With Due Respect: Are children born atheist?

 

Children attending a Japanese church, 2023

In the 2006 book God Delusion, famous atheist biologist Richard Dawkins asserted that "There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents".

He also tweeted that "Babies have no religion".

In such statements, Dawkins assumes that infants are born with no inclination to religion, and religious ideas are taught to them, rather than learnt naturally. However, he fails to account for a few things.

Babies are naturally religious
In most studies, infants are seem to accept teleological answers over purposeless ones. For instance, children are more likely accept that "Rivers exist so that we can go fishing on them, and birds are here to look pretty". They see the natural world as purposeful and designed by a higher being. 

Even if their parents are atheists, they tend to understand that their parents (and therefore humans) are imperfect and therefore prescribe supernatural abilities to a creator of the natural world. 

Based on such research, British philosopher Charles Foster (in his 2010 book Wired for God) concluded that atheism was not a default or natural belief for humans, but it was something that had to be taught.

Singaporean children, or children with Singaporean parents? 

Genetic fallacy
Another classic fallacy that Dawkins is committing is the genetic fallacy. He attempts to disapprove the validity of a belief by stating where it came from (i.e. the parents). This line of argument is false as the origin of the argument has little to do whether a claim is true.

Just because the abusive Imperial Japanese used aircraft carriers to sink allied ships does not mean that this strategy is bad or false.

Conclusion
Whether a baby's default state is religious or irreligious does not prove or disprove the existence of God. Truth is beyond genetics and culture.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Theology 1.0: What is religious capital?

 

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria, 2010

One trend that continues to interest sociologists is the persistence of religion, even in heavily secularised communities. One popular way to explain such a trend is the idea of "religious capital".

Religious capital is investment of time, effort and resources one puts in a faith. Popularised by sociologist Rodney Stark (in his 2007 book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success), this idea is used to explain that people tend to behave in a way to reduce losses in religious capital.

For instance if a classical Protestant stops believing in his current system, he would tend to move towards Roman Catholicism, rather than atheism, Buddhism or Islam. This is because there are more shared practices and beliefs between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Origin
In the early 1960s, there was a persistent idea that as societies become more modern and educated, the number of religious people would drop. The reasons were manifold - many states became secular or explicitly atheistic (like communist regimes), rise of multicultural societies (leading to less unity of values) or that education who rid of old ideas of religion. In his 1999 book, Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice, Steve Bruce actually predicted that religion would disappear based on his observations in Western Europe.

However, there were many countries in that bucked the trend. South Korea went from 20.7% Christians in 1985 to 27.6% in 2015. The proportion of non-believers remained roughly steady from 57.3% to 56.9% during that same period. In the Eastern European country of Latvia, the percentage of non-religious people stayed relatively steady from 28% in 2000 to 29% in 2018. The number of Christians decreased slightly from 69% to 64% during the same time period.

Christian display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2017

Thus the idea of "religious capital" was proposed to explain why religious people do not simply give up their belief and practices to embrace atheism or irreligiosity, but would rather embrace another religion.

What is usually suggested is that the actual decline is in the nominally religious (such as the "cultural Christian"), i.e. people who profess a faith superficially. In other words, people who put in little religious capital either become even more religious or less religious as society progresses.

In this aspect, religious capital makes sense. Looking at the United States from 1990 to 2008, Christian denominations which focused more on articles of faith (such as profession of belief etc, and thus more investment in religious capital) experience increases or little change in numbers, (Catholics +24.3%, Presbyterians -5.3% and Evangelical +294.5%). On the flip side, Christian denominations which require less investments in religious capital experience more drops (eg: Methodism -19.8%, Episcopal -21.0%).

Alternative culture: I'm a committed atheist, but my child has become religious – and I'm proud of her for challenging my indoctrination

Recently, I saw an interesting article in the Independent. An atheist write on how she is proud to send her daughter to a Christian school. In fact, both her and her husband did not object to their daughter's conversion to Christianity.

I found it impressive that the couple recognised that belief and non-belief was a matter of choice, and allow their daughter to choose according to her conscience.

Being open-minded
What I admire about this couple is the willingness to accept that their daughter may have a different viewpoint from them, and allowed her to follow through.

With Due Respect: I don't need to prove my disbelief!

The metal Magnesium burning

I don't have to prove a negative statement!
Many of my atheist friends make the following claim--

1) To claim there is a God is a positive statement.

2) The default position is to claim there is nothing or no relation.

3) Hence due to insufficient proof (or convincing statements) there is a God, it is reasonable to claim there is no God.

And this reasoning has some similarities to the scientific method. Scientists who propose a hypothesis of a realtionship between Factors A and B, must first maintain the null (or default) hypothesis that there is no relation between A and B, and seek to prove the relationship (i.e. to show their null hypothesis wrong).

And this resonable, but I challenge is the  line of logic on two fronts.

I) There is insufficent proof of God
There has been many philosopherical attempts to prove the existance of God. They include the Kalam cosmological argument, St. Anselm's ontological argument and the teleological argument. However, I am not a philosopher, so I cannot expound these argument enough to do this justice.

Nevertheless, I want to focus on the life, death and reserrecution of Jesus Christ, the ultimate claim for God.

As pastor Timothy Keller (2008) said,
“In the Christian view, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ."

 I invite everyone and anyone to examine the existance of Jesus carefully. Here was someone who claimed He was God. Either He is and then everything about Him matters, or he isn't and nothing about him matters. There is no middle ground to wait upon.

II) You cannot prove a negative
Another line of logic atheist rely on is that they do not have to prove a negative, or a negative position is unproveable.

But of course we have to prove a negative claim-- imagine the government claims you owe them $100,000 in overdue taxes. You have to prove a negative-- the fact that you don't owe them money.

Even in science, we have to explain and provide evidence on why our null hypothesis makes more sense than the assertion of a relationship.

Furthermore, if one is to assert that disbelief is an unproveable position that does not require proof, then why believe in something with no evidence? After all, if atheists demand evidence, then it is a contradiction not to provide any for their view.

Conclusion
To disbelief in something is to provide a positive statement on a negative claim. In other words, even that claim needs to evidence.

References
 Keller, T.J. (2008). The Reason for God.


For further

With Due Respect: Christianity is like atheism, just one God less!

It is often touted that Christians are actually atheists. The author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins has said that Christians are actually atheists with respect to Greek gods (such as Zeus) and the Norse gods (such as Thor and Odin).

But it makes no sense!

However, what defines an atheist is the lack of belief in ALL gods, not just simply one god. To make the statement that "Christianity is like atheism, just one god less" is like saying "marriage is like singlehood, just one relationship less".

If you allow me to extend the analogy, suppose Gentleman A is married to Lady B. Would it be right to say that Gentleman A is single with respect to unmarried Lady C? Of course not! Gentleman A would still be married to Lady B with (or without) respect to Lady C.

Similarly, a Christian is still as Christian in the light of Zeus or Odin.

Isn't the atheism the default state?

I'm not too sure about this assumption either. Recent research (Barrett, 2004; Foster, 2010*) has revealed that if anything, children are born religious. They seem to start a belief that some supernatural agent is responsible for the workings of the world. In other words, atheism was seen to be something to be learnt, rather than a default state to maintain.

While this observation certainity does not prove Christianity or atheism true, one must not be to hasty to conclude atheism is the default state.

Conclusion

While it may sound cool, sweeping statements like "Christianity is atheism with one less god" does not hold water. The Christian must be wary in engaging in such word games-- while it may be fun, Christians are dealing with people's eternal destinies.


References

Barrett, J. (2004) Why Would Anyone Believe in God?

Foster, C.A. (2010) Wired for God?

* Foster is not a scientist, but rather a lawyer. However, he wrote a review about the biology of religion in Wired for God? which is interesting to read.

With Due Respect: Who created God?

God as first cause
One of the common arguments for the existence of God is the assertion of God as first cause. In other words, the presence of a finely-tuned created universe implies the presence of a creator (Rees, 2003).

However, the common rebuttal to this is that if God had created the universe/world/nature, what/who created God (Dawkins, 2006)?

This is a retort makes two suggestions:

1) That the answer of "God" only pushes the question of origins one step further back.

2) That a complex god that could create a complex creation is sufficiently complex enough to require an explanation.

Biblical interpretation
Christian doctrine generally teaches that God is eternal and thus have no origin (eg: Psalms 90:2 and Psalms 90:4).  To put it simply, God is the creator of time, and can exist outside time and thus is able to see the history itself.

On the other hand, some Bible scholars has pointed out that God is portrayed in Scripture as acting in time (Boyd, 2007). For instance, in Genesis 18, Abraham negotiated with God over the fate of two evil cities. Nevertheless, there is no compelling reason why God cannot exist out of time and be able to act within it at the same time.

The infinite regression problem
Answers from the Bible are very unlikely to convince the unbeliever. While many belivers find it satisfying as a solution to an infinite regression problem (if A was created by B, who was created by C, who was created by D... who created E, F, G,.... etc), some non-believers view the "God" answer as a cope-out to avoid questions about origins. If pointed out that God just came to be (ie God as first-cause and self-existant), it can be argued that the same is true of the universe.

However, if the universe did not have a cause, it would be immense difficultly to discuss the origin of the universe as a concept. While it may be argued that the universe "just came to be", it would also hardly be the satisfying answer the sceptic would seek.

Rephrasing the question

Ultimately, the nature of the questioner (both the theist and the atheist) must presume something-- whether everything, including the universe has a cause. If so, then the theist must somehow defend "God" as his answer, while the atheist will be left to the problem what the first cause is.

However, if not everything needs to have a cause, then the question of "who created God?" is meaningless.


Also check out:
Biologos

References
Dawkins, R. (2006) The God Delusion

Boyd, G. (2007) God of the Possible

Rees, M.J. (2003) Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shaped the Universe