Why do atheists believe in love?

I think atheism can perhaps go beyond the lack of belief in god. I think it could extend to the disbelief of any supernatural or spiritual force whatsoever that exists outside the provable material universe – karma, fate, the soul, or spiritual detachment from any material matter. The universe is mathematics, end of story. To be an atheist means to be the ultimate materialist. For these atheists I have some questions. Please keep in mind the tone of these questions is not meant to be patronizing in any way. They're 1/2 my own thinking out loud, and 1/2 "devil's advocate" (haha, no pun intended). Humor me:

How can you fall in love?  Why do you even believe in love? To an atheist, love is just the chemical by-product of humans attempting to find a suitable mate with which to reproduce. Cows reproduce too, but they don't write sonnets. Also love extends far beyond just reproduction for survival, as evolution would imply. Once past the point of reproduction, a couple's love can evolve into a complex and difficult beast, and can be beautiful and inspiring as the decades roll on. And I believe homosexual couples are completely capable of falling in love, with no physical way of reproducing at all.

How can you believe in art? After all, a stunning painting is nothing more than light reflecting off a mix of pigments smeared onto a flat surface. Does a provocative film create rivers of tears from an audience all because of an optical illusion of innumerable still images flashing on a blank white screen for two hours?

How can you enjoy music? Thousands of sound vibrations coming from a bunch of metal strings stretched over a hollow piece of wood can't be anything but air molecules bouncing off your eardrum.

How can you have hope in anything? The outcomes of the future are mere statistical probability without purpose.

Why do you care if you ever hurt anyone else? I've heard atheists speak of their moral foundations as sort of a common-sense "moral rules of man". In a nutshell, don't do anything if it's going to hurt anyone else. But everyone's definition of "hurt" varies so greatly that's hardly a common-sense law. Plus, but why do you even care? If you hurt someone, there's nobody to punish you or hold you accountable other than the law that governs your place of residence, and if they don't see you do it, more power to you. Is it because you wouldn't want anyone to hurt you, so hopefully if the law applies to everyone than no one will feel motivated to hurt you?

Where do you find grounds for such a romantic idea as kindness? If the universe began with random chaos, it will end in random chaos. And so will your human life. With no justice or purpose. So why bother trying to justify any acts you do with morality or kindness for your fellow man or for the earth? There is no punishment for any ill act you do, if you are the ultimate definer of justice. And it makes no difference to make the world a better place, because it will all end in uncontrollable chaos anyway.

And forget something as silly as beauty. The reason a man finds a woman beautiful could be a mate-search honed by millions of years of evolved survival instincts. But who gives a shit about a sunset? Sitting on a sandy beach and being enveloped by a burning red and pink sky certainly never helped any species survive being eaten by another. In fact, you'd think it would be a detriment. I don't know why some ravenous animal hasn't developed a camouflage of a beautiful sunset. As some dumb human stops to admire, they get torn apart and gobbled up.

Humans have the ability to transcend these worthless and otherwise chaotic tangible things into a spiritual experience unlike any animal on earth (so far as we know). And it is unlikely that many of these spiritual experiences had any effect on our chances of survival as a developing species. So it seems they may exist for another purpose (or come from another source). For one to admit that they encounter any of these human states can be admitting to experiencing a non-material, non-mathematical facet of our universe. Give me all the formulas you want, but you just can't prove love.

Why focus on Christianity?

During my search for truth, I must admit that I have mainly been investigating and pondering God from a Christian viewpoint. My long-time friend and accomplished atheist Michael Doss pointed this out to me after my last blog post about the Christian apologetics conference I attended. Despite the fact that much of my search is rooted in aspects of a "god in general" (or lack there of), I must admit that Mike is right in my leanings toward Christian research. I think the main reasons for the general Christian perspective of my search are foundation and availability.

Ever since I can remember, the Christian god has been present in the culture surrounding my life. My family is Italian, so we're naturally Catholic, and we attended church regularly until I was about 5 or so. After my parents got divorced about that time, my mom started feeling like the church walls would collapse on her if she returned, so we stopped. Nonetheless, we still celebrated Christmas, complete with references to Jesus' birth. Although in our house it still felt like a pretty secular holiday, my mom still made plenty of Christmas decorations with angels and cute little baby Jesus Christmas cards. I've also had many religious friends throughout my childhood, and if I were to number them, I'd say they were about 80% Christian of some permutation, 15% Jewish, and 5% something else. And the influences of Christianity in current American culture are more pervasive than tweed jackets in the '70s. So the ambient exposure was certainly present.

Currently, I'd say Christianity among my close friends still heavily outweighs any belief system by similar proportions. I think I've been exposed to a few more involved ideas to say the least (including Mormonism, Wicca, Buddhism, and Atheism), however Jesus and the canonical Christian bible are still the pervasive ideas among my peers. That alone doesn't make them true necessarily, just very available.

So why would one commit their life and their eternal soul to something, other than the fact that their mom made adorable Christmas ornaments and their friends are doing it too? I'm discovering that Christianity has a very big differentiating factor: faith based on a foretold historical event, versus mere philosophy or the visions of one charismatic founder.

The one event is of course the execution and resurrection of Jesus, the prophesied Messiah of the Jewish people. Note: this article is not about the provable historicity of that event, I'm just using it as a point if reference for comparison.

Most other religions seem to share one general attribute: they are mainly based on philosophies, traditions, rituals, and sheer faith, and don't seem to rely on even remotely provable (or even implied) historical facts or events. Many of them also seem to have one visionary "founder". This includes Hinduism and most related Eastern religions (Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, etc); many of the ancient religions of the Celts, Egyptians, Greeks, Aztecs, American Indians, Mayans, Incans, etc; even current sects of Christianity such as Mormonism (and their sole visionary founder Joseph Smith) and Jehovah's Witnesses (sole founder Charles Russell). And I think everyone can agree that Scientologists are just freakin' wackjobs who buy their way into enlightenment.

It is in my personal opinion that the idea of betting your immortal soul on a tangible event allegedly witnessed by thousands, and then recanted under pain of torture and death by countless thousands has more grounds for consideration than one man's dream about the nature of the universe. Especially when the event in question was allegedly foretold hundreds of years before it took place. I'll add that the canonical texts of Christianity have had numerous, unrelated and widely varied authors over huge periods of time.

I feel Atheism is the only other considerable belief system, because it is based on nothing BUT historical events and provable facts. It also has countless contributors and scrutinizers of its texts over vast time periods.

I will still take interest in other major religions, because I'm on a journey for truth in whatever form (plus there is something very artistic I find in many ancient and exotic religions). However Christianity and its antithesis of Atheism will bear the brunt of my research, focus (and scrutiny for that matter).

Apologetics conference

My friend Christine informed me of an apologetics conference at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa that took place this past Friday/Saturday. Apologetics is sort of the discipline of proving and/or teaching why Christianity is a true and valid way of life. Since I've been on this complicated journey for the last several years, I decided it was right up my alley and I went. I must say it was very engaging.

I won't go into details about all the speakers we saw at the conference, but I will go over a few parts that stuck out in my mind. The first speaker we saw was Stephen Meyer with "Signature in the Cell: Evidence for Design". He was examining cellular and molecular biology for scientific proof of intelligent design. His biggest focus on "intelligent design" vs "naturalistic evolution" was the creation of the very first life – the first living cell in existence. He showed, quite compellingly, that the first cell complete with replicating DNA structures, proteins, functioning RNA, etc, was far too complex to have been brought together by random chance from random elements floating throughout the entire universe, let alone from a primordial soup on ancient earth. He also showed that usable and functioning information must be created by some pre-existing intelligence. For any information available to us today – WE are the pre-existing intelligence that created it. And DNA is ultimately, at its core, a living piece of information with a very specific purpose, which suggests that a pre-existing intelligence created it. And add that DNA and the functions of a living cell are more advanced than any technology humans have ever created. Meyer's presentation used many different scientific and logical approaches, without one quote of scripture.

Another moment that stuck out was during Norman Geisler's talk "If God, Why Evil?". This was a much more philosophical talk of course (and some scripture to boot). No science here, but quite a lot of general logic. One subject he discussed was why pain exists and how it is seen by many as an evil of the world and something that God should eradicate if he truly loves his people. He argued that God allows pain to exist because of this concept: pain is more effective of a teacher and builds more character than any pleasure. He used the example of a study done with people suffering from leprosy. Nerve damage is a common effect of leprosy, and many lose the use of their hands and feet due to repeated injury resulting from lack of sensation. A device was developed and attached to the hands of patients that would deliver a slight electric charge when the hand was about to be injured by something. The electric shock wasn't enough, and patients continued to injure themselves. The shock was increased dramatically (to be quite painful in fact), and it would work only the very first time, until the patients turned down the intensity themselves, to the point where it was no longer effective and they would injure themselves again. He said this proves three points about pain: 1) it has to exist to keep us out of harm; 2) it has to be strong enough to be effective; and 3) it has to be out of our control.

And Lee Strobel spoke about the legal investigation he undertook proving that Jesus Christ was in fact executed to the point of full death, and became alive again and interacted with approximately 515 people. He elaborated on the Romans' efficient ability to ensure death during their brutal executions, and the eyewitnesses who first discovered his tomb empty and later interacted with him. He quoted sources both within and outside of the Bible. I was hoping he would also touch on the historicity of Jesus (was he a real-life historical figure, or a compilation of myths from the ages), but that was not for this discussion apparently. Nevertheless he presented a good argument.

For any of you atheists out there who are shaking your head and automatically preparing your rebuttals, all I can say is maybe you should have attended the conference yourselves (I know I invited some of you!), because:
A) you might have had some widely-held misconceptions intelligently and justifiably challenged (as I did)
B) you should always continue to ask questions and seek new information
C) It's harder to justify arguing against something you didn't attend

I want the truth – both what's true in the tangible world and what's true in my heart. The information I got this weekend pushed some very strong arguments for not just Christianity, but even intelligent design. And I have to admit there have been many moments on this journey that tug at my heart like nothing in the physical world ever has; things that people say about God, or corrected misconceptions I've had about God's role in life, or what I see it do to people that make my eyes go wide like some life inside me is taking a breath for the very first time. I'm not getting all gushy or saying I love Jesus Hallelujah, I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em.

And to be fair, I'm willing to attend a seminar for atheism if there is one locally. Because how can I truly be looking unless I hear both sides of the argument?