If I were a religious Jew, I’d have to stay away from pork, but now that I’m a heathen, I can easily deal with ham, especially if its first name is Ken.  I have mixed feelings about Ham’s latest post, “Is religion ‘harmful superstition’?”, at his Answers in Genesis site: I suppose it’s gratifying that such a famous religious wacko thinks me worth bothering with, but on the other hand I get covered with his ridiculous blather, and then, to boot, damned to hell.

The basis of Ham’s piece is my recent interview in National Geographic , which was called “In age of science, is religion ‘harmful superstition’?”, and of course my answer was “yes.” This was based on the Oxford English Dictionary‘s definitions of “superstition,” of which there are three relevant to religion. (In FvF, I stick to the OED for definitions so that people can’t accuse me of cherry-picking definitions of stuff like “faith” or “fact”.) Here they are:

SUPERSTITION

II. Senses relating to belief.

Religious belief or practice considered to be irrational, unfounded, or based on fear or ignorance; excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.

A widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially as leading to good or bad luck, or a practice based on such a belief.

Religious belief or practice considered to be irrational, unfounded, or based on fear or ignorance; excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.

Based on those definitions, and because I see nearly all religions as unfounded and irrational—and largely based fear and ignorance—religion is clearly a superstition. Believers, of course, would deny that, but they’re wrong. It’s no different in kind from not stepping on cracks to avoid bad karma, but of course is more elaborate than crack avoidance.

Ham is one of those believers who denies his faith is superstitious, and it is with some cognitive dissonance that I must report that he agrees with me on the incompatibility of evoution and faith:

Now, we’ve written about Coyne before. He’s a very outspoken critic of creation and promoter of evolution. Actually, I’ve pointed out that he seems to understand how absolutely incompatible evolution and biblical Christianity are more than even most Christians!

But of course as founder of the Creation Museum (and the troubled Ark Park), Ham takes issue with my science:

[Coyne] makes specific reference to the doctrine of creation and how evolution has supposedly disproved the beginning chapters of Genesis. Of course, he completely ignores the major problems with evolutionary ideas about the past. The article also includes a photo and brief description of the Creation Museum.

So be it. He’s wrong about evolution, too, though thousands of credulous sheep follow him and are indoctrinated (at their own expense) by the Creation Museum. But where he goes doubly wrong is when he turns the tables on me, claiming that the “harmful superstition” is not religion, but atheism!

First, he characterizes atheism as a religion:

But what Coyne would refuse to admit is that atheism itself is a religion. It’s a set of beliefs through which atheists view and interpret the world, and they hold to this worldview with ardor and blind faith—despite the inconsistencies and irrationality of the religion! So, then by Coyne’s own definition, his religion of atheism is nothing more than superstition! And his religion contains irrational beliefs—it goes against the laws of nature, the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and observational science, which confirms that the naturalistic explanation for the origin of life is impossible!

So let us turn once again to the OED and see what “religion” is, a definition I put in FvF:

RELIGION: Action or conduct indicating belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power; the performance of religious rites or observances.

Of course this excludes certain sects or philosophies that are seen as “religious,” like Confucianism or Jainism, but it certainly characterizes the Abrahamic religions that dominate the West. And if you accept that definition, then atheism is certainly not a religion. It is not a belief, but a lack of belief; and it has no gods. In that respect it cannot be “blind faith.” Nor are there atheistic rites or observances.

The last sentence of Ham’s paragraph, in which he claims that atheism violates the laws of nature, logic, and so on, is basically incoherent. Atheism in fact respects the scientific method by dismissing or minimizing the existence of gods because they’re asserted without evidence. As for the “naturalistic explanation for the origin of life,” well, we don’t have a widely accepted one yet, but we certainly don’t deem it impossible. Only diehard religionists say stuff like that. It’s time for those who claim that atheism is a faith to ante up and explain why.

And, in fact, atheism is not a worldview, either. There are conservative atheists (e.g., S. E. Cupp) and liberal atheists, although more of the latter than the former since conservatives a). tend to be religious and b). have less respect for evidence that contravenes their emotional commitments. The only way atheism can be construed as such is that we accept naturalistic over supernaturalistic explanations. But that’s not really atheism, either—it’s science.

Ham then moves on to his main argument, “Atheism is unfounded and irrational”:

You see, atheism’s worldview is completely unfounded and irrational. For example, according to atheistic ideas about the origin of the universe, everything came about by naturalistic, material processes. But if everything is the result of material processes, how did completely immaterial laws of nature and logic come about? Where do they come from? And if our universe truly is the result of random processes, then why do these laws work consistently everywhere throughout the universe? And why do they work the same today as they did yesterday? In a naturalistic worldview, there is no answer to these questions!

The answer, my dear Ham, is that science doesn’t know the answers to these questions, although one of them might be “that’s simply the way things are.” Ham’s own explanation, of course, is God, but then, as Hitch used to say, all the work is still before him. What is the independent evidence for that God? Surely it can’t be the uniformity and constancy of the laws of physics, for then one has to explain why that would show there is a God. Why couldn’t God make the laws differ over space and time? (In fact, they likely differ among universes in the multiverse model.)

After all, some creationists (Ham may be one) explain the appearance of an old Earth by suggesting that the rate of radioactive decay used in dating methods has slowed down over time, misleading us about the Earth’s age. And they explain the fact that we see light emitted from stars billions of years ago by positing that God created that light in transit, another violation of the constancy of physical law. (Alternatively, the speed of light might have decreased as well.) Finally, why is there a God, and what did He do before he created the universe? Saying that He existed forever, of course, is no answer at all, for that’s a declaration without evidence. It’s no more convincing than saying, “That’s just the way it is.” He continues:

Later on in the interview Coyne again exposes the irrationality of his worldview when he says, “The less a religion has to do with a tangible God, the less it hands out moral dictates and the better it is. Once you believe in an absolute authority that tells you what to do, you’re heading down the road to perdition, I think.” So first he implies that moral dictates are a bad thing (which, in itself is a moral dictate!), but then he says that he believes in “perdition,” which implies that he believes in moral absolutes or at least morality. But Coyne can’t have it both ways! He can’t say that “moral dictates” and “absolute authority” are part of what make religion bad, and yet still believe in and espouse moral dictates as if he and his religion are the absolute authority! It’s utterly hypocritical, inconsistent, unfounded, and irrational.

The above is also incoherent. I clearly meant “moral dictates” as “those instructions supposedly dictated by god.” I certainly think there are behaviors that are good or bad for society at large, and I won’t beef too much if people call those “moral” or “immoral” respectively. Ham clearly fails to realize that the ills of religously-based morality come from two differences with secular morality. First, religious morality is absolute, so it can’t accommodate changes in society, like altered attitudes toward gays, that move us forward on the moral arc. Second, religious morality is ostensibly based on the dictates of a bullying, miosgynistic, and egocentric god who demands worship and fealty, so it can’t possibly be constructed to foster a just society. If it does change, it does so under pressure from secular reason.

Finally, Ham consigns me (and most readers here) to perdition. Note the assurance with which he informs us of our fate—an assurance based on no evidence at all save ancient mythology. I, for one, am comfortable in rejecting Christ as a savior.

So, it’s not Christianity that is “harmful superstition”—it’s atheism! And atheism is harming Coyne and those who read his books and listen to his talks. You see, as an atheist, Coyne believes that when he’s dead, that’s it—he’s dead. But that’s not what’s going to happen when he dies. He will spend eternity somewhere, either separated from God in hell or with God for eternity in heaven. His religion is harming him even now as he lives in rebellion against his Creator, and it will harm him for eternity if he and other atheists and unbelievers like him do not repent and turn to Christ for the free gift of salvation that He offers because of His death and Resurrection.

We need to pray that Coyne and others like him will turn to Christ and be saved. Sadly, he believes a fictional story (evolution) as his justification to rebel against our Creator God.

Thanks for your prayers, Ken. Could you also sacrifice a goat?

If I had one wish about believers like Ham, it would be that somehow they would come back to a moment of consciousness after death and realize that, after all, it’s simply oblivion. That’s the one “out” card that the faithful have: they’ll never know how wrong they were.

h/t: Robin