and we call these things “bad.” A large number of things and actions bring a bit of both good and bad into the world, and there we need to made a judgement call on whether the good is worth the bad.

During my conversation with this state fair visitor, I asked him if he saw any problem in the bad things in the Bible that God reportedly commanded. In particular, about the genocides described against the Amalekites and other “pagans” that God commanded the Israelites to destroy. His answer was the usual “God’s ways are higher than our ways,” and I think this simple yet mind-boggling phrase highlights what Christians means when they say we cannot know what is good without God’s help. Everyone knows that delicious food, funny jokes, and helpful actions are good, but what about all those things we would never guess could be good expect by divine revelation?

Things like:

  • Genocide (1 Samuel 15)
  • Sexism (1 Corinthians 11:7-12)
  • Homophobia (Romans 1:18-32)
  • Blood Sacrifice (recurring theme, specific examples probably not needed)
  • Substitutionary atonement, or the punishment of an innocent victim to pay for the wrongdoings of the guilty. (See also: scapegoating). This is the theological principle underlying the Christian notion that Jesus “died for our sins.”
  • Hell (need I say more?)

Even today, on the fringes of Christianity, there are parents who sincerely believe it is bad to take their sick child to the doctor, and good to beat their child for disobeying them.

There are things that under normal circumstances, any reasonably intelligent and honest person would see as harmful and bad. However, when it is presented to a person as part of their inherited or chosen religious tradition, that person will absolutely bend over backwards to justify these things and make them “good.” After all, God’s ways are higher, right?

So, we don’t need a God or any authority outside our own minds (individually or collectively) to tell us what is good, unless there is some motivation to present things that are really bad as good.

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Questions from Ky State Fair Visitors

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Tonight I had my second shift volunteering at the KySS/LAF Kentucky State Fair booth. It was a great evening, and there was lots of great conversations with both believers and unbelievers alike. Somewhat in contrast to last year, we have gotten less of the “drive by’s” (as described in my last post) and more Christians (and one Jewish guy) coming to chat and ask a lot of questions. I’m not sure if it is because we are doing something different a bit different this year or if the visitors at the fair are getting more used to our presence, but I have detected less hostility this year and a lot more of apparently honest and curious questions from the religious.

This is a sampling of the questions that fair visitors asked me while this year (and a brief version of my typical answer):

  • Are you atheists?

Yes, we are atheists.

  • Why don’t you believe in God?

Lack of any evidence or reasons to believe that such a person or being exists. This is not how I worded it, and I went into rather more detail in the booth, but it essentially comes down to this.

  • How do you know what is good without God?

We define “good” in human terms. We don’t need a god to know what is good.

  • So you believe the apes came first? (I had to pause a moment to avoid laughing at this one.)

Yes, I accept the theory of evolution as the best scientific explanation we have of how we came to be.

  • What does he (referring to the Darwin statue) have to do with the rest of this (referring to the rest of the booth)?

Darwin was an agnostic atheist (during at least the later part of his life) who made great scientific contributions to the world. Our booth features atheists and freethinkers who have contributed to the sciences, arts, and the advancement of human rights.

Watching unsuspecting state fair visitor’s reactions to the very lifelike statue of Charles Darwin standing in front of our booth…priceless.

  • What do you think happens when you die? (I was asked this at least 4 times by different people tonight.)

I think that when we die we cease to exist, same as the state we were in before we were born. The only part of us that lives on is the change that we made in the world. And I am totally content with that.

  • If there is no God then where did we come from?

Generally though natural scientific processes like evolution, but I don’t really have a quick and easy answer to that question. And I don’t need to have a quick and easy answer to that question. Just because we don’t know all the answers does not mean we should fall back on “God did it.”

  • If there is no God where did the universe come from?

I don’t know. And answering a question that you don’t know the answer to with “God did it” is a very poor way of dealing with the question.

  • Do you believe in the Big Bang?

I understand the Big Bang as the best supported scientific explanation so far of how the universe came to be. And then I explained some about the cosmic background radiation, expansion of the universe, the predictive power of scientific theory, and a bit about why scientists mostly accept the Big Bang today.

EDIT: Here are a couple of questions I was asked by a couple of Christian teenaged girls that found their way to our booth. (They also repeated some of the questions above.) I forgot to include these last night but that I don’t want to leave them out.  

  • Why are you here (that is, why do you have a booth at the state fair)?

Our primary reason for being here is to reach out other atheists and freethinkers who are surrounded by religion in their daily lives and may not know that there are other people in this state who see the world the way that they do. The social and psychological pressures on atheists can be enormous in a situation where we must hold our thoughts to ourselves for fear of judgment or worse, sometimes from people like parents and bosses who hold a lot of power over our lives.

  • (As a followup to the question above) What was the reaction from your family when they found out you were an atheist?

In answer to this I briefly recalled the story about how my Mom found “infidels.org” in our computer history and asking me why I had chosen the “church of the infidel.” Yes, my newly-found perspective on the truth was not well received in my childhood home, though I know of others who have received much worse from going against the religious opinions of their parents. It caused a lot of tension until I finally moved out and got my own place, and it was helpful for me to find other people that I could talk to about it. Fortunately today I have a good relationship with my Mom and we generally avoid talking about our disagreements on religion.

In general these were nice, productive exchanges and I have a feeling that several believers left the fair with at least one positive experience with an atheist.

 

At the Kentucky State Fair tonight!

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It is time for the Kentucky State Fair, and for the third year in a row, the Kentucky Secular Society and the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers will be representing. Tonight, I will be volunteering in the KySS booth from from 6-10pm. I am a bit of a veteran at this by now, having volunteered at the booth for the past two years, and I am taking a bit of time to reflect on past experiences I have had with the people who have come to visit our booth.

Tell most people that you are presenting a public face of atheism to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and they will look at you like you are just a bit crazy. But after driving around Louisville with a Darwin Fish or a similar symbol on my car for over ten years now, I’ve found it’s not quite as scary as people seem to think. But then, I suppose it depends on who you come in contact with on a daily basis. If you have a highly religious boss, family, or if many in your close circle of friends are highly religious then open expressions of disbelief will be rather more intimidating. And that is the main reason we have an atheist booth at the State Fair. To reach out to the lonely atheists and doubters out there who are surrounded by religiosity and think there is no one else in Kentucky that thinks like they do.

Lots of these people come by our booth and give us the thumbs up and thank us and comment that they thought they were the only atheists in Kentucky. These are the fun and easy interactions, and the thing that keeps up coming back year after year. We do also get folks who come to argue with us, to tell us all about their expertise in biblical prophecy, or to inform us that “every knee will bow,” or to condescendingly declare that they will pray for us poor sinners. And we seem to get a lot who just shout out some Christian slogan and then walk right on by. It will be my goal this year to remember that these are just fine people who are trying to go on with their lives, and we have just declared something so shocking to them that it threatens to upset the whole applecart of their thinking. “We are atheist, and proud of it.” My goal this year will be to remember to have some compassion for these people and not to get angry at them.

My other goal is to interact with a lot of people and have some fun!

More updates and information about the KySS State Fair Booth at http://www.KySecularSociety.org.

The Atheist Booth at the Kentucky State Fair

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KySS KY State Fair Booth 2011For the second year in a row, there is a atheist-themed booth at the Kentucky State Fair. Last year, there was a billboard sponsored by the Coalition of Reason posted right outside the fairgrounds though the entire month of August that declared “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” The billboard is what prompted the idea for us to have a matching state fair booth at the fair, along with a banner to match the billboard (now being displayed in our current booth at the front of the display table.

Last year we got some media attention, mainly around the billboard but also with the fair booth as a followup story. But don’t think we are saddened by the lack of media attention this year–when people are no longer shocked at the “atheist booth” and get used to the fact that we are here, that is a sign of progress.

My first shift at the booth was on Friday evening, from 6-10. The way the shifts are scheduled, there are 2-3 people there for each shift. Just as last year, we have had no trouble at all finding members who are willing to step up and volunteer, and the shift schedule was filled out just about a week in advance of the fair’s opening date. Having multiple volunteers there makes it a lot more fun than if there were only one person, and it is invaluable for moral support and input in case any debates arise, and they always do. There is one main purpose to the booth, to reach out to our fellow secular citizens and let them know we are here. However we also make the most of the discussions with those who disagree with us. With Kentucky being a majority Christian state, we always have people coming by our booth who are not so pleased at our message. The responses have ranged from a puckered facial expression after they read our banner to declarations that “one day every knee will bow!” And of course, we do get asked from time to time if we are worried about hell, to which I would say “there is no hell.” We also have had long and frank and civil discussions about everything from where morals and values come from to the reliability (or lack thereof) of the Bible to whether or not America is a Christian nation. And the way I see it, regardless of the outcomes of these discussions it is a very positive thing for the religious to be in discussions with atheists in person, rather than only hearing what the preachers and the media have to say about us. We are putting a live, breathing, speaking human face on atheism in Kentucky.

And the discussions are great, but the best reward that we see daily are the surprised “thumbs-ups” and the grateful expressions of someone coming by and saying “I thought I was the only atheist in Kentucky.” This is the prize that makes all of the effort and debating worth it.

If you are interested in meeting with atheists and freethinkers in Louisville or in other areas of Kentucky, take a look at The Kentucky Secular Society and Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers.