Prof. Matt McCormick
Department of Philosophy
California State University,
Sacramento
[email protected]
www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mccormickm
www.atheismblog.blogspot.com
I propose to turn that argument
around completely. Not only is it possible
to be a moral person without a belief in
God, there are some very good reasons for
thinking that in many cases believing in
God is itself actually immoral.

Step 1: Admit you have a problem.

Step 2: Identify the Problem




you know are false,
contribute to the confusion or false beliefs of others,
encourage supernatural, spooky, non-critical, fuzzyheaded thinking,
foster fear and anxiety.

encourage complacency about social problems and the
future of humanity on this planet.
Rapture
Index
The prophetic
speedometer of
end-time activity
Today’s
Rapture
Index is 159
Net change:
+1

stall our progress in dealing
with new, complicated and
important moral issues.
• encourage cultural and ethnic strife.

Foster social injustice,
hatred, cruelty, and
intolerance.

undermine the advancement of science.

encourage a historically outdated, over-simplified
worldview.

contribute to the stagnation of human progress.

have no compelling evidence in their favor.

give people false hopes.

are self-deluding.

foster fear, confusion, and fuzzy, magical thinking in
children.

foster false beliefs in children.

impede children’s acquisition of our most important, modern
advancements in knowledge.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if you have
more to fear from the
corruption of religion on your
reason than what many
religions would have you think:
Satan seeks to corrupt your
religious faith.

The ancient Greek’s had a concept of akrasia which is acting
against one’s better judgment or having a weakness of will.
Isn’t it true that your belief in God fits many, most, or all of the
conditions we considered before?

We’ve elevated the abdication of reason in matters of religion to a
noble virtue instead rejecting it for the dangerous and demeaning
practice that it is.

So they permit themselves to "believe” in the God idea in the "hope"
sense of "believe." ("I believe that my husband will make it home
safely from Iraq.")

Then we find ourselves surrounded by like- minded people who
feel the need to believe(hope).

We rationalize, we blur, and we feel more and more strongly that this
thing that we want to believe really isn't just a hope, it's correct, it's the
truth.

It exploits weakness of the will because we want the
God idea to be true.

We find a way to get what we want and to satisfy our
reason: we believe at first because we hope it is true, and
we enslave our reason to making it seem like the hope
has a legitimate claim to the truth.

The Problem:
1. We have a powerful God urge.
2. Many of us indulge that urge by believing even
when we know better.
3. That ill-gotten belief can lead to many awful actions
and effects.
4. Akratic beliefs are bad.
The Solution:
1. Recognize the urge for what it is.
2. Take steps in our minds and lives to contain it.
 What
we need is a twelve step program
for God beliefs and religiousness.

"Hi, I'm Matt and I've been clean since
1982."