Positive Thinking For An Atheist?
I was asked on Facebook about positive thinking for an atheist. Here's my advice:
When it comes to positive thoughts you must learn to believe in yourself. Repeat after me: "I am an important person." "I can achieve my dreams." "I can make a difference." Say it every day a few times per day. You will come to believe what you say. So say it. Then dream big dreams. Don't be afraid to fail. You will fail from time to time. But you will learn for the next time. So dare to fail. And do not listen to the naysayers if you know they're wrong. They are a dime a dozen. You will never achieve anything unless you try. Find like-minded people to learn from who believe in you and hang out with them.
30 comments:
Important, unimportant, positive, negative, these are meaningless terms in an atheistic worldview, in which meaning can at best be subjective, but more likely nonexistent. It was important and positive for some to march some people into ovens, while for others it was important and positive to rescue them. Without some sort of absolute measure, how can you say which is so. Atheistic positivism is oxymoronic. Any actual positive feelings or sense of worth an atheist may have is only coming from riding the coattails of the Christian worldview, which does have very good explanatory power, especially where personal value is concerned. Out of love for each and every one of us, Jesus, who is God, died to save us.
Mark, as often as you visit here I'm surprised you've never read the Atheism, Christianity and Morality section of our FAQ sheet. Please do, especially the last entry on an Atheistic Ethic.
>Any actual positive feelings or sense of worth an atheist may have is only coming from riding the coattails of the Christian worldview, which does have very good explanatory power, especially where personal value is concerned.
1. Nothing about the idea of a god implies that it has to give our lives "positive feelings or sense of worth."
2. Do you propose that people who leave christianity for good have renounced those emotional states?
Mark,
How does agreeing with a myth that I deserve Roman Capital Punishment simply for being born provide a positive self-image.
There is nothing in the self-hating epistemology known as Christianity that elevates the human race or human individuals.
Divine command ethics only serves simpletons like you who fetishize obedience as the highest good.
It makes you think you are actually saying something when you write, "God died to save us."
Save us from what? Himself?
It is circular and incoherent reasoning that is nothing more than posturing bullshit.
Its bullshit when D'Souza asserts it and it is bullshit when you parrot him.
John,
I found your thought to be very inspiring! Thanks for the encouraging reminder.
T
Greetings bloggers
Mark (the first one who posted); I think you actually made some very good points. But you probably should have just stopped before you invoked the name of Christianity. Because now instead of somebody actually thinking about where atheism leads, we have to hear about God, epistemology and D'Souza. Btw, I've heard of God, not sure about the other two?
If you could go back in time, maybe you could have just said this: "Important, unimportant, positive, negative, these are meaningless terms in an atheistic worldview, in which meaning can at best be subjective, but more likely nonexistent. It was important and positive for some to march some people into ovens, while for others it was important and positive to rescue them. Without some sort of absolute measure, how can you say which is so. Atheistic positivism is oxymoronic.
So for the sake of this argument, let's pretend there is no God and Atheists are correct. Could you now answer Mark's question leaving out the Christian part?
Unless of course Mark can find a Delorean and enough jiggawatts to go back in time and start over?
Love Bif, aka feeno
The god idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand the natural phenomena and as science progressively correlates human and social circumstances and events. God today, no longer directs human destiny with the same iron glove as in earlier times. Rather today's god idea expresses a sort of spiritualistic stimulus to satisfy the fads and fancies of every shade of human weakness, from the prosperity gospel to the views of the christian shaman Benny Hinn, to the views of the Westboro Baptist congregation; truly a testament to the veracity of such fads.
At least atheists don't pretend to be anything other than they are.
Cheers
Love this quote from Sagan on this:
"There is in this universe much of what seems to be designed. But instead, we repeatedly discover that natural processes -- collisional selection of worlds, say, or natural selection of gene pools, or even the convection pattern in a pot of boiling water -- can extract order out of chaos and decieve us into deducing purpose where there is none.
The significance of our lives, and our fragile planet, is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."
I'm a big fan of the philosophy in which we seek humility with respect to how much we know, matter, and what events in our lives actually mean on a cosmic scale.
- Angry/insulted? Who are you in the scheme of things to be so?
- Embarrassed? People before you have screwed up far worse and far less; you didn't have a perfect reputation to begin with so don't sweat it.
- Things not going your way? Why should you expect that everything will align with your plans in the first place?
I have found some fantastic material on the LessWrong Wiki and recently stumbled on one of the author's writings called The 12 Virtues and think it's wonderful.
"That which can be destroyed by the truth should be."
Thanks John, I'll take a look at it and get back to you all.
So John, do you think I should have read the FAQ before making my post?
I'll try to cover all that bases as briefly as possible (I did read that part of the FAQ).
Mark Plus, 1. god, no. God, Yes. 2. No, because you are all ready on the coat tails.
Chuck, so angry. Saved not from God, but from our own Sinful Nature.
T, yes, but why?
freeno, Thanks that's the best complement I have recieved in a long time (I know, that's sad), but, unless I'm mistaken, this blog is about, the Christian God or no god.
Papalinton, anything to substanstite any of that?
Mark,
I think you're making what is called a "category error." Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
As an atheist, I understand that the collection of quarks, leptons, field lines, space-time, etc. that make up the structure of the universe doesn't care whether something is important, unimportant, positive, or negative. As a whole in a Godless universe, these things are truly "meaningless."
But the "meaninglessness" does not, therefore, transfer to individual atheists living in the godless universe. There is meaning in our lives, just as there is meaning in your life even though you also live in a godless universe.
You just think that you got your meaning from a god. But you didn't. You got your meaning from another human being who TOLD you a god exists and how you should think about that.
Mark
Do you understand how offensive crap like this is to non-believers? You are saying that any non-Christian, of whatever other belief or non-belief, has no morals, or at least not as high a standard of morals as you have. Say it out loud and see if you blush.
How does your worldview deal with people like Buddhists, Jains, Hindus (all predating your tired old book of bollocks) - I can cite you a very very long list of beautiful, ethically advanced, highly moral people in those ranks who purposefully reject Christianity. How do they do it? Where were those coattails then? Let me guess - you never thought of that much.
And your defamatory point of view as far as atheists are concerned - do you even realize the implications of what you are saying? Let's look at a few concrete examples, shall we?
The logical conclusion of your noxious worldview would have us accept that :
1. you are a better, more moral person than John Loftus, myself, or any atheist on for example this blog (comfortable so far?) ;
2. you, Mark, are a better, more moral person than the Dalai Lama ;
3. you, Mark, are a better, more moral person than Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Bill Gates.
4. Anyone of the convicted paedophile Catholic priests are better, more moral persons than the lot of us, even though they are maybe temporarily fallen.
You really need to read more outside your cozy little Bible Book Club of the month. Sheesh.
John -
I am probably wrong, but are we (as atheists, not just here on DC) not giving this point too much oxygen?
We are allowing the Christians to define this debate, and so far they have us discussing WHY we are not really all that immoral. If I was the Atheist President ;) I would just redraw the debate more into the basis of morality, alternative models for basing a moral life on, and so on.
Oh, and BTW - you have to love getting a lecture on morality from someone who believes in the immoral monster of the Bible (yes, Mark, OT and NT - read The Christian Delusion).
Hi Jim
A considerate and thoughtful response to Mark.
I shall keep it mind when replying in other threads.
Thanks
Cheers
Mark,
You said,
Important, unimportant, positive, negative, these are meaningless terms in an atheistic worldview, in which meaning can at best be subjective, but more likely nonexistent.
Mark, you fail to recognize that among the Christianities no single point of doctrine is common to all. Within the tens of thousands of distinct Christianities even a god is not common to them. Among the theistic Christianities, there are many different versions of gods. Current research shows that a significant number of active Christian clergy are atheists, even among what have traditionally been considered the orthodox Christianities. I have friends and family who are atheist Christian clergy, some comfortable enough with it to say the following from the pulpit.
"Supernaturalism is phony-baloney stuff. Nature is enough for human beings to deal with. I give it no thought whatsoever."
"I do not consider morality or ethics to have a supernatural source. The celestial hand proffering the etched tablets to Charlton Heston (apparently unarmed at the time) is a metaphor representing the much longer and more difficult process the ancient Hebrews endured in figuring out how to keep people from killing each others. They figured out that if you made stealing taboo, fewer people would kill to get. And if you made envy taboo, few people would steal. Since it was the elders in the early tribes who figured out that stuff, it was necessary to mandate the honoring of father and mother, and after those early generations passed away, successor elders transferred the tribal honor to the spirits of the dead elders and, finally, to an unseen god whence the elders had come in the first place."
"I am an atheist in that I am not a theist."
Clearly, Mark you have a very narrow view of what constitutes Christianity. Clearly, you have a very subjective view of Christianity.
Where I live, the United States, secular law keeps Christians and their Christianities from statutorily oppressing others. As we see with the Roman Catholics, who take a free hand in raping children and intensifying the African AIDS plague that kills millions annually, when a strong system of secular law and enforcement are absent, Christianity's threats of eternal damnation or separation from some god, do induce moral or humane behavior.
Christianity's claims to making people more moral make sense only in those places where justice is not left to an imaginary god in an imaginary hereafter, but is instead enforced by real law enforcement in this life. The religious respond to forces that can induce compliance, like secular law, and when those forces are absent, or ineffective for lack of enforcement, you get Christian Scientists letting their children die and African COGIC's and other Pentecostals killing and maiming their defenseless children for being witches.
Mark,
You have no idea what it means to be a Christian. You might know and like whatever you are, some very specific insular and isolated thing labeling itself "Christian," but you can speak only for yourself. That person next to you in the pew assigns different meaning to the word "god" from what you do. Not because it's a personal god, but because it's imaginary and your imagination operates very differently from the imaginations of others.
You said
It was important and positive for some to march some people into ovens, while for others it was important and positive to rescue them.
Most of the oven operators were Christians just doing what their local society was promoting at the time.
Without some sort of absolute measure, how can you say which is so.
There are no absolute measures. Christians prove this day in and day out. The pope has absolute measures like you are absolutely going to hell if you are not Roman Catholic. Jerry Falwell had the absolute measure that if you are Roman Catholic it's not possible for you to make it to heaven. Christians have always killed when the mood suited them. Christians are less sexually faithful in marriage than are atheists. So, what good are inanely proclaimed absolutes? No good, actually.
You said,
Atheistic positivism is oxymoronic. Any actual positive feelings or sense of worth an atheist may have is only coming from riding the coattails of the Christian worldview, which does have very good explanatory power, especially where personal value is concerned.
More than two-thirds of humanity have no use for the goofiness of Christianity. We witness a fundamental goodness in people wherever we go meaning that that goodness has nothing to do with Christianity. It has everything to do being human. People were good and caring and loving and generous and kind long before, tens of millenia before, the ancient word of mouth myths that gave rise to the Abrahamic religions were written down and harnessed for social control and the benefit of professional clergy.
You said,
Out of love for each and every one of us, Jesus, who is God, died to save us.
What a crock of shit! Most Christians don't believe this. How do we know? Because when asked to explain their religious beliefs almost none can do it. Christians don't know what they believe. Christian theologians don't agree; they have thousands of different interpretations of what it means to be Christian. Among laymen the Christianities are even more diverse. So, don't spew your favorite platitudes thinking you speak for anyone other than yourself.
Humans are fundamentally good. We don't need saving. There was no original sin, so there is no need to be saved from it. Original sin is just as imaginary as every single god that has ever sprung up in someone's imagination. Your imagination bears no more truth about deities than the imaginations that kept Zeus, et al. in their respective social mindsets for so long.
Mark,
On the thread have-you-been-debaptized-edwin-kagan-of Neo, a Christian shares with us.
You all keep thinking that I am your average run of the mill bible beating christian zealot and I am not. Do you know how many people are "praying" for me because I told them isn't all true? A lot. I would have thought you guys would have caught onto the name by now. I am the beginning of a small movement of people called NeoChristians:very small. Just a few people that I have spoken to that I have helped to find answers. No I am not a cultists nor I am a crazy whackjob trying to convince people that scientology is real. If you want me to explain my views I will be more than happy to, but I just wanted to put this out there. I do not think the bible is the inerrant word of god, I do not think the bible is divine, I do not pray, I do not go to church, I do not believe in miracles,I believe in evolution and the big bang theories, I believe in scientific advancements, and I do not believe in a personal "god".
Look at all those phrases expressing thoughts of "I do not think" or "I do not believe" whatever. Can this man be a Christian as you envision Christians to be? No likely. Yet, here he is making professions that sound like atheists to some, eh?
He is proof you do not understand Christianity. Christianity is whatever you want it to be: with or without gods; with or without saviors ... it's your game; you make up the rules. The only absolute is that the clergy get to control the cash. Lucky them, huh? That's it.
Mark,
You asked me why I find John's remarks to believe in one self encouraging? I doesn't appear to me you are really trying to understand things from the perspective of others. Can you speak on God's behalf? Do you know how God will each individual? You don't even know how God will judge you. How did God judge Ananias ans Saphira?
Good luck,
T
John... I don't post much but I lurk and read a lot. As I popped on your site today it struck me this post was much akin to my own thoughts (please forgive the plug)
Subjective Morality aside, we're all in the same boat... trying to find some sort of meaning in this thing called Life. Christians love to tout that they've got the answer... the only answer. But the debate goes on because there are a hundred other faith systems out there to choose from to give you this 'meaning' in life.
To live and to learn is the point I think... treat other men with the same love and respect that you would like for yourself. Theology is not necessary for us to be nice to each other...
This 'positive feeling' is not "riding the coattails of the Christian worldview" and in fact at times stands against the Christian world view... if Christians would start acting like "Christians" the world might be a better place. Aholes are still Aholes regardless of what religious brand they wear.
Mark said,
"It was important and positive for some to march some people into ovens, while for others it was important and positive to rescue them."
Russ replied,
"Most of the oven operators were Christians just doing what their local society was promoting at the time."
I agree with Russ. As an atheist who never needed to go through a painful deconversion (I came by my atheism naturally due to the fact that I wasn't brainwashed into Christianity as a small child), it used to be a mystery to me why people hated the Jews so much.
Then I started reading more, and I discovered that it's a CHRISTIAN thing to hate Jews.
This post (your advice) is one reason I think you can't defeat religion, John. Humans "want" a power greater than themselves to believe in. It's in our nature. Belief in self and relying on self to get through life is not "naturally" appealing. I think the evidence of this is plain to see. All religions eat, breath and drink the worship of a "greater" being than themselves who created them and loves them, thus providing the desired personal value they so much crave. While you "may" be right about the non-existence of God (although I don't think so) a world without God is not a world that lifts humanity from his enemic self to give him a purpose and vision for a fulfilling life. In this sense, Atheism is a repellant to humanity and will always be a "one-off" world view. My advice is to have faith in God, even though he might be incomprehensible.
@Joe:
How might one just 'decide' to have faith? My understanding over the last 7mos of doubt is that 'faith' and belief are tossed around like toy terms by believers who think that this all reduces to a matter of, essentially, preference.
I say preference because preferences are the only other choices I can think of in which you simply look at your choices and say, 'Eh. I see some pros here, some cons here... I'll go with this one.' Preferences are not objectively true. Some people like the smoother texture of Crest; others like the polishy-grit feeling of Colgate.
With respect to god, then, you are simply asserting that the idea is attractive and thus we ought to choose it. Perhaps my preference is to have a more solid base of explanation for the world (naturalism) vs. the potential happiness I would attain by believing in something ungrounded, incomprehensible, riddled with intellectual issues as I ponder it, and so on.
Also, you have not argued for what 'form' of this god you would recommend. When you say that 'people' like the idea and 'live and drink' worship... are you certain that this is not primarily due to instruction by parents? The idea of a fantastical deliverer of toys in the winter is also attractive, but no one believes in Santa who hasn't been taught about him.
A true test of a true creator, in my mind, would be for someone to come to the revelation of, say, Jesus Christ's reality and power without ever having heard of him. I mean ever. Find some native who can quote something from the gospels, Jesus' words, or the Epistles and I say you have evidence of a timeless spaceless disembodied personal creator who wants a relationship with his beloved.
I can't argue against anything you said, Hendy, but I would only reiterate what I said in other words to hopefully clarify my point. People "naturally" believe in the divine or a supernatural being greater than themselves. Atheism is not the human norm. I am not arguing for any particular god, but only for what is in our human nature. Even Dawkins says there is probably something in our DNA causing us to believe in the divine, but regardless of its origin, it is in us. Yes, one might be taught Jesus and another Allah, but mankind is naturally drawn to the divine under any name or description. That is all I am saying. I postulate that we do it because we "need" it or "desire" it. It empowers us. I am not value judging it, but only making the observation. And, I am arguing, as I said, that because of this innate human quality you cannot kill God any more than you can kill compassion, or even hatred, which naturally exist in humans. I am not trying to be mystical here, just realistic about what is the truth about human nature. Perhaps you are one of those unique individuals who does not see a need for God. I respect that.
Joe Staub said,
"...Humans "want" a power greater than themselves to believe in. It's in our nature. Belief in self and relying on self to get through life is not "naturally" appealing."
You may be on to something here. Religion and belief in a "higher power" allows us latitude to set aside our responsibility for personal failures (that's WHY it's not appealing). We can say, "I'm just a miserable sinner, and I'm not worthy of God's grace", when we should be saying things like "I procrastinated and missed an opportunity...", or I made a bad choice and now I have to take corrective action...".
But we find people who constantly say that we can't accomplish anything through our own wills in the absence of godly support.
Case in point:
I used to smoke a pack and a half of cigs daily. On the last Thursday of June 2007 at about 7:30 PM, I had my last cigarette. Just like that, I quit smoking. It was just getting too expensive, and after more than 30 years of smoking, it was making me feel like shit, too.
The point is that I quit cold turkey; no pills, no nicorette gum, no support groups, no praying, no sneaking a cig when no one else was looking. I haven't had a cig now in over three years, and GOD didn't help me quit.
I did it myself.
Hi John,
I haven't read your blog for over a year, but used to read everything you put up. Your comments on positive thinking (leaving well alone the metaphysical question of 'positive' and 'negative' as essentially spurious to the question of our lives as they are experienced) are pretty common self-help type advice. I would recommend a really good book by an excellent skeptic on self-help, in which he assesses what actually works and what is baseless - it's called "59 Seconds" and is by Professor Richard Wiseman, a professor for the public understanding of science in the UK.
He also has a blog (richardwiseman.wordpress.com)
The skeptical movement is about far more than what it denies (religion and supernaturalism) - it can be about creating a 'better' (there I go again!) world based on the application of science and the empirical method to the problems of human happiness and development.
@Joe:
I hear you but respectfully disagree. Evolution has planted many instincts and impulses within but has also given us developing minds. I don't think many would disagree with me if I were to say that rational conclusions are more accurate or at least more justifiably based than impulsive ones or those based on emotions, subjective experiences, and most other things untestable and inaccessible to anyone else.
For this reason... we actually can "kill" (as you put it) those things which are instinctual but not truly beneficial.
The argument that we cannot "kill" god in the same way that we will never "kill" compassion is equally valid to "killing" hate. All three appear to have some gravitational pull on the human person. Yet our minds can transcend our instinctive urges and think things through. Hatred is most likely a tool previously used to propel one to murder or physically dominating actions toward mating competition. We don't tend to need this anymore, though any drunken bar fight over a girl and ex-spouse jealousy killings will illustrate the opposite.
In any case, regardless of what seems to qualify for "human inherited instincts/urgings" does not mean that those impulses arrive at any accurate portrayal of truth.
My hypothesis would be that the same tendencies to believe in gods fuel things like belief in Santa, astrology, psychics, and the like. They are all aimed at a hope in a mystical, magical world free from harm's way where everything is just and fair, where we are provided for, and especially where we have an "inside edge."
This last point might be key, as individuals typically don't pursue these goods for their own sake but because they want increased happiness which comes in the form of avoiding harm, gaining money, or finding love.
And what of god? Do you think Christians at the core want to be "with god" simply to be with god or is it because heaven is supposed to be better than an eternal chocolate sundae? My hunch would be that if "being with god" were miserable and hell was an eternal party... people would choose hell.
If you concur, then belief in religion is another form of gravitating toward an "inside edge" -- hedging one's bets on the "right god" in order to be happy forever. Sure, love everyone to imitate Christ... but again, if loving Christ got you eternity with god which would be miserable and being cruel got you to eternal paradise... do you think people would still love others? I don't find it surprising that it's the things we already value without religion that earn one their keep in the clouds.
Regardless... if it's not true I don't want to believe in it.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. -- P.C. Hodgell
Gearheded, I did not intend to imply that faith in god reliquishes personal responsibility. You didn't get that from what I wrote. I stated that people want and perhaps need a being greater than themselves to inspire them, motivate them, give them a purpose greater than themselves, etc. People do use god as a means to evil ends, or as the proverbial crutch, but that is not my point. God, what ever God you have, is believed in mostly as an inspiration to greater things. I suggest that it is a greater inspiration to performance than self. At least as far as I am concerned and as far as I can tell from observing human nature. The 12 step program of AA and other organizations understands this. It is also why religion in general will "always" thrive no matter what the opposition is. People innately believe. It is natural to find a faith and not the norm to be an atheist. Believe me, I am not in favor of how God is often used. I am often repulsed by Televangelists, ministers and many believers who think they have some sort of "in" with God. The organized Christianity that I belonged to almost destroyed me, so I know first hand the misuse of God.
I think that the existence of religion/god is not about evidence at all, but about something internal to our nature. The fact is, an atheist cannot disprove the existence of God anymore than a theist can prove God's existence. You can amass mountains of evidence against god's existence and God can be easily rationalized away. But, people have never believed on the basis of evidence, or reason, but "inspite of it." Now, having said this I know I have just given amunition to some who will see this as evidence of the "unthinking" and "uncritical" (ignorant, stupid, blind, deluded) believers. But, don't forget what my point is, which is that faith in God will never die because it provides superior inspiration and purpose to life that cannot be gained otherwise.
@Joe:
Thanks for the continued thoughts. Some counter thoughts:
- it may be more helpful to see humans not as having innate belief in "god", but more so that we have evolved innate "agent detection systems" or "causal hypothesis generators." God as a concept seems to satisfy these mechanisms and, as you suggest, might do satisfy them better than anything else thus far.
- it would also be helpful for you to clarify what god you think people "naturally" believe in. See the interview between Robert Wright and Bill Moyer on PBS about the "evolution of god." Yes, this concept has long been attractive and clung to, but my hypothesis is that people would not "invent Jesus" on their own. Someone, somewhere develops some concept and future generations pass it down and develop it. Indeed, where Christianity to have been "revealed" in any two parts of the world simultaneously, I would be far more convinced of it's object of worship.
- We are still left with the question I hinted at earlier: is something worth believing despite its being untrue? I suggest not and at least decided at the outset of my search that I would rather suffer unhappiness (note that I do not consider this inevitable) than believe in the unfounded and unlikely.
- regarding your allusion to AA using this technique because it's somehow more capable of reaching the most "human" qualities of humans... this is not the case. See the post HERE which contains a link to the original study as well.
- Lastly, I would be curious if the "motivating factor" you ascribe to the god concept would systematically be lacking in non-believers. I wonder if it has far more to do with genetics and upbringing. Some just tend to be "zealous" in life and others not. We can all think of examples of "nominal" believers/non-believers (who qualify themselves as X but don't seem to embody the fullness of living out X) as well as "outstanding" believers/non-believers (those who seem to portray the best form of what belief in X is said to promise).
This is also true across religions. This is true in politics. This is true among educators. Some have the "zest" and others do not. I have a hard time thinking that the common denominator is that zest-filled people believe in god as a motivating factor and the lethargic hopeless individuals don't.
Joe:
"Gearheded, I did not intend to imply that faith in god reliquishes personal responsibility. You didn't get that from what I wrote. I stated that people want and perhaps need a being greater than themselves to inspire them, motivate them, give them a purpose greater than themselves, etc. People do use god as a means to evil ends, or as the proverbial crutch, but that is not my point."
Nevertheless, whether you will it or no, the implication that people use religion / belief in a sustaining father-figure deity is there. One of the reasons I mentioned the story about how I quit smoking is because I met a Christian who insisted that whether I believed it or didn't, God did that for me, because I don't have any strength of will to do it on my own (her opinion).
And if I cannot accomplish anything through my own will, then I cannot be responsible for either success or failure.
You even said it further down in your post:
" I suggest that it is a greater inspiration to performance than self. At least as far as I am concerned and as far as I can tell from observing human nature. The 12 step program of AA and other organizations understands this."
Twelve Step Program
"These are the original Twelve Steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:[10]
1.We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."
Of these, only numbers 4, 8, 9, and 10 rely minimally upon one's own willpower and capacity to take action. The rest admit personal powerlessness and the alleged need to give responsibility for corrective action to God.
Put that together with the concept of Original Sin as given in Genesis, and the conveniently self-serving resurrection story in the Gospels, and this is the picture of the average Christian:
A miserable sinner that is unworthy of God's grace, cannot control evil impulses, and will never fart in the general direction of earthly perfection (for the record, perfection is impossible for atheists, too; the difference is that we TRY to better ourselves as opposed to praying for "grace" and "salvation" from an invisible god while continuing to "sin", since we've admitted that we can't help it).
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