How about we start by appointing an Atheist to the bench to replace Justice Scalia’s seat?

Have you ever heard the one where the Christian missionary knocks on the door of an Atheist’s house, “Do you have time to talk about Jesus Christ the Savior”, and the Atheist responds: “Sure, come on in, what would you like to know?”.  In the information age of the 21^st century, it is becoming more common for Atheists to know more about Christian history than Christians do. 

In January, I wrote a post suggesting there is a questionable issue in logical deduction among millennials;  in the United States as 87% believe the New Testament stories are factual.   The problem with the deductive reasoning of this 87% is there is a complete loss in inductive reasoning.

    

To review deductive reasoning is:

               Hypothesis -> Theory -> Observation -> Confirmation.

Inductive reasoning is:

               Observation -> Pattern -> Hypothesis -> Theory.

Christians are taught at a young age to know Jesus through deductive reasoning, meaning “Jesus is our Savior,  and you are saved because of him, it says so in The Book.”   Meaning the Hypothesis and Theory are built on the observation of the New Testament writings itself.  The writings in the New Testament are the Observation.  The deduction is confirmation from reading and praying of the text.

Consider the reverse, consider the inductive reasoning of an Atheist – consider you are the Christian missionary knocking on the door of an Adult’s house, not having the advantage of indoctrination of children in a controlled church environment, and you say:

Let me tell you about the popular belief that a celestial Jewish baby, born from a virgin mother, died for three days so that he could ascend to heaven on a cloud and then make you live forever.  But only if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as lord & master.  So he can remove an evil force from your spiritual being that is present in all humanity because a woman made from a man’s rib was hoodwinked by a talking reptile possessed by a malicious angel to secretly eat forbidden fruit from a magical tree.   .   . 

Sounds perfectly plausible, right?

The problem for Christians today is the growing atheist population understands:

1)      There are no books or writings contemporary to the time of the Jesus stories which survived that mention Jesus or Christianity.  The first writing history gives us is a 93CE paragraph from Josephus, which has been proven a forgery.  There are no other first century writings on the subject.

2)      Surviving books from the first century we have are what the Roman Catholic Church allowed to survive.

3)      Literature of any inductive reasoning was destroyed shortly after Rome adopted Christianity and outlawed all other ideology – i.e. much of history was destroyed at this time in the name of religion, highlighted with the burning of the Library of Alexandria (391CE).

Christianity is not plausible; it is a longshot of odds.  If I told you, someone, was hit by a car today in NYC, how much evidence you would require to believe my story?  Not much I suppose, as the story is very plausible.   But, as an adult, if I told you the “Rib -> Magical Tree -> Taking Reptile -> Virgin Birth -> Walk on Water -> Three-day Resurrection -> Eat his flesh and You will Beat Death” story would you not require just a bit of bottom-up reasoning?

  

This is why I suggested an educational problem with 87% of millennials taking the New Testament stories as history.  The other thirteen percent could easily be represented as simply those not brought up in Christian indoctrination.    Meaning the 87% represents almost a 100% success rate of Christian childhood indoctrination program.  If first-century history was taught at all in pre-college history courses in the U.S., at least one-quarter of this percentile would understand via inductive reasoning the Christian story is a human story of an ancient society which could not overcome adversity on their own due to being subjected to considerably superior and culturally dissimilar military force.   Christianity started as a grassroots organization promoting a savior god to allow hope for the subjected people of the time.

Also, a critical modern social studies course would teach the youth; lasting conditions of economic, social, and educational inequality allow for faith in a particular religious system to stay intact:

Consider the political movement and agenda of the evangelical right-wing.   It may or may not be intentional, but right-wing lobbyists fight for the removal of environmental protection laws, keeping the minimum wage low, continue to disallow single payer healthcare, and the fight against welfare programs; all of which play into the favor of promoting inequality, which, keeps religion attractive.   The push against a national minimal science education programs in the school system, and support for vouchers for private schools that can leave out subjects such as evolutionary biology, is a strike against STEM education; allowing religious ideas to be passed on to the next generation.  Laws against legal abortion - Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner have published substantial empirical data showing legalized abortion results in lowering crime and poverty rates; continuation of poverty helps to ensure the continuation of religion.  The battle against marriage equality by definition creates inequity.   Arguably, the two utmost important policies to worry about are the religious promotion of larger families and the right-wing’s disregards for environmental protection laws.  The combination of climate change and overpopulation will create resource contentions, which, could prove to be a self-fulfilling Armageddon policy. (http://axialinclination.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/what-does-silverback-gorilla-and-tower.html)

What is the point?  For me the point is to look at where America is today; Atheism is a growing movement that no longer needs to remain in the closet.  Putting reason before faith is the trend, but we have a long way to go.  Where to start?  How about we start by appointing an atheist to the bench to replace Justice Scalia’s seat?  Why not recognize the fastest growing world-view segment of today?  This will not happen unless YOU voice your views and come out of the closet.  Speak up!  And if you consider yourself an Agnostic, ask why – come out with our Atheist self!  Make it clear, Be open and make a difference.