Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

by Dan Barker

It is easy to proselytize. I don’t understand all the psychology behind preaching, but I know that it works. Otherwise, we would not see the growth of movements such as early Christianity and Islam, or modern Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and Mormonism. Most people are uncertain and susceptible, vulnerable to someone else’s confidence and certainty. If you want to be a preacher, then “just do it.” Do it with confidence and style. It works. (Just like anyone in sales will tell you.) But with religion, most people are uncritical. Never once in 19 years of preaching did anyone ever come up to me after a service and ask, “Rev. Barker, what were the sources for your sermon?” I was accorded an immense amount of unearned respect, simply for being a minister.

I recall only two or three times during all those years when someone on the street would reject what I was saying, and it was a huge surprise to me when they simply walked away. Now, I don’t blame them; but at the time, I was perplexed at how someone could be so lost that they would run from God.

Gary is the same fellow who threw away his Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses one day in Mexico, convinced that God had healed his vision. A few weeks later he stumbled into an optometrist’s office in California to buy a new pair.

Worship is supposed to be directly with God, with no intermediaries, saints, priests or rituals. I remember how absurd this became one Wednesday evening during a social potluck, when Pastor Ted Cummins made a few remarks before praying for the meal and happened to mention some of the words from the Last Supper in the bible. A few days later he was called to task by the denomination for conducting the sacrament of Communion.

We had no regular income, no health insurance, and of course no retirement plan since we would never need it in the short time remaining before the rapture.

The reason I rejected Christianity was not because I did not understand or experience it. It wasn’t because I despised God or hated the Christian life. I loved what I was doing and never imagined throwing it away. If I was not a true Christian, then nobody is.

Those initial and timid movements away from fundamentalism were psychologically more traumatic than the intellectual flying leaps that came later.

So, not with any real purpose in mind, I began to scratch this intellectual itch. I read some science magazines, some philosophy, psychology and daily newspapers (!), and began to catch up on the true liberal arts education I would have had years before if I had gone to a real college. This triggered what later became a ravenous appetite to learn, and produced a slow but steady migration across the theological spectrum that took about four or five years. I was not aiming for doubt or atheism. I thought each little move was the last one. “Ah, I’m growing more mature in my beliefs,” I told myself. I originally thought my faith was being strengthened by this additional information, when it was actually my knowledge that was being strengthened. I had no sudden, eye-opening experience. When you are raised like I was, you don’t just wake up one morning, snap your fingers and say, “Oh, silly me! There’s no God.” It was a slow, sometimes wrenching, halting, circuitous process.

There are many hundreds of denominations and sects, and each one of them can open the bible and prove that theirs is the correct interpretation and the others are all off in some way, either slightly aberrant or grossly wrong. They can all do that. Paul wrote that “God is not the author of confusion,” but can you think of a book that has caused more confusion than the bible?

One thought kept rising to the surface, as if spoken from somewhere else: “Something is wrong.” I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t really articulate the questions properly, but a voice in my mind kept saying, “Something is wrong. Admit it.” I think that was the voice of honesty—I knew it was not the voice of God. I think it was at this point that I made the leap, not to atheism, but to the commitment to follow reason and evidence wherever they might lead, even if it meant taking me away from my cherished beliefs.

In my secret life of private reading I was impressed with enlightened writers in science magazines.

I became more and more embarrassed at what I used to believe, and more attracted to rational thought. Like an ancient bone that slowly fossilizes, the bible became less and less reliable as a source of truth and reason slowly took its place.

I was forced to admit that the bible is not a reliable source of truth: it is unscientific, irrational, contradictory, absurd, unhistorical, uninspiring and morally unsatisfying.

Millions of good people live happy, productive, moral lives without believing in a god.

Although my deconversion to atheism was intellectual, not emotional, I suppose it is true that I suffered some “deep disappointments.” I was initially saddened, for example, to learn that the bible is not as reliable as I had been taught to believe it was. So, yes, it hurt to know that I had been deceived, deliberately or innocently, by people whom I had trusted. But my problem was not with those people: it was with the truth of the claims of Christianity.

During cross-examination, I asked Payne, “If God told you to kill me, would you do it?” He was (thankfully) hesitant to answer, and said something about being certain God would never ask him to do such a thing. I repeated the question, stressing the first word: “If God told you to kill me, would you do it?” He was still reluctant to respond, but finally admitted that if he were certain God were telling him to do it, he would “have to consider it.” After the debate, the organizers collected response cards from the audience, one of which was from a student named Kerri with this message penned at the bottom: “I love (heart-shape) Dan Barker, but if God told me to kill him, I would. (smiley face).”

If the theist brings up the second law of thermodynamics, ask if he or she knows how many laws of thermodynamics there are. If the answer is “no,” this is a good indicator that the person you are debating is superficially informed about the topic, probably recycling an argument from a creationist book, and has no real understanding of the science.

“Do you really think I committed blasphemy?” I asked. “Thank you for the compliment!” That’s a good tactic, thanking people for what they think is an insult. If someone tells me I am going to hell, I say, “Thank you! All the great people are in hell. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mark Twain, Johannes Brahms, George Gershwin, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Margaret Sanger… I was afraid you were going to tell me to ‘go to heaven’ and spend eternity with Jerry Falwell.” Mark Twain said the same thing better: “Heaven for climate; hell for society.”

We originally had agreed to debate the topic “Does God exist?” But after the Muslim organizers discussed it, they told me that that wording starts from the assumption that God does not exist, which is insulting to Allah, and they wanted to know if I would agree to change it to “Does God not exist?” I agreed, pointing out that as a consequence, I should take the first opening statement, since I would be arguing the affirmative.

Since I was debating a true follower of Allah, I was anxious to read the 23rd Sura from the Koran that is called “The Believers,” and was surprised to learn that in order to be a good Muslim, you must be humble in prayer, avoid vain talk, be active in charity, and limit your sexual intercourse to your wives and your slaves. (I didn’t bring this up during the debate because I assumed that American Muslims would not own slaves.)

The idea that truth should be democratic is a common theme among many believers. If that were true, we would have to treat women as second-class citizens because if we polled the entire planet we would find sexism rampant. The same is true with racism.

Displaying an even weaker understanding of philosophy and science, D’Souza claimed that since there are laws of nature, there must be a lawgiver. I pointed out that this is an equivocation. Most Philosophy 101 students know that there is a difference between prescriptive laws (like the highway speed limit) and descriptive laws (like the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction). D’Souza is comparing apples and oranges, hoping to confuse gullible believers, although I was told that many in that Harvard audience immediately saw right through his slippery tactic.

The claim that I am an atheist because I don’t understand “love” is particularly ironic. I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self-denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your fragile ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

Christians get angry often. I am rarely angry, certainly never when I am discussing atheism with believers, but many Christians project their own feelings back toward me and claim that I am angry when I quote horrible bible verses or level criticisms of Christianity that make them angry. What if I were to say, “The reason you are a Christian is because you are an angry person”?

The burden of proof in any argument is on the shoulders of the one who makes the affirmative claim, not the one who doubts it.

Since leaving fundamentalism I have noticed that contrary to what I used to preach, most atheists seem to be deeply concerned with human values.

Whatever the moral motivation may be it likely originates in a mind that is deeply concerned with fairness and compassion, love for real human beings and concern for this world, not merely a rational approach to truth that rejects arguments for a supernatural being. My own rejection of religious morality (if that is not a contradiction in terms) is a by-product of the drive to discover a better system of ethical principles (not code of rules) for my species and me.

In the United States, university hospitals (such as the one in my city of Madison, Wisconsin) are entirely secular, built with tax dollars from all citizens, atheists as well as theists. Atheists tend not to flaunt their views like many denominations that name their institutions “Baptist Hospital” or “Saint Mary’s Clinic.” Of course, most of these religious hospitals receive public money, and they all charge the same high rates so there is very little “charity” offered. The religion gets the credit but the taxpayers get the bill. Until religious bigotry is lessened, how many believers would choose to go to First Atheist Hospital?

One of the members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Dr. Edward Gordon, was an atheist physician who donated his time and money to bring free medical care to poor villagers in the mountains of the Philippines. He climbed those hills and tended to those people, working alongside Catholic doctors who often charged for their services, never thinking he would receive any other reward than the satisfaction of helping others.

Faith would be unnecessary, they remind us, if God’s existence were proved to be a blunt fact of reality. There would be no way to separate the (good) believers from the (bad) unbelievers. Since faith is a virtue, proof of God’s existence would deny us the opportunity to impress God with our character. If belief were easy, it would count for little in demonstrating our loyalty and trust of our Father. But this is a huge cop out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are admitting that the assertion can’t be taken on its own merits. If something is true, we don’t invoke faith. Instead, we use reason to prove it. Faith is intellectual bankruptcy. With faith, you don’t have to put any work into proving your case or overcoming objections. You can “just believe.”

Scientists do not join hands every Saturday or Sunday and sing, “Yes, gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!”

Suppose an atheist, refusing to look at any religious claims, were to say, “You must have faith that there is no God. If you believe in your heart that nothing transcends nature and that humanity is the highest judge of morality, then you will know that atheism is true. That will make you a better person.” Wouldn’t the Christians snicker? Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In other words, faith is the evidence of non-evidence. It is a free lunch, a perpetual motion machine. It’s a way to get there by not doing any work.

Religionists sometimes accuse nonbelievers of having faith. Every time you flip a light switch you exercise faith, they say. But this is not faith; it is a rational expectation based on experience and knowledge of electricity. If the light fails to turn on, my worldview is not shattered. I expect that the light will sometimes fail due to a burnt-out bulb, blown circuit or other natural cause. This is the opposite of religious faith. The light does not turn on because of my expectation. Rather, my expectation is based on experience. If lights were to begin failing most of the time, I would have to adjust my expectations. (Or adjust my electrical system.)

But scientific confidence is not faith—it is a tentative acceptance of the truth of a hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested, and it is subject to being overturned in the light of new evidence. The data and methods of testing are publicized, peer reviewed and open to any of us for examination.

Evolution explains how complexity can arise from simplicity. Creationism can’t do that: it tries to explain complexity with more complexity, and so explains nothing.

Natural laws are merely human definitions of the way things normally behave, not prescriptive mandates, as with societal laws.

American laws are based on a secular constitution, not the bible. Any scriptures that might support a good law do so only because they have met the test of human values, which long predate the ineffective Ten Commandments.

Stalin was a horrible atheist. Hitler was a horrible Christian. People should be judged by their actions, not by their beliefs.

Freethinkers have always been in the forefront of social and moral progress. Nonbelievers have more time! Since they are not wasting money or resources on the nonexistent supernatural world, nonbelievers have more ability to make this world a better place.

In any case, basing belief in a deity on fear does not produce admiration. It does not follow that such a being deserves to be worshipped.

The bible reflects the culture of its time. Though much of its setting is historical, much is not. For example, there is no contemporary support for the Jesus story outside the Gospels, which were anonymously written 30 to 80 years after the supposed crucifixion (depending on which scholar you consult—see Chapter 15.)

Christianity is filled with parallels from pagan myths, and its emergence as a second century messiah cult stems from its Jewish sectarian origins. The Gospel authors admit they are writing religious propaganda (John 20:31), which is a clue that it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Those believers who are good people—and I think most of them are—and who credit the bible for their standards are giving credit where credit is not due.

The biblical God punishes children and grandchildren for things they did not do, and calls this “mercy.” Exodus 34:6-7: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” Who thinks this is moral?

God sold the Israelites to the king of Mesopotamia for eight years (Judges 3:8). It doesn’t say what God did with the money. He also sold them to the Moabites for 18 years (3:14), to Canaan for 20 years (4:2-3), to the Midianites for seven years (6:1), to the Philistines for 40 years (13:1) and to the Babylonians for 70 years. That’s more than a century and a half of slavery—more than twice as long as slavery existed in the United States.

God never denounces the institution of slavery. He encourages it.

God uses language that would never be allowed in church: “Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts.” (Malachi 2:3) “The Lord commanded: And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.” (Ezekiel 4:12) In other words, God said, “Eat shit.”

“Secret parts” is a euphemistic translation of the Hebrew word poth, which refers to the vagina, literally “hinged opening.” Some pseudo-translations, such as the NIV, have tried to cover up this embarrassing image of a molesting deity by dishonestly translating poth as “scalp.”

God created evil (Isaiah 45:7) and hell. God blames everyone for Adam’s sin. God is partial to one race of people, which is racism. He gets jealous (Exodus 20:5) and, in fact, he says that his name is Jealousy: “For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” (Exodus 34:14)

There is not enough space to mention all of the places in the bible where God committed, commanded or condoned murder.