How do we have better conversations about theological doubt?
By: Stephen Dvorak
Tags: Christianity, Doubt, Faith, Atheism, Communication

On July 15th, 2015, I wrote in a journal entry, “I think I’m an atheist.”

I still remember how reluctantly I typed those words, and how terrifying it was to see them delineated clearly on the screen in front of me. Never had I considered that I would ever think or say those words, but I had arrived at the end of a trying, eight-month-long reexamination of my beliefs that began as an attempt to strengthen my faith by discovering weaknesses in my arguments and pursuing those weaknesses until I had eliminated them. What I thought was going to result in the enhancement of my capacities as an evangelist and a glorifier of God resulted in the dismantling of my worldview, and the necessity to build it anew.

Five years of secrecy ensued, in which I played the role of a liar and maintained the appearance of faith in God. My lifestyle didn’t change; I had never been interested in the prohibited activities of drinking, smoking, or using drugs. My public speech was untainted by vulgarity. At my place of employment at the time, a truly evil specimen of human (whom I consider a very good friend) began the rumor that I was Amish, and, somehow, there was more than one person that was led astray by the slander for at least some period of time. Even by comparison to many of the Christians in my workplace, my behavior was recognized as strict. I had no desire to engage in any other form of riotous living, and all the more “common” sins that had plagued me for my Christian life remained as defects in my character, unchanged by my loss of belief in the Christian God.

All potential outward manifestations of my apostasy being intrinsically unappealing to me, the farce was easy to preserve. I even still loved going to church and thinking about the big questions in life! My questioning never ceased, nor did my desire to pursue the truth wherever it led me, be it back to God or further into this frightening abyss of uncertainty.

Naturally, questions come to your mind (if I haven’t already discussed the answers with you personally before now): to whom did you turn during your period of questioning? Why did you keep your lack of faith a secret? I’ll answer the first question when I finally begin getting to the main point of this article. As for the second question, the main reason was that I was convinced that I would lose my relationship with the people I loved the most, and I wanted to forestall that dreary day for as long as possible.

For the last three years of this hermitage I entrusted my secret to one other person. In 2017 I began dating the woman with whom I am now honored to share a marriage and a (soon-to-be-born) child. In the summer of that year, after several minutes of pregnant and tortured silence, I verbally confessed my crime. She kept my secret and remained my only confidant until 2020.

After five years of living a lie, the accumulated guilt and the pain from feeling myself devoid of integrity overcame my desire to maintain the relationships I had with my friends and family.

I have never believed, as at least one of my family members has said, that my relationship with my family was founded on Christ. To believe that, I’d have to erase from my memory the twelve years of life I lived with and around them before becoming a Christian. I would say the same about many of the friends I made in the church; Christianity was something we held in common, something that defined us and was dear to all of us, but my love for my friends was never contingent upon their faith, at least not once I had established a deep friendship with and respect for them as people.

In speaking about these foundations for my relationships, I’m trying to explain why I saw value in maintaining my relationships with friends and family despite no longer sharing such a central belief system.

Nevertheless, I grew more cognizant of the wedge that the lie was driving between me and my loved ones, and so at the beginning of August of last year, I told my extended family, my closest friends, and the elders at my church that I had lost my faith five years ago, that I was sorry for lying to them, and that I was ready to talk about it.

Now that we’ve covered the context, let’s talk about the initial period of my self-examination and doubting back in 2015, and get to the meat of the issue at hand. In answer to the earlier question, “to whom did you turn during your period of questioning?”, I really didn’t turn to anyone. There are several reasons for this.

First, at the beginning of the whole ordeal I didn’t have any doubts, only evident blind spots and areas of ignorance that I needed to inspect and deal with.

Second, there was no clear point at which my doubts began to overpower my faith, and I was sufficiently nervous about the potentially negative reaction I’d receive by confessing any doubts that I hesitated to reach out for support until absolutely necessary.

Third, as I delved deeper into the relevant information, I began to suspect that the people I would reach out to wouldn’t have information that I didn’t have access to, and that there were plenty of believers and unbelievers on the internet who didn’t know me and would be willing to pick apart my suppositions and show me where my ideas did or didn’t have merit. The conversations I’ve had with Christian friends and acquaintances in the last nine months since my revelation haven’t disabused me of this notion. Once again, why risk the harmony in a relationship on account of this crisis of faith, if I’m at least half-convinced that I’ll come through it with my faith stronger than ever?

Now, I will be the first to condemn my secret way of handling this process of deconversion. At the very least, it would have been immeasurably better to be forthcoming with everyone the moment I considered myself an atheist.

*** End of Boring Backstory ***

Since coming clean about my atheism, I’ve become reacquainted with a mental model of the atheist as it exists among churches of Christ, and with a sort of cognitive dissonance that arises among these same churches from the proclamation of genuinely healthy beliefs about theological doubt that don’t appear to be reconcilable with this conception of the atheist. My goal in this article is to examine this atheistic representation, expose its failings, show that it cannot be reconciled with common and more constructive ideas about theological doubt, warn against the dangers resulting from this false conception of atheism and atheists, and suggest some solutions. I will also assert that everyone involved in the conversation about Christianity, from the Christian to the atheist and everyone in between, is benefited by solving this communication problem.

The “Typical Atheist” in the Church of Christ, and Dealing with Doubt

Before I present a popular Church of Christ model of an atheist, I want to offer a disclaimer. I am aware — and extremely thankful — that the following representation of atheism is not universal among Christians in the churches of Christ, and that there is a healthy population of Christians who are incredibly thoughtful and meticulous about their argumentation and their understanding of people and of the universe in general. I would be making several critical mistakes if I so much as gave the impression that the position I’m going to describe is one that is held by all Christians in the churches of Christ, or even a majority of those Christians. I am merely pointing to one flawed notion in a set of beliefs with the intention of elevating the quality of our conversations as a whole.

That being said, this conception of atheism is not an uncommon one, which is why I believe it merits a specific address. I’ve collected a series of quotations from preachers among the churches of Christ, and over the course of the compilation of this article, I’ve fussed somewhat over the format for these quotations. I was going to list a set of three statements that embody the quotations I’ve curated, and under each of these statements I would arrange the quotations that most closely fit with that statement. However, while many of these quotations only fit under one of these statements, several of them fit neatly under more than one of them, even within the same sentence within a quotation. So, instead, what I’m going to do is put forth the three “principles”, as it were, that I am proposing as summarizations of the particular atheist representation that I have in mind. Then I’ll reference various sermons or writings, grouped by their author, and provide you a link to the source, so that you can read or listen to the message in its full context, which I encourage you to do. If you believe that I am misrepresenting the message conveyed by the following men, please let me know so that I can make the appropriate corrections.

1. Atheists are intellectually dishonest as a general rule, and perhaps as a law.

2. The main reason people reject the Christian God, regardless of the reasons they profess, is because they don’t want to obey his laws.

3. There is no substance to the arguments for atheism. Its proponents only support it because they hate the alternative.

Matt Bassford, “The Motivated Atheist”, Facebook Post, 8/13/2020

People do things for reasons. Well, unless they’re morons, they do. As a rule, the larger the change is, the more compelling the reason behind it… In consequence, whenever I hear someone announce that they have changed their mind about something purely through disinterested logical consideration, I become suspicious… I will confess that I feel a similar upward tugging in my forehead whenever a Christian, typically a young Christian, proclaims that they have become an atheist. In such cases, the rhetoric doesn’t vary much. The newly minted unbeliever will talk at length about how hard this was for them, how they are acting against their own interests, and how only their determination to follow reason wherever it goes has led them to this point. At times I wonder if there’s a “How to Come Out as an Atheist” script online… The problem is, though, that atheism itself doesn’t offer much intrinsic motivation… Atheism, though, offers no absolute morality, no meaning, and no hope… Instead, in my experience, if you probe a little bit, underneath the intellectual superstructure of atheism, there lurk powerful (if reluctantly acknowledged) motivations behind such a dramatic life change… Often, concerned brethren try to restore the atheist to fellowship by attacking their intellectual conclusions. Sadly, that’s about as effective as trying to kill a dandelion by pulling the leaves off… Instead, we must reckon with the underlying motivations… Sometimes, we simply must acknowledge that the motivation isn’t susceptible to reason.

“The Atheist’s Motives” Jeffrey Hamilton, 8/30/2020

“When they [people in general] see someone behaving badly… they start looking for a cause in the outside influences… and all the while they ignore the internal motivations… it really comes down to the simple fact that people do things because they want to. Now they may claim otherwise, but they do things because they want to.” (4:48–5:48) “Often times what motivates people is a reaction to something that’s happened in their life. There are a number of records of people who have, because of a loss of a loved one, the death, and in their grief, they turn against God. I’ve read that repeatedly in various people’s accounts. Sometimes it’s an objection to moral teachings… Often a person wants to get involved in something they know is morally wrong. And their response is, we’ll get rid of the moral system. Sometimes people turn because they resent being treated badly, or they see some corruption in the church.” (12:50–14:35) “You might not like what God allowed to happen to you, or what God says you can’t do, but that isn’t an intellectual jump to claim, “Well, there’s no god”. What they [these motivations] do is give a person a push towards considering that God doesn’t exist, that’s what these things do. They start entertaining in their mind, because of these motivations, they start entertaining in their mind that maybe God doesn’t exist. And this is the way they deal with the internal conflict. (16:02–16:49) “But you know what? Over time, pride starts setting in. The atheist sees himself as superior to all other men. (21:32–21:41) “See, the atheist has no one to tell him he’s wrong. He’s always right, because he’s his own God. He accepts no other higher authority than himself… Pride then becomes the shield that protects the atheist from even considering the possibility that he might possibly be wrong. Try talking to an atheist sometime about his beliefs. You can see that pride go up, and there’s just no way that there’s a possibility he’s got it wrong.” (22:15–23:40) “Which then leaves us the problem: how do you convince an atheist? If that’s [pride] what’s motivating him, and that’s what’s holding him off, how do you convince him? And too often, brethren try to reason with a person who’s drifting into atheism. They’ll point out the logical flaws in their reasoning, and then scratch their head, “Why isn’t it making any impact?” But that’s because these people are not seeking atheism because of reason, that is not the motivation behind it.” (24:09–24:52) “See, when you destroy one of an atheist’s reason, and show that, hey, that’s wrong, know what happens? They’ll find another. There’s an endless list of why they think they can’t believe in Christianity. One preacher [I suspect this is a reference to Matt Bassford’s Facebook post referenced here, which appears to be the impetus for Jeffrey’s sermon] likened it to pulling off the leaves of a dandelion. All it does is just grow more leaves, because the roots are still there. You don’t get rid of it. And you really can’t grind it out. I don’t care how solid your reasoning is and how absolute it is, you’re not going to grind it down to the point where the person says uncle and says, “I give, you’re right.”” (25:08–25:58) “You gotta remember, the atheist is wrapped up in self-deceit. He’s believing his own lies, because that’s what he wants. “ (26:25–26:38) “Basically, if you trap an atheist in showing how silly and foolish his arguments are, you know what he’s going to do? One of two things: he’s either going to get mad at you or he’s going to mock you. But he’s not going to accept what you say.” (27:25–27:51) “So in order to convince somebody, it really means that we need to discover and deal with the underlying motivation. And my point is, you’re not going to find the perfect argument, the end-all, be-all, bolted down argument to persuade the atheist out of his atheism. But that’s because he isn’t an atheist due to logical reasoning. Oh, he’ll tell you his reasonings are intellectual, but as we said, you prove him wrong and he’ll simply create another excuse.” (28:10–29:08) “Don’t be afraid to talk to an atheist. Just because you think, “I don’t have these strong, intelligent arguments against the various things and I couldn’t answer all the things that — “ those are all smokescreens. Go ahead and talk to atheists. Many times, what is needed is someone to listen and then to answer the problem of the heart, to get someone back to thinking again.” (32:31–33:12)

Answering Religious Error, Mark Dunagan, 3/31/2021

“That [referring to a question from an anonymous unbeliever, quoted by an audience member] is not your number one reason why you don’t believe in God… I think this has nothing to do with why people don’t believe in God… Let’s talk about your number one reason why you don’t believe in God. And you know what? I think we all know what that one is. And it’s not this. It’s “I wanna do what I wanna do”.” (43:33–46:01)

These examples came from a few hours of searching and listening. By no means are they exhaustive. I’ve heard numerous sermons that repeated these sentiments in fewer or more words, but some of them aren’t available online, and others have names, speakers, and delivery dates that I can’t remember or track down. If you have never heard statements of similar content delivered from the pulpit or communicated among Christians, I would be especially interested in hearing from you, so please get in touch.

On one hand, I cannot comfortably conclude that any of the speakers I have quoted believes that these descriptions hold true for every unbeliever or atheist. I feel compelled to give each of them the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, the appropriate qualifications to these statements — such as speaking of “some/many atheists” rather than atheists generally, or explicitly stating that the kind of atheist being spoken of is not the only kind of atheist there is — are largely absent from these sermons and writings. There are consequences to communicating such things in unqualified terms, as we will see later.

Finally, several of the speakers I’ve referenced (and many others) also profess a position about theological doubt that I think most of us would agree is a profitable and conducive one:

Christianity contains some claims that can test faith. Doubt is natural, and questions should not be discouraged.

“When Doubt Arises”, Allen Dvorak, 8/23/2020

“I’m really persuaded, although I wouldn’t say that it’s a universal problem, but I would suggest to you that it’s a fairly common problem among Christians, that at some point we may question the validity of our convictions… I want begin by suggesting that asking questions about what we believe is not a bad thing.” (3:53–4:34) “I want to say again to you that asking questions, or even for that matter, having doubts about our faith or our convictions, that’s not the problem. The real problem is when we don’t seek answers to those doubts. The real problem is when we’re not willing to accept reasonable or reasoned answers to those questions.” (11:04–11:30) “Sometimes people feel that if they ask questions, if they have some sort of doubts, or if they ask for evidence, that somehow they’re being unfaithful and that’s not true… truth doesn’t fear anything upon examination. The truth will stand on its own, and so we need to be willing to ask the questions, and when our young people, or others for that matter, questions deserve answers, not this “I’m surprised that you would have that kind of a question!” What I want to do is fortify your foundation if you have a question, by giving you a reason for the faith that you hold.” (22:23–23:28) “It’s not a bad thing to ask questions about our beliefs. In fact, the end result may be that our faith becomes stronger, not weaker, because we find more evidence, more reason to believe what we have believed, to shore up our conviction.” (33:29–33:57)

“The Great Debate: Faith vs. Doubt”, Don Truex, 1/28/2018

“Faith fluctuates, it doesn’t just stay the same… everyone who is mighty in faith is so because they overcame some doubt… if you’re going to tell me that you have never ever had a question about God, about the Bible, or about your faith, then I’m going to tell you that you’ve just used up one of your ten sins for 2018…” (3:42–3:57)

“When We Begin to Doubt”, Doy Moyer, 6/19/2016

Believers often battle with doubts… We should never just brush questions aside… Rather, when doubts arise, we should use them as opportunities to grow and probe into the fundamentals that will help shore up our faith… While doubts have the ability to destroy faith, we also have the opportunity to refocus our thinking and strengthen those areas of our faith that have wavered. Don’t brush aside the questions; deal with them honestly.

The Truth

Atheists comprise a community with a high degree of ideological diversity. They are linked by a single component of their belief systems, which is their lack of conviction of the existence of a god. In their degree of certainty with regard to the god claim(s), atheists vary from agnostic atheists (my particular camp) to anti-theistic atheists (more of the Richard Dawkins flavor).

This singular belief doesn’t dictate the values that a given atheist holds. There are atheists whose values and lifestyle are quite similar to a strict fundamentalist Christian’s. There are other atheists whose values are deeply opposed to the values held by the common person in their respective cultures or communities. In general, there doesn’t appear to be sufficient reason to say that unbelievers and believers are particularly distinct in their likelihood of committing a moral or immoral act, or in their level of moral conviction (although the emphases of their convictions appear to be slightly different).

This is important when evaluating the claim that atheists always or almost always reject God because they don’t want to obey his laws, a claim that is untenable for several reasons.

First, many forms of Christianity — probably adhered to by the bulk of the Christian population, at least in the Americas — do not set strict behavioral expectations. It’s likely that a given person would be more familiar with one of these modes of Christianity than with a more fundamentalist version. If someone objects to one particular representation of the Christian God, they have many more to choose from. Depending on their level of familiarity with Scripture, they may not be aware of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of their preferred understanding of God and his demands, and therefore not likely to find themselves in a position of knowingly rejecting a stricter God for the sake of moral freedom.

Second, some unbelievers have their disbelief inculcated in them by their parents in roughly the same way that most parents pass their beliefs and disbeliefs onto their children. Whatever the reasons for the disbelief of their parents, the second-generation unbeliever will often be biased toward replicating that disbelief primarily because it was present in their most significant authority figure(s), rather than because of any specific failings that they perceive in the evidence mustered by constituents of opposing belief systems. A subset of this population will come to evaluate their beliefs from a more logical or evidence-based perspective. Of these, some will repudiate their received beliefs and others will retain them. This is the pattern that is followed by nearly everyone who questions the beliefs that they inherited.

Finally, perhaps the most immediately evident and foundationally troubling problem with the claims that all atheists are intellectually dishonest, or that all atheists or nearly all atheists reject Christianity because of its moral implications, is that they are so frequently asserted without any evidence whatsoever. Little better is when the assertions are made with woefully insufficient evidence, such as unverified and unverifiable anecdotes relayed by the speaker, or the speaker’s interpretation of an unbeliever’s motives in the absence of any stated motivation on the part of the unbeliever.

Consider for a moment the magnitude of supporting data that would be required to justify such audacious claims. Replace this general proposition with the equivalent but potentially more objectionable claim (assuming most of my readers are members of the church of Christ, as I expect) that all or nearly all Christians only believe in God because they want it to be true, on account of the comfort it provides, and not because the Christian genuinely believes in the strength of the supporting evidence. A claim like this should be considered false until demonstrated to be true, and an affirmation of this extent requires a correspondingly extensive demonstration.

One wonders about the consistency of a position that states, within the span of several minutes and without supplying anything approaching sufficient evidence, that the majority of atheists are unbelievers for intellectually dishonest reasons, or that atheists have no evidence in support of their position.

The other truth about atheists is that some of them (though I couldn’t give you a reliably accurate percentage) have spent a good deal of time and effort considering their beliefs and are quite convinced that they have good reason not to feel convinced of the existence of any particular personal god, or even of a god in general. The notion that there is no substance to our arguments would take us by surprise. Whether or not there is actual substance to the arguments against the Christian God is outside the scope of this article. What is in the scope of this article is a revelation of the inconsistency between the three aforementioned accusations against atheists and the proposition that theological doubts are natural, reasonable, and should not be treated as inherently wrong.

The declaration that the Bible raises difficult questions for every Christian (or most Christians) and that God expects us to bridge that gap with faith contradicts the notion that there is so little substance to the arguments against the Christian God that anyone presenting those arguments must be lying to themselves. Even if we hold fast to the idea that there truly is no actual substance to the prosecution’s case, the appearance of substance is sufficient, by these preachers’ own admissions, to give many of us pause, and to trouble some of us for an extended period of time. By this token, the accusations of intellectual dishonesty and ulterior motivations are also inconsistent, inasmuch as those accusations are leveled against atheists as a general rule.

Speaking of intellectual honesty, let me be clear about my estimation of the role that intellectual failings play in this conversation.

Everyone has biases. Everyone has cognitive blind spots. Intellectual dishonesty is far too prevalent, both in the atheist community and in just about every community of people that you could name. From people who identify as atheists I witness bad faith arguments, logical fallacies, and contemptible displays of verbal abuse on an almost daily basis. But I see the same from people professing to be Christians. Without reliable and comprehensive data, I couldn’t tell you — and shame on me if I endeavored to tell you — which of these groups, if any, is the greater perpetrator of these errors. With precious few exceptions, we all want to be right and must combat the instincts within us that would lead us to be more credulous toward the claims that we want to be true.

Unless you have ironclad evidence in your support, the hypothesis that all or most atheists are motivated by dishonest or primarily emotional reasons falls under the faulty generalization category of fallacies, and is both irresponsible and dangerous.

What justifies the statement that it’s dangerous? I’m glad you asked!

The Dangers

This overall hypothesis regarding the atheist is dangerous for the following reasons.

It encourages unsound reasoning. I’ve laid out some of my arguments against the extraordinary claim that all disbelief is motivated by emotion or some other unworthy reason, and against the less extraordinary but still unsubstantiated claim that most atheists are thus motivated. If a sufficient number of influential preachers regularly articulates this position, we shouldn’t be surprised if a number of their listeners begin to accept it, despite the omission of substantiating evidence. Being diligent to support our convictions with solid data and reasoning is difficult; when presented with cognitive shortcuts, we tend to accept them.

I’ve laid out some of my arguments against the extraordinary claim that all disbelief is motivated by emotion or some other unworthy reason, and against the less extraordinary but still unsubstantiated claim that most atheists are thus motivated. If a sufficient number of influential preachers regularly articulates this position, we shouldn’t be surprised if a number of their listeners begin to accept it, despite the omission of substantiating evidence. Being diligent to support our convictions with solid data and reasoning is difficult; when presented with cognitive shortcuts, we tend to accept them. It allows for the formation of a “strawman” habit. This danger may mean nothing to the Christian who considers the dishonest atheist to be the only kind of atheist there is and doesn’t perceive that belief to be a strawman. To everyone else, I offer the following warning. Making strawmen of the opposition does a disservice to the maker of the strawman. When I decide to contend with a weaker version of my opposition, I am foregoing the crucial exercise of challenging my own thoughts by comparing them with the best versions of their counters. This process of challenging my own beliefs, when undertaken with the motive of more closely approximating the truth regardless of its implications for my current beliefs, is the surest way to have justified confidence in what I believe, and it typically coincides with an improved understanding of the universe. By comparison, a decision — conscious or unconscious — to argue against only the weak form of an opposing argument restricts my potential for growth and nearly ensures that I will not add to my understanding, since most strawmen are created with the intrinsic quality that they are already demonstrably false according to the understanding that their creator possesses. In general, in a fight with a strawman, only a weak argument emerges victorious.

This danger may mean nothing to the Christian who considers the dishonest atheist to be the only kind of atheist there is and doesn’t perceive that belief to be a strawman. To everyone else, I offer the following warning. Making strawmen of the opposition does a disservice to the maker of the strawman. When I decide to contend with a weaker version of my opposition, I am foregoing the crucial exercise of challenging my own thoughts by comparing them with the best versions of their counters. This process of challenging my own beliefs, when undertaken with the motive of more closely approximating the truth regardless of its implications for my current beliefs, is the surest way to have justified confidence in what I believe, and it typically coincides with an improved understanding of the universe. By comparison, a decision — conscious or unconscious — to argue against only the weak form of an opposing argument restricts my potential for growth and nearly ensures that I will not add to my understanding, since most strawmen are created with the intrinsic quality that they are already demonstrably false according to the understanding that their creator possesses. In general, in a fight with a strawman, only a weak argument emerges victorious. It discourages openness on the part of Christians who are genuinely struggling with doubt for intellectual reasons. This should be obvious on its face. The doubter has just been told that disbelievers are dishonest. Moreover, the doubter’s questions, to the extent that they overlap with the sources of disbelief in atheists, have been denigrated as insubstantial. What trust should the doubter place in the open-mindedness and sympathetic forbearance of the person who has expressed such opinions? Perhaps the Christian has an impression that between the average Christian who finds herself plagued with doubts and the Christian whose questioning has led her away from the faith entirely, there is some natural barrier which can only be vaulted with the help of some fraudulent or unscrupulous leverage. As someone who lost faith in God with utmost reluctance and for almost entirely intellectual reasons (I am making room for any subconscious influence against the faith that is as yet unknown to me), trust me when I say that the difference between doubting and disbelieving can be imperceptible, and the same reasons that lead one to the first state can carry one on to the second.

This should be obvious on its face. The doubter has just been told that disbelievers are dishonest. Moreover, the doubter’s questions, to the extent that they overlap with the sources of disbelief in atheists, have been denigrated as insubstantial. What trust should the doubter place in the open-mindedness and sympathetic forbearance of the person who has expressed such opinions? Perhaps the Christian has an impression that between the average Christian who finds herself plagued with doubts and the Christian whose questioning has led her away from the faith entirely, there is some natural barrier which can only be vaulted with the help of some fraudulent or unscrupulous leverage. As someone who lost faith in God with utmost reluctance and for almost entirely intellectual reasons (I am making room for any subconscious influence against the faith that is as yet unknown to me), trust me when I say that the difference between doubting and disbelieving can be imperceptible, and the same reasons that lead one to the first state can carry one on to the second. It creates a barrier to productive discourse between Christians and atheists. Dealing in bad faith with those who disagree with your conclusions by questioning, without sufficient evidence, their intentions or integrity has the result of diminishing the quality of the conversations that are had between Christians and doubters, or of preventing the conversation itself. Both of these consequences are antithetical to the ideal of Christian evangelism and should be antithetical to the ideals of anyone who believes that dialectic is an invaluable tool in our pursuit of — and communal convergence upon — truth. Unbelievers who understand that you are starting with the assumption that they are dishonest or motivated by emotion will see little use in conversing with someone who doesn’t respect them enough to trust their integrity, and they will have zero options for convincing you otherwise, since your belief in their dishonesty is unfalsifiable. Imagine for a moment that you find yourself at the beginning of a conversation with an atheist about God, Jesus, or Christianity, and the atheist ignores every attempt you make to talk about the reasons you believe (the complexity in nature, the evidence for the resurrection, the harmony of Scripture) and deflects it with an accusation that you really only believe because you’re afraid of dying or purposelessness or the idea of there being no afterlife, or because you were raised as a Christian, or because you like the Christian community. Wouldn’t you feel disrespected, or at least that the conversation was a profound waste of your time?

The Solution

At last, let’s arrive at the purpose of this article. From my perspective, where you fall along the spectrum of belief is not particularly important. What’s important is avoiding cognitive and communicative blunders that attenuate our ability to have honest and productive conversations. If the exhibited way of thinking and conversing about atheism and disbelief is dangerous for the reasons just mentioned, how do we avoid these mistakes, and others similar to them? I offer a few suggestions below.

Consider the complexity of the world we live in, and be skeptical of simplistic claims about intricate realities, such as the psychological makeup of a large and diverse group of people.

and be skeptical of simplistic claims about intricate realities, such as the psychological makeup of a large and diverse group of people. Recognize that the influence of bias, being universal, is not sufficient cause for questioning the integrity of someone’s reason for believing or disbelieving a particular proposition . If the presence of bias were sufficient to invalidate someone’s sincerity or honesty, there would be no human being on the planet who could claim to hold a belief honestly. Biases can be mitigated, but they cannot be excised.

. If the presence of bias were sufficient to invalidate someone’s sincerity or honesty, there would be no human being on the planet who could claim to hold a belief honestly. Biases can be mitigated, but they cannot be excised. Remember that multiple people can engage in a reasonable evaluation of the information before them and still come to different conclusions . For many sets of information, there are multiple interpretations that are reasonable. It is this feature of our collection of information, interacting with our own cognitive limits, that leads two highly respected and indisputably genuine students of Scripture to come to different conclusions on a doctrinal issue, such as the role of the head covering in worship, or the manner in which the Lord’s Supper is administered (once again, I’m anticipating an audience of predominantly non-institutional church of Christ members).

. For many sets of information, there are multiple interpretations that are reasonable. It is this feature of our collection of information, interacting with our own cognitive limits, that leads two highly respected and indisputably genuine students of Scripture to come to different conclusions on a doctrinal issue, such as the role of the head covering in worship, or the manner in which the Lord’s Supper is administered (once again, I’m anticipating an audience of predominantly non-institutional church of Christ members). Don’t make confident claims without good evidence , and certainly don’t make extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.

, and certainly don’t make extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Start by believing the best in people and assuming good intentions, and wait to be proven wrong (1 Corinthians 13:7 and Matthew 7:12 for my Christian readers).

(1 Corinthians 13:7 and Matthew 7:12 for my Christian readers). If you suspect someone’s motivations may be emotional in nature and you hesitate to waste your time in a discussion with them about evidences, discontinue the conversation with them without openly accusing them of bad motivations. The wisdom behind this is twofold. First, there’s always the chance that you are wrong about their motivations (unless, perhaps, you’re the unique individual that is immune to confirmation bias or inaccurate interpretations). Even if your accusation is correct, people generally don’t become more open-minded when they are accused of character flaws. You’re left with no benefit to the accusation whatsoever.

The wisdom behind this is twofold. First, there’s always the chance that you are wrong about their motivations (unless, perhaps, you’re the unique individual that is immune to confirmation bias or inaccurate interpretations). Even if your accusation is correct, people generally don’t become more open-minded when they are accused of character flaws. You’re left with no benefit to the accusation whatsoever. Build relationships of trust with people you know, so that they can fill the role of helping you discover your blind spots, and you can provide the same service for them. This is critically important for each of us, considering our common weaknesses. We need to cultivate relationships with people who know us well so that we can benefit from the perspectives of people who may be less partial to our arguments than we are, and who might be capable of helping us come to know the reasons we have for believing one thing or another. Take great care when trying to fill this role for someone you don’t know well, on a topic about which you are not impartial; more often than not, you’ll run afoul of a minefield of your own subconscious biases.

This is critically important for each of us, considering our common weaknesses. We need to cultivate relationships with people who know us well so that we can benefit from the perspectives of people who may be less partial to our arguments than we are, and who might be capable of helping us come to know the reasons we have for believing one thing or another. Take great care when trying to fill this role for someone you don’t know well, on a topic about which you are not impartial; more often than not, you’ll run afoul of a minefield of your own subconscious biases. Recognize that there is the potential to learn something in just about any conversation you have with someone who disagrees with you, regardless of your stance on any given controversy. Seek out that opportunity with humility.

in just about any conversation you have with someone who disagrees with you, regardless of your stance on any given controversy. Seek out that opportunity with humility. Continue to hold yourself to a high standard for acceptance of (extraordinary) claims, and remain open to the idea that your assessment of the evidence could be wrong.

Here at the end, I’d like to ask a few questions to any of my Christian readers who find themselves in support of the statement that most or all atheists are motivated by dishonest or emotional reasons.

Using my story as an example — and perhaps your knowledge of me, if you happen to know me — , do you believe that it is likely that I left the faith chiefly because of emotional objections to the faith? If your answer is yes, I have three subsequent questions:

Did you start with that conclusion, or did you arrive at it after considering evidence?

If you started with that conclusion, why? If you arrived at that conclusion on the basis of evidence, what was that evidence?

What evidence would change your conclusion?

These are not rhetorical questions; I’d be interested in hearing your answers.

Conclusion

As with everything that I write on this platform, I aim to communicate ideas that promote conversations of higher quality, since dialectic is our best tool for convergence upon truth. For this reason, no matter your position on Christianity, you should be interested in having high-quality conversations about these important topics, though Christians have the added obligation of being lifelong evangelists.

Criticism and correction are welcome, particularly if you detect in this article an inappropriately negative tone or some manner of communicating that is destructive to the larger conversation.