Our Differences Are Not Worldview Differences. Believers Are Simply Ignorant!

I have come to the conclusion I was duped so badly by faith that up until the last few years I adopted some of its obfuscationist rhetoric aimed at hiding the truth. I used to say the problem between believers and non-believers isn't ignorance but rather a different way of seeing the evidence, that it was a problem of having different worldviews. Now I see the difference between believers and non-believers is not mainly a worldview problem, although it is that. It's not about seeing the evidence differently through different worldviews. It's not because we view the evidence differently due to different background knowledge either. It's because of ignorance, sheer ignorance, sometimes massive ignorance, and even willful ignorance. The difference between us is that believers are simply ignorant. There's no such thing as background knowledge leading believers to see the evidence differently, since that which is not true isn't considered knowledge at all. So this isn't a case of merely seeing things differently. The evidence is decisively against faith. The problem is that believers don't know how to think logically. They don't know they are controlled by cognitive biases that prohibit them from desiring the truth. So they don't know how to counteract these cognitive biases by demanding hard cold evidence based in scientific thinking. Even their best apologists defend their faith by special pleading. They don't even know they do so, but they do, all of them to some degree. They begin with faith then seek to confirm it in almost every case. They'll grab anything off the internet that defends it, even from a one hundred year old encyclopedia (as one ignorantly did here recently), if it says what they need it to say. More sophisticated apologists don't do that, but they're not really different in that they are experts in obfuscationist philosophy.

I wrote three books to educate believers on how to seek the truth. The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True shows honest believers how to approach their faith consistently without any double standards or special pleading. How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist shows Christian apologists how to correctly defend their faith, if it can be defended at all. Apologists should read it before writing another sentence in defense of their faith. In it I challenge apologists to stop doing what they're doing if they're serious about defending the Christian faith. The risk is that if they stop it they cannot defend their faith at all. But the risk is worth it if they're serious about knowing and defending the truth. Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End shows philosophers of religion and other intellectuals, whether atheist or Christian, how to properly evaluate religious faith itself. What I cannot teach Christians however, is to desire the truth. That comes from within. Taken together these three books are the antidote to faith. The problem is that, numerically speaking, almost none of them desire the truth. Here's hoping a few honest believers are reading who desire the truth. Cheers.