Has atheism killed more people than religion?

From Atheist Republic 

Faced with the violence condoned and encouraged by organized religion, some believers are eager to point out that atheists are equally violent, if not more. In fact, some suggest that atheism is at the root of the worst atrocities in recent history, like the regime of Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong.

While it’s true that Stalin and Mao were corrupt leaders who denounced religion among their people, suggesting that their depravity was caused by atheism or that their behavior was at all indicative of atheism as a whole simply does not follow. Similarly, the idea that atheism is somehow uniquely responsible for despotism is clearly false. History is filled with examples of the religious whose beliefs were directly responsible for murder and violence (1). Yet such direct relationship has not been seen with secular tyrants. If anything, non-religious dictators themselves act more like religious zealots, elevating themselves as deities in the cult of personality they’ve developed.

Atheism Has No Doctrines

The violence within Christianity or Islam can often be traced back to the teachings of those religions because it is embedded in the ideology of the religions themselves (2). Even though war and violence in the name of God are often motivated by non-religious ambitions, such as political and territorial gain, religions in such cases are often used as an excuse for justifying such acts, disguising their intentions as holy and recruiting armies of people who would not have been willing to risk their lives for purely secular causes (3). People throughout history have been martyred and sacrificed in the name of religion, and holy wars have been fought over the tenets of those religions.

The same cannot be said of atheism for the simple fact that atheism is not a religion. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities. It has no governing dogmatic principles, no rule book and no core ideology. Comparing atheism to religion is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s more helpful to compare atheism to theism, which is simply belief in a deity. While some theists also hold fundamentalist beliefs, just believing that some god exists is not enough to cause wars and violence based on the belief alone. How many wars have been caused by deism? You’d need some additional dogmatic beliefs in order for that happen. 


No one commits mass murder in the name of theism or atheism alone. Additional dogmatic principles are needed to justify such grisly outcomes. In the case of theism, religions like Christianity and Islam provide such dogma, creating convenient excuses. Secular totalitarian regimes and religion share this dogmatic element: a belief that a set of ideas are true because an authority figure says so and that questioning those ideas can lead to serious or even deadly consequences.

Therefore, it’s not reasonable to say that atheism condones or promotes violence or that tyrants have killed in the name of atheism. Such actions or any other action, both good and bad, do not and cannot speak for atheism in general, as no two atheists necessarily hold any of the same beliefs or convictions about the world. The only thing held in common between all atheists is a lack of belief in deities.

This means that some atheists are undoubtedly unkind, aggressive and violent. It also means that some atheists are kind, friendly and peaceful. Any type of person can be an atheist, just as any type of person can be not interested in golf. Just because some non-golfers are jerks doesn’t make not golfing bad any more than atheism can be blamed for the behavior of a handful of atheists. If you’re trying to make a decision about whether you believe in God based on how a certain non-believer you know acts, you’re using flawed reasoning. For the same reason, not all religious people are bad or cruel individuals, yet the practice of violence and war is deeply imbedded in many religious ideologies. It is, therefore, best to examine your views about God or other religious beliefs by evaluating the evidence provided for such claims, not based on the behavior of people who do or do not accept it as truth.

The Cult of Personality

It’s true that the tyrannical communist regimes of Mao and Stalin were opposed to religion, with religious belief discouraged and punished under their rule. This had less to do with atheism and more to do with the threat of religion as competition with their own tyrannical plans. Totalitarian regimes are built on dogma and fear, not freedom of speech and inquiry. In this way, they greatly resemble religion. In effect, these leaders essentially created religions and inserted themselves at the top as new deities. As Sam Harris put it, “The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions.” These cults of personality are not derived from atheism, and it is hard to see how one could argue that their activities were representative of atheists as a whole. Indeed, many free, irreligious nations, such as Denmark and Sweden (4), are among the most peaceful and prosperous countries in the world (5). The point, however, is not to say that atheism necessarily causes people to be happier or more prosperous. What is clear, however, is that atheism does not lead to violence, tyranny or genocide any more than religiosity guarantees a peaceful and prosperous nation.

The world’s religions have rules and holy books that tell their followers what’s wrong or right and how to behave. Thus, it is reasonable to hold a religion accountable for the message that it preaches. There are no holy atheist scriptures, no atheist pope and no atheist rituals, tenets, creeds, code or authority. Atheism cannot be held accountable for the activities of atheists in the same way that religion can be judged by its doctrine because atheism has no doctrines. 


A Superior Atheist (allegedly)

An Apologist asks me to comment on a quote that he attributes to Kevin Harris. The Apologist has a habit of copying quotes from websites without checking the provenance and this is another example. The quote is obviously written by someone claiming to be an atheist. Kevin Harris is a Christian Apologist – he’s the sidekick on William Lane Craig’s apologist podcast.  In fact the text is an anonymous comment that was allegedly posted on a blog, but cannot be seen. So the quote should be attributed to “anonymous” and not poor Kevin Harris. Using an anonymous (possibly non-existent) comment as the basis of an argument is somewhat pathetic. It’s the easiest thing in the world to find an opinion on a website that coincides with one’s own opinion. But that doesn’t make it right. Surely it saves time and effort to express and defend one’s own opinion? That would also avoid the embarrassment of misquoting.

Ironically, the text makes a series of spurious arguments, which are the same as those made by Evangelicals and Creationists when they rail against atheism. Whoever created this anonymous text was probably trying to be funny, or contentious, or was trolling. Or is genuinely ignorant. And it certainly fits the criteria of Poe’s Law. 

But let’s take it at face value…

#	What the alleged atheist allegedly said	My Opinion
1	We deride the Theists for having created myths and holy books.	Who is “we”? Maybe you do, but you seem unaware of the origin of those myths and holy books.  It’s fair to deride the beliefs – but it’s not fair to deride “the theists”. Those myths and holy books were created thousands of years ago. You should not deride people who are indoctrinated. Your target should be the indoctrinators.
2	We imagine ourselves superior.	Again… “we”.  You imagine yourself to be superior. That’s likely to be a psychological defence mechanism for an inherent feeling of inferiority. Ironically, it’s a trait exploited by religion.  Seems to me you are someone who needs religion.
3	But we too imagine there are reasons to obey laws, be polite, protect the weak etc.	We don’t imagine reasons – there are actual reasons to obey laws, be polite and protect the weak and usually we are not consciously aware of those reasons. Have you done any research?
4	Rubbish.	Your previous statement was indeed, rubbish.
5	We are nurturing a new religion, one where we imagine that such conventions have any basis in reality.	Again… who is “we”?  And again… have you done any research on the basis of those “conventions”? If you do you will find they do have a basis in reality.  But now that you mention it… you do seem to have a religious mentality.
6	Have they allowed life to exist? Absolutely.	“Allowed” is the wrong word. The “conventions” you allude to are a key evolutionary reason that human life exists (and other species too).  You don’t appear to know much about evolution. Are you not even curious?
7	But who cares?	Well, apparently you do!
8	Outside of my greedy little gene’s need to reproduce, there is nothing in my world that stops me from killing you and reproducing with your wife.	There obviously is something stopping you doing those things, because you don’t do them.
9	Only the fear that I might be incarcerated and thus be deprived of the opportunity to do the same with the next guy’s wife stops me.	It’s good to know the law is a deterrent in your case. You might want to ask yourself why that works for you and not for other people, when most of them are not atheists.  It’s obvious you live in the USA, and the last time I checked (2013) the incarceration rate in your country was the highest in the world (716 per 100,000 of the population). The USA has 4% of the world's population, but it has 22% of the world's prisoners.
10	Some of my Atheist friends have fooled themselves into acting like the general population. They live in suburban homes, drive Toyota Camrys, attend school plays.	Why do you think they live like that? And how do you act differently to your friends?
11	But underneath they know the truth. They are a bag of DNA whose only purpose is to make more of themselves.	That’s obviously not their only purpose, given your previous statement.
12	So be nice if you want. Be involved, have polite conversations, be a model citizen.	It’s quite difficult to be anything else.
13	Just be aware that while technically an Atheist, you are an inferior one.	You obviously feel you are superior (see line 2). I’m not a psychologist, but in my experience, that’s often a way of coping with a feeling of being inferior. I think it’s funny to assume an atheist checklist where you lose points for selecting Suburbs, Camry and Attend School play but you gain points for wanting to be a murderer and rapist and fearing the law.
14	You’re just a little bit less evolved, that’s all.	“Less evolved”. If anything reveals your lack of knowledge of evolution, it’s that comment. Are you a creationist pretending to be an atheist?
15	When you are ready to join me, let me know. I’ll be reproducing with your wife.	You want me to join you after you’ve killed me. I hereby invoke Poe’s Law.

Ten Quick Responses to Atheist Claims

A Christian Apologist refers to quick responses for ten "common claims from atheists" by another apologist, namely John Lennox.

I'm not sure how common these claims are (some of them appear to be straw men especially #2) but in any case, I tend to agree with Lennox except for #5 and he's dodged #10.  But mainly he's fairly sensible. My opinions regarding his points are...

1) It's true that the Abrahamic religions are monotheistic whereas Norse and Greek religions are polytheistic. Zeus and Thor are descended from greater entities who sprang from the void (or chaos). The heavens and earth were created by multiple gods rather than one.

2) Science has obviously not explained everything. I'm not aware of anyone making that claim, at least not in the last 120 years. Perhaps it is a reference to Lord Kelvin who said science was pretty much over, just a few years before Max Planck discovered the quantum, and suddenly we realised how little we knew about physics! Obviously if science had explained everything there would be an awful lot of unemployed scientists! I don't believe it will ever happen because as Lennox says, science and religion explain different things (the natural and the supernatural respectively) and therefore it's illogical to have competition between science and religion.

3) To be consistent with point #2 then science should obviously not be opposed to gods (or the supernatural). 

4) Lennox refers to personal experience and that is the best evidence for gods in my opinion.

5) Lennox has fallen into the trap of using the Bible as evidence for God. That's like using The Odyssey as evidence for Zeus.

6) There is a subtle difference between faith and delusion.   A delusion is a belief by an individual, often peculiar to that individual, which is held despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, and it is often a sign of mental illness.  Faith in this context is defined as: Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.  So I think it's unfair to claim that religious faith (or spiritual conviction) implies mental illness.

7) I like Lennox's use of football as an analogy for denominations and religions. There are actually many variations of the game across the world, with different rules, different shaped balls and goals, different numbers of players. The rules evolve over time. The version one participates in (if any) is predominantly influenced by birthplace, culture, school, family or peers. 

8) It's nonsense to say the bible is immoral. The concept of morality applies to the actions of people. A book can't be immoral or moral. 

9) Some Christians do take the Bible literally. But I think they are in a small minority nowadays at least from a global perspective.

10) If there was evidence for God I would believe in God. But it seems Lennox cannot provide any. He completely dodged the question for some reason.

Why I Am an Unbeliever - Carl Van Doren

Why I Am an Unbeliever by Carl Van Doren

Carl Van Doren (1885–1950) was professor of English at Columbia University and biographer of Benjamin Franklin. Here, he confronts the tired, old argument that without faith there can be no foundation for ethics.

Let us be honest. There have always been men and women without the gift of faith. They lack it, do not desire it, and would not know what to do with it if they had it. They are apparently no less intelligent than the faithful, and apparently no less virtuous. How great the number of them is it would be difficult to say, but they exist in all communities and are most numerous where there is most enlightenment. As they have no organisation and no creed, they can of course have no official spokesman. Nevertheless, any one of them who speaks out can be trusted to speak, in a way, for all of them. Like the mystics, the unbelievers, wherever found, are essentially of one spirit and one language. I cannot, however, pretend to represent more than a single complexion of unbelief.

The very terms that I am forced to use put me at the outset in a trying position. Belief, being first in the field, naturally took a positive term for itself and gave a negative term to unbelief. As an unbeliever, I am therefore obliged to seem merely to dissent from the believers no matter how much more I may do. Actually I do more. What they call unbelief, I call belief. Doubtless I was born to it, but I have tested it with reading and speculation, and I hold it firmly.

What I have referred to as the gift of faith I do not, to be exact, regard as a gift. I regard it, rather, as a survival from an earlier stage of thinking and feeling: in short, as a form of superstition. It, and not the thing I am forced to name unbelief, seems to me negative. It denies the reason. It denies the evidences in the case, in the sense that it insists upon introducing elements that come not from the facts as shown but from the imaginations and wishes of mortals.

Unbelief does not deny the reason and it sticks as closely as it can to the evidences. I shall have to be more explicit. When I say I am an unbeliever, I do not mean merely that I am no Mormon or no Methodist, or even that I am no Christian or no Buddhist. These seem to me relatively unimportant divisions and subdivisions of belief. I mean that I do not believe in any god that has ever been devised, in any doctrine that has ever claimed to be revealed, in any scheme of immortality that has ever been expounded.

As to gods, they have been, I find, countless, but even the names, of most of them lie in the deep compost which is known as civilisation, and the memories of few of them are green. There does not seem to me to be good reason for holding that some of them are false and some of them, or one of them, true. Each was created by the imaginations and wishes of men who could not account for the behavior of the universe in any other satisfactory way.

But no god has satisfied his worshipers forever. Sooner or later they have realised that the attributes once ascribed to him, such as selfishness or lustfulness or vengefulness, are unworthy of the moral systems that men have evolved among themselves. Thereupon follows the gradual doom of the god, however long certain of the faithful may cling to his cult. In the case of the god who still survives in the loyalty of men after centuries of scrutiny, it can always be noted that little besides his name has endured. His attributes wil have been so revised that he is really another god. Nor is this objection met by the argument that the concept of the god has been purified while the essence of him survived. In the concept alone can he be studied; the essence eludes the grasp of the human mind. 

I may prefer among the various gods that god who seems to me most thoroughly purged of what I regard as undivine elements, but I make my choice, obviously, upon principles that come from observation of the conduct of men. Whether a god has been created in the image of gross desires or of pure desires does not greatly matter. The difference proves merely that different men have desired gods and have furnished themselves with the gods they were able to conceive. Behind all their conceptions still lies the abyss of ignorance. There is no trustworthy evidence as to a god’s absolute existence.

Nor does the thing called revelation, as I see it, carry the proof further. All the prophets swear that a god speaks through them, and yet they prophesy contradictions. Once more, men must choose in accordance with their own principles. That a revelation was announced long ago makes it difficult to examine, but does not otherwise attest its soundness. That some revealed doctrine has lasted for ages and has met the needs of many generations proves that it is the kind of doctrine that endures and satisfies, but not that it is divine. Secular doctrines that turned out to be perfectly false have also endured and satisfied. 

If belief in a god has to proceed from the assumption that he exists, belief in revelation has first to proceed from the assumption that a god exists and then to go further to the assumption that he communicates his will to certain men. But both are mere assumptions. Neither is, in the present state of knowledge, at all capable of proof. Suppose a god did exist, and suppose he did communicate his will to any of his creatures. What man among them could comprehend that language? What man could take that dictation? And what man could overwhelmingly persuade his fellows that he had been selected and that they must accept him as authentic? The best they could do would be to have faith in two assumptions and to test the revealed will by its correspondence to their imaginations and wishes. 

At this point it may be contended that revelation must be real because it arouses so much response in so many human bosoms. This does not follow without a leap of the reason into the realm of hypothesis. Nothing is proved by this general response except that men are everywhere very much alike. They have the same members, the same organs, the same glands, in varying degrees of activity. Being so much alike, they tend to agree upon a few primary desires. Fortunate the religion by which those desires appear to be gratified.

One desire by which the human mind is often teased is the desire to live after death. It is not difficult to explain. Men live so briefly that their plans far outrun their ability to execute them. They see themselves cut off before their will to live is exhausted. Naturally enough, they wish to survive, and, being men, believe in their chances for survival. But their wishes afford no possible proof. Life covers the earth with wishes, as it covers the earth with plants and animals. No wish, however, is evidence of anything beyond itself. Let millions hold it, and it is still only a wish. Let each separate race exhibit it, and it is still only a wish. Let the wisest hold it as strongly as the foolishest, and it is still only a wish. Whoever says he knows that immortality is a fact is merely hoping that it is. And whoever argues, as men often do, that life would be meaningless without immortality because it alone brings justice into human fate, must first argue, as no man has ever quite convincingly done, that life has an unmistakable meaning and that it is just. I, at least, am convinced on neither of these two points. Though I am, I believe, familiar with all the arguments, I do not find any of them notably better than the others. All I see is that the wish for immortality is widespread, that certain schemes of immortality imagined from it have here or there proved more agreeable than rival schemes and that they have been more generally accepted. The religions that provide these successful schemes I can credit with keener insight into human wishes than other religions have had, but I cannot credit them with greater authority as regards the truth. They are all guesswork.

That I think thus about gods, revelation, and immortality ought to be sufficient answer to the question why I am an unbeliever. It would be if the question were always reasonably asked, but it is not. There is also an emotional aspect to be considered. Many believers, I am told, have the same doubts, and yet have the knack of putting their doubts to sleep and entering ardently into the communion of the faithful. The process is incomprehensible to me. So far as I understand it, such believers are moved by their desires to the extent of letting them rule not only their conduct but also their thoughts. An unbeliever’s desires have, apparently, less power over his reason. Perhaps this is only another way of saying that his strongest desire is to be as reasonable as he can. However the condition be interpreted, the consequence is the same. An honest unbeliever can no more make himself believe against his reason than he can make himself free of the pull of gravitation. For myself, I feel no obligation whatever to believe. I might once have felt it prudent to keep silence, for I perceive that the race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity; but just now, happily, in this breathing-spell of toleration, there are so many varieties of belief that even an unbeliever may speak out.

In so doing, I must answer certain secondary questions which unbelievers are often asked. Does it not persuade me, one question runs, to realise that many learned men have pondered upon supernatural matters and have been won over to belief? I answer, not in the least. With respect to the gods, revelation, and immortality no man is enough more learned than his fellows to have the right to insist that they follow him into the regions about which all men are ignorant. I am not a particle more impressed by some good old man’s conviction that he is in the confidence of the gods than I am by any boy’s conviction that there are fish in the horse-pond from which no fish has ever been taken. Does it not impress me to see some good old woman serene in conviction that there are fish in the horse-pond from which no fish has ever been taken. Does it not impress me to see some good old woman serene in the faith of a blessed immortality? No more than it impresses me to see a little girl full of trust in the universal munificence of a Christmas saint. Am I not moved by the spectacle of a great tradition of worship which has broadened out over continents and which brings all its worshipers punctually together in the observance of noble and dignified rites? Yes, but I am moved precisely by that as I am moved by the spectacle of men everywhere putting their seed seasonably in the ground, tending its increase, and patiently gathering in their harvests.

Finally, do I never suspect in myself some moral obliquity, or do I not at least regret the bleak outlook of unbelief? On these points I am, in my own mind, as secure as I know how to be. There is no moral obligation to believe what is unbelievable any more than there is a moral obligation to do what is undoable. Even in religion, honesty is a virtue. Obliquity, I should say, shows itself rather in prudent pretense or in voluntary self-delusion. Furthermore, the unbelievers have, as I read history, done less harm to the world than the believers. They have not filled it with savage wars or snarled casuistries, with crusades or persecutions, with complacency or ignorance. They have, instead, done what they could to fill it with knowledge and beauty, with temperance and justice, with manners and laughter. They have numbered among themselves some of the most distinguished specimens of mankind. And when they have been undistinguished, they have surely not been inferior to the believers in the fine art of minding their own affairs and so of enlarging the territories of peace.

Nor is the outlook of unbelief, to my way of thinking, a bleak one. It is merely rooted in courage and not in fear. Belief is still in the plight of those ancient races who out of a lack of knowledge peopled the forest with satyrs and the sea with ominous monsters and the ends of the earth with misshapen anthropophagi. So the pessimists among believers have peopled the void with witches and devils, and the optimists among them have peopled it with angels and gods. Both alike have been afraid to furnish the house of life simply. They have cluttered it with the furniture of faith. Much of this furniture, the most reasonable unbeliever would never think of denying, is very beautiful. There are breathing myths, there are comforting legends, there are consoling hopes. But they have, as the unbeliever sees them, no authority beyond that of poetry. That is, they may captivate if they can, but they have no right to insist upon conquering. 

Beliefs, like tastes, may differ. The unbeliever’s taste and belief are austere. In the wilderness of worlds he does not yield to the temptation to belittle the others by magnifying his own. Among the dangers of chance he does not look for safety to any watchful providence whose special concern he imagines he is. Though he knows that knowledge is imperfect, he trusts it alone. If he takes, therefore, the less delight in metaphysics, he takes the more in physics. Each discovery of a new truth brings him a vivid joy. He builds himself up, so far as he can, upon truth, and barricades himself with it. Thus doing, he never sags into superstition, but grows steadily more robust and blithe in his courage. However many fears he may prove unable to escape, he does not multiply them in his imagination and then combat them with his wishes. Austerity may be simplicity and not bleakness.

Does the unbeliever lack certain of the gentler virtues of the believer, the quiet confidence, the unquestioning obedience? He may, yet it must always be remembered that the greatest believers are the greatest tyrants. If the freedom rather than the tyranny of faith is to better the world, then the betterment lies in the hands, I think, of the unbelievers. At any rate, I take my stand with them.

Not God's Type

 Observations on the book by Holly Ordway 

"A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith" 

Background
This book was introduced to me by a Creationist who said he was …"combating the idea that evidence for God doesn't exist. It does and it's plentiful. The many atheists / non-believers who have come to faith in God based on evidence testify to this fact."

The implication is that Ordway's book will describe what this plentiful evidence for God is. However, when one reads the book it appears Ordway's spiritual journey was based on emotion and intution. Nothing wrong with that of course. But evidence for God? No.

The Creationist also seems to be arguing that the existence of "many atheists" who have converted to Christianity is somehow relevant to the argument that there is evidence for God. Obviously, the same argument could be made about Christians who've become atheists demonstrating there is evidence that there is no God. Either way, it's not a valid argument. Anyway… on to the book:

About the Book
Ordway's description of herself as a "rational academic" is a bit of a stretch, as we will see later (and to be fair it was probably a label assigned by a publisher rather than herself). Her story is rather old fashioned - portraying life without God as, empty, lonely, dark, despairing, meaningless and without a moral compass. Whereas life with Jesus meant peace, contentment, freedom, and light.  In the old days, those were the only two options.  

Ordway describes herself being in the former and converting to the latter, following a conversion process based on befriending. This is an effective strategy for evangelists - identifying the needs of the non-believer and then witness to them. This is explained here. 

I get the impression Ordway is not an Evangelical although she doesn't spell this out, she names her chosen church which is high Anglican and orthodox. 

A common theme throughout the book is how Ordway succumbs to peer pressure for her beliefs, both before and during her conversion. She seems credulous and gullible. More on this later.

It's also apparent that she accepts the standard Christian Apologetic arguments that are presented to her without bothering with any research into the counter-arguments. If she can't refute an argument herself, or if it appeals to her intuitively, then she accepts it. Rational Academic? Really?  

The arguments presented to her are all standard arguments, none of them airtight, and all refuted by scholars and philosophers over hundreds of years. Her lack of knowledge of any counter-arguments is remarkable for someone portrayed here as a one time hard-nosed atheist.  She is presented with one side of the argument, and accepts it. 

The truth is that her spiritual journey is emotional. She was in a bad place, depressed, with no meaning in her life and unfulfilled needs. Then she is befriended, shown kindness, given explanations to meet her existential needs,  and given hope and meaning. The important thing is that she now feels she is a better, happier person because of her new found faith and career as a professional Apologist. 

As an aside, let no one who is reading this think that I am knocking religion. Ordway's story is a very good case study of how religion can meet people's needs and bring happiness and contentment (and has done for centuries). 

Who is this book aimed at? Well, it's not going to convince anyone who is familiar with the philosophical counter-arguments to the stuff that persuaded Ordway. But it will provide a sense of validation to existing Christians, especially Evangelicals who love any account of an atheist becoming religious. 

Here are observations on each chapter. Note that I haven’t included the “Interludes” which Ordway provides between some chapters. I will include those in an update to this article. 

Introduction Soon after arriving in San Diego in 2005, Holly Ordway meets Josh Runyan: ex-marine, ex-fighter pilot, commercial airline pilot and also her fencing coach. As it turns out, he has studied Christian Apologetics since high school and has always been a fan of CS Lewis. Within a few months of meeting Josh, Ordway has become a committed Christian and within a few years has become a professional Christian Apologist, with Josh gaining a post-graduate degree in Apologetics too. Ordway's book picks up the story in 2005…

Chapter 1 - Beginnings
In this introduction, Ordway describes herself as "a nice person, even a good person". In the next chapter we discover she is not very nice at all.   Finding God later made her realise that she was actually a sinner. I'm surprised she needed to find God to work that out, but anyway… 

Chapter 2 - Faithless
Ordway explains that in first grade, she didn't know that God was spelled with a capital "G" but the other kids did. She says… "I knew about Greek and Norse Gods so the capital G puzzled me." Really? Age 6? Anyway, it would be interesting to know why all the other 6 year olds knew about God with a big G and she didn't. She tells us nothing about her parents, sadly. 

She then says her "College science classes presented Christians as illiterate anti-intellectuals who threatened the advancement of knowledge by not embracing Darwinism." Good grief - what kind of science class was this? And what kind of teacher? The important point is that Ordway is told something by someone in authority, and it becomes her opinion. She portrays herself as easily led, and this theme occurs throughout the book.

If her science teacher wasn't bad enough, she says her English classes taught her that Chaucer was an atheist! She seems to have been surrounded by teachers who were idiots, and she seems to have believed everything she was told.  

She explains that by the age of thirty-one she was an atheist college professor and she says "it was fun to consider myself superior to the unenlightened, superstitious masses, and to make snide comments about Christians." 

I'm afraid I have to differ with her assessment of herself at this time as a "nice person, even a good person." That doesn't sound nice to me!

Chapter 3 - Alone in the Fortress of Atheism
She begins by explaining that in her opinion, she was the product of "blind chance over millions of years."  I really hope her science teacher was sacked for teaching this, especially combined with the statements in the previous chapter. Ordway seems to be providing the "blind chance" straw man of evolution that is put forward by Creationists who use it to try to discredit natural selection. I do wonder if some of Ordway's "memories" have been created in retrospect, following her exposure to Apologist books. Anyway, if she really was taught that then we have yet another example of Ordway blindly believing what she was told. 

Then we discover that she has some serious anger management issues. She explains that she felt her life had no meaning. She says fencing was a "saving grace" but at one point she actually broke her foil on an opponent's helmet out of pure anger. 

Everyone has an emotional need for having some meaning to life, and she explains that she met this need by fencing, being a teacher, saving and investing money (she doesn't mention her prolific DVD and TV online reviews which started in 2001, or her moneysaver website and her feature on CNN). 

I think it's a shame that she does not mention her husband at this point (Noel Llopis - computer game design expert, and also a fencer.) Why has he been airbrushed out of the story? Did he not give her life some meaning? He doesn't even get a mention on the acknowledgements page. She does say that without God, "any two souls who try to cling to each other for all their meaning will drown just the same." Is that a reference to her marriage? Was Noel an atheist or religious? Was he supportive? Ordway describes herself as a "single woman" in 2010, when her book was published. I wonder why they divorced during her conversion process? Poor Noel has been made insignificant in this story, which is odd. 

And again she provides more information which counters any previous claim to being a "nice person" - she says she was prone to vindictive and intense anger, 9/11 left her emotionless, and so on. 

Chapter 4 - Groundbreaking
Ordway is now in California (with her husband Noel although she again fails to mention him) and she's teaching English literature. Worryingly, considering she's teaching literature, she implies Keats was a Christian poet. She also describes the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins (a poet who converted to become a Jesuit and promptly set fire to all his poems). She specifically refers to his poem Carrion Comfort - in which Hopkins describes a period of despair in his life which he identifies as persecution by God. 

This chapter is an interesting case study on how literature and poetry can be inspirational, regardless of what the authors might actually be saying. And of course, that applies to the Bible.

Chapter 5 - Wordless Witness
In this chapter, Ordway meets Josh Runyan, a fencing champion and coach, ex-marine, ex-fighter pilot and commercial airline pilot. And she meets his wife Heidi, also a fencing coach. But what Ordway didn't realise at this point was that Josh and Heidi were Christians. (She also seems unaware that the entire fencing team is Christian as we shall see later).  

Ordway seems surprised that nice people could also be Christian. Interestingly she describes Josh's caring, honest, compassionate and respectful attitude as "preaching the Gospel by living it". Hey - that sounds just like me! I like that phrase.

Chapter 6 - Perfect Justice or Perfect Mercy
After a disastrous fencing competition, Ordway finds herself having dinner with Josh and Heidi and it is during this meal that Ordway discovers her fencing mentors are Christians (or so we are led to believe). Ordway happens to mention CS Lewis and guess what - Josh is not just any old Christian - he is a committed Religious Apologist and he's also a huge fan of CS Lewis, ever since he read him at high school. 

Over dinner (presumably) he presents Ordway with three of the classic Apologist arguments - the First Cause Argument; the Argument from Morality and the Perfect Justice/Mercy argument. Amazingly, Ordway has never heard these arguments before and significantly, she's never heard the philosophical counter-arguments. The arguments resonate with her intuition, and she's hooked. Josh is now her gateway to The Truth. And once again, Ordway's credulity stands out like a sore thumb.

(Note is the number 1 rule of successful evangelising - befriending.  Remember that advice if you're an Evangelist - being rude to non-believers doesn't work!  For some handy tips on how to be an evangelist click here)

Chapter 7 - Dante and Virgil
Josh's next move is to present Ordway with two classic Apologist text books: "Does God Exist" (by professional apologists such as Moreland, Kreeft and Craig) and "Making Sense of the New Testament" by Craig Blomberg who argues that the Gospels are historically accurate. 

Again, it doesn't seem to occur to Ordway that she could seek out other explanations to the stuff in these books, and instead turns to her Apologist befriender (Josh) to answer her questions. And guess what - his views coincide exactly with the arguments made in the books (that he provided). 

Once again -  it really does seem extraordinary that Ordway just accepts these arguments with no critical push-back or research of her own. But actually that's not extraordinary once we realise her emotional needs at this time… she needs meaning in her life, she needs to be cared for and happy and made to feel safe (and so do we all), she needs coaching, but most of all she needs answers - and Josh is providing the whole package. If she was to challenge him, and his impressive looking text books, she'd be challenging a major opportunity to be happy. 

Chapter 8 - A Rational Faith
Here we see Ordway swallowing arguments from Peter Kreeft - again without exploring the counter-arguments. She completely falls for the circular "God is as real as 2+3=5" argument and intuitively accepts the "Argument from Consciousness"; "Cosmological Argument" and "First Cause Argument". 

She describes herself here as a "philosophy student" but nothing could be further from the truth - the only philosophy she is studying is that of Christian Apologists, drip-fed via Josh. She seems blissfully unaware of the long list of philosophers who have countered these arguments over hundreds of years. But of course - she doesn't want to be aware of anything that could risk her new found emotional happiness. And who can blame her?

Chapter 9 - Searching for the Source
Ordway is now convinced that everything Josh has provided represents The Truth. She is convinced there is a Creator who is the source of morality, and she can see no flaws in the argument, even though the flaws are well known to anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy. 

It is astonishing (if we assume she is behaving rationally) that she has been unaware of the counter-arguments all her life and at this point doesn't bother to research them. But of course she's not behaving rationally. Her emotions and intuition are in charge. She describes this intuitive acceptance of the arguments as "logic and reason". But it's no such thing - it's intuition based on incomplete information. It's faith.

Chapter 10 - Not a Tame Lion
This chapter contains the highlight of the book for me - Ordway decides to use the scientific method to determine the existence of God. 

She will form a hypothesis which makes predictions and she will test those predictions. If the hypothesis passes the test it will become her established theory, otherwise the hypothesis will be disproved and there is no God. 

(To be fair to Josh, he does warn her that her experiment is not scientific because the data is based on emotions, but that doesn't stop her! Interesting that he seems to understand the scientific method better than she does.) 

So… what would be the predictions of the hypothesis that Christianity is true? Josh and Ordway agree that the hypothesis should predict an awareness of God (via the Holy Spirit), or as they put it, an "I get it" moment. But if the result of the test was a feeling of increased confusion, then the hypothesis has failed the test and Christianity is not true. (Am I the only one to see the flaw in this?) 

Anyway… we will return to the experiment later. 

Chapter 11 - What if it's Real?
Ordway starts to appreciate life, especially sunlight, the sea and coffee, and feeling "in the moment." 

Reading this, I feel simultaneously happy and sad for her. Sad because she's lived the first 30 years of her life apparently oblivious to the beauty of the world around her and the joy of simple pleasures. But I'm also happy because she's happy now. She had needs, and the concept of God has fulfilled them.  And the cherry on the cake is how Josh uses the words of CS Lewis to confirm that this new found happiness is indeed evidence for God.

Chapter 12 - Results
Ordway suddenly realises that the experiment she devised in Chapter 10 has started subconsciously. She has an emotional experience on the Coast Highway which she attributes to the Holy Spirit. She believes her hypothesis has been confirmed because the predictions that it made have been validated. The scientific method - much derided by Religious Apologists due to its "limited purview" - has demonstrated that God is real and Christianity is True! Take that Dawkins! Eat humble pie Hawking!

Chapter 13 - Between Two Worlds
It's Easter. Ordway write an email to Josh explaining that her heart has outpaced her head. (True!)

Chapter 14 - Easter Season
Ordway confirms that she definitely believes in God and that He must be infinitely more good than she is. He made a perfect world, and human beings messed it up. Faith is no longer alien to her, she concludes. 

Chapter 15 - One Miracle
Josh provides another famous Apologist text book - "In Defense of Miracles". Again she reads this with no apparent challenge or research. She also fails to notice that the book has no contributions from historians or any application of historical method or scientific evidence. 

She's convinced the authors of the book are "top notch scholars" but she fails to notice that the book has no detail of any so-called miracles since the resurrection. (It's a terrible book).

She then goes on to assert that it's impossible to account for the origin of the universe, the human mind or morality.  So - she's totally unaware that such things are not impossible. 

She says she'd ignored these questions in the past. Perhaps if she hadn't ignored those questions she would have been a happier person and less vulnerable to evangelists! Anyway, despite having told us that Christianity is definitely True, she now expresses doubts about the truth of the resurrection. Come on Josh where are you…?!

Chapter 16 - Who is this Jesus?
Josh provides another two books from his Apologetics library: "The Risen Jesus and Future Hope" and NT Wright's massive tome "The Resurrection of the Son of God." 

Yet again, Ordway accepts these as being true without any research. She convinces herself that the resurrection was a real, objective historical event, and therefore the narratives in the Gospels are "evidence". So once she had assumed the historicity of the resurrection everything "fell into place" for her. 

If she had read the works of other scholars or Jewish theologians, she would have found very different interpretations of the resurrection. This chapter, more than any other, demolishes her portrayal of herself as a hard-nosed, rational searcher for truth. She has followed a very narrow path without any of the intellectual rigour she claims.

Chapter 17 - Moving Toward Commitment
Ordway confronts the implications of the Resurrection, and expresses fear, but Josh has an airline analogy about stepping on a plane if you are afraid of flying.  Or something like that.

Chapter 18 - Buying the Ticket
Ordway expands on the airline analogy. She is thinking about the irrevocable step of getting on to the plane. The real decision point she says, was buying the ticket. Despite her utter conviction that Jesus was the Son of God, something was holding her back. 

That night she has a dream that she is in Jerusalem with Josh looking at Jesus' tomb, and she wakes up even more convinced that Jesus rose form the dead. She considers the empty tomb in her dream to be evidence of Jesus's divinity. 

Chapter 19 - Getting on Board
The airline analogy continues. While attending a fencing competition with Josh in Las Vegas, she makes it clear to him that she is committing herself to Christianity (I thought she'd made that pretty clear already but never mind). 

Josh is excited and asks if he can "tell everyone". We now get to one of the weirdest scenes in the book. Josh tells the fencing team and its supporters of Ordway's conversion, and the group hug her and say "Welcome to the Family!" 

What the heck is happening here? Did Ordway know she had signed up with a Christian fencing team? The coaches, teammates and friends all one big Christian fellowship? Nothing wrong with that of course - but why didn't she know? 

Later the team go out for a meal together and Josh says that "since we are all Christians here, we are going to pray." And he says a blessing over the food. This is getting weirder. Has Ordway never been out for a meal with these people before? Has Josh deliberately refrained from praying before a meal previously just because Ordway had not confessed her faith? 

Chapter 20 - The First Day
Worryingly, Ordway's anger management issues resurface during a fencing match, when she screams obscenities after under-performing.  She explains how Josh provides her with practical guidance on how to manage emotions and be a good sport. I have to wonder why he hasn't done that before. That's one of the basic functions of a coach, in my experience anyway. 

Chapter 21 - Home
Josh explains that the next step for Ordway is to go to church and be baptised. She decides to read the Bible, but gets confused by "all the shipwrecks, and speeches and travels hither and yon" and also Paul's letters. 

This is quite extraordinary given that she describes herself as a Professor of Literature!  It's her job to read, understand, critique and dissect literature and poetry!  And it's also quite amazing that during her so-called rational process of conversion, she hasn't read the Bible. 

Anyway, she finds a church (Anglican Communion, interestingly) and the Christian fencing team turn up for her baptism. Josh prepares her for the baptism with some praying, next to the rosebushes. And Ordway is then baptised in the High Anglican manner, followed by communion.

Chapter 22 - Onward
Ordway visits Durham Cathedral in England (a place very dear to my heart as it happens). She's writing her book during this time, her faith has deepened, her needs are fulfilled and she is praying a lot.  It's a cute postscript; she is at peace and medieval England appears to be a sort of spiritual home where she can directly connect with over 1,000 years of history.  And she's divorced. 

Shortly after that, she is working as a professional Apologist in Texas. And seemingly very happy, which is a good thing.