Mel Andrews: Removing God Removes All Restraint

The most insidious and hateful expression of bigotry against atheists is probably the idea that atheists aren't moral, can't be moral, and/or have no basis for morality. Painting atheists with the brush of "immorality" achieves two important goals for hate-mongers. First, it secures the image of atheists as being untrustworthy, people with whom no reliable contracts, relationships, or trust can be held. This disinclines people from even trying to get to know atheists, which might cause them to learn how they've been lied to by hate-mongers.

Second, it reinforces the image of atheists as outsiders -- not merely people who are "different," but rather people who are a threat to the social order and thus must be prevented from ever becoming insiders. Portraying atheists as lacking even basic morality means portraying atheists as lacking any claims on being a "real" American, any claims on being a good member of the community, and any claims to be treated with dignity, decency, or equality.

Mel Andrews: Yes, removing God removes all restraint.

"Restraint" here is a reference to morality: Mel Andrews is agreeing with someone who claimed that "atheist extremists" are responsible for more murders and atrocities than "all religions combined." Mel is thus making a very specific claim, though he isn't entirely clear about it: theism along makes a person moral enough to not commit atrocities and atheism makes committing atrocities possible.

This claim is specific enough that Mel creates for himself an ethical and intellectual obligation to demonstrate a clear link between atheism and immorality, between theism and morality. Where is the evidence that theism prevents people from committing atrocities? Where is the evidence that atheism makes people immoral monsters?

Mel Andrews: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, are plenty of evidence.

Mel Andrews: Without atheism they wouldn't have been as severe. The 3 dictators I listed were the world's worst, & they were all atheists.

Mel Andrews: Knowing one must eventually stand before God and be judged is a cause for restraint. Atheists don't have that.

Mel Andrews: I am saying that you can't exclude atheism as a factor, especially when it removes the greatest cause for restraint...God

Mel actually admitted -- indirectly, though links he provided -- that the motivation of people like Mao was more about suppressing competition and his "atheist ideology" of communism. Neither of them are identical with atheism, which means Mel is singling out atheism from all the characteristics which these men possessed and from all the features of their ideologies as the sole factor which "removes all restraint." No other characteristic or factor did so, just atheism.

And upon what basis does he single out atheism for such an attack? This is the closest he offered to an argument, and if you look closely, you'll see that it's actually a circular argument:

• Proposition to prove: atheism removes all restraint.
  
  
• Premise: Mao was an atheist
  
• Premise: Atheism removes restraint
  
• Inference: Without atheism, he wouldn't have been as bad
  
• Conclusion: Atheism removes all restraint
  

So this is the best argument that Mel Andrews could offer for why atheism removes all restraint. The best that can be said for his position is that he doesn't comprehend the fact that correlation is not causation. Attributing the problem with these dictators to their atheism is no more rational or ethical than attributing their problems to their gender, their being non-Americans, or any other superficial similarity. Unless and until someone can provide substantive, direct links between atheism and atrocities -- something other than just a circular restatement of the original accusation -- that's all we have, a superficial similarity.

One way or another, all bigoted hate-mongering includes efforts to portray the targets as fundamentally immoral: women are portrayed as lacking the ability to do complex moral reasoning, blacks are portrayed as inherently criminal, Jews are portrayed as inherently greedy (and sometimes as murderers of Christian children), gays are portrayed as engaging in extreme sexual behavior, etc. This treatment of atheists is part of a larger pattern of hate. Is it just a coincidence that all of these examples have come from Christians?

To be fair, Mel Andrews did eventually admit that his original assertions was wrong. Unfortunately it took a few hours and he refused at first to even admit that he changed his position:

Mel Andrews: I am saying that you can't exclude atheism as a factor, especially when it removes the greatest cause for restraint...God.

I finally had to provide a link to his original claim before he would admit that he really did claim that theism was the only restraint, but he never apologized for accusing me of twisting his words when I referred to that position. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though, that he also didn't apologize for making such an extreme assertion in the first place. Wait a minute, isn't he the one trying to argue that theism provides restraint while atheism doesn't? Mel Andrews is the one acting without restraint -- specifically, he's making claims without being restrained by facts, reality, ethics, or decency. Mel Andrews is, in a sense, becoming exactly that which he decries.

The extent of his admission was "It was just an over statement on my part. Poor choice of words." Just a poor choice of words? It's just a poor choice of words to imply that atheists lack any moral restraint whatsoever on any of their actions -- that they are completely lacking in the sorts of restraint which provide for basic morality, decency, civil society, etc.?

If I said that removing Christ removes all restraint, thus implying that all non-Christians lack any moral restraint whatsoever, would that just be a "poor choice of words"? No, it would be unambiguous bigotry and hate-mongering towards non-Christians. Analogous claims involving whites vs. blacks, men vs. women, or straights vs. gays would also constitute bigoted hate mongering -- so why not conclude the same when it's said about atheists?

Well, Mel Andrews thought he had a better reason for why anyone would see his original assertion as bigoted hate mongering. Even though he reluctantly admitted that it was false, he wasn't about to admit that it was bigoted. Instead, the fault must all be mine:

Mel Andrews: Because you have to paint anyone supporting God in as bad a light as possible?

Oh, I think my irony-o-meter just broke. Quite aside from the fact that I'm married to a theist -- a tough thing to do if all I'm interested in is painting believers in a negative light -- I never once in the entire discussion said anything negative about religious theists generally. I never once painted religious theists as a class in a bad light. I focused entirely on Mel Andrews' specific claims and what those statements might say about his underlying attitudes, biases, prejudices, and beliefs.

It would appear that Mel Andrews' view of the conversation was something like this:

• Mel: atheists have no moral restraint.
• Me: That's bigoted hate-mongering.
• Mel: Uhhh... that was a poor choice of words. I don't really believe that after all.
• Me: So you can see why I called that bigoted hate-mongering?
• Mel: Yeah, you just want to paint believers in a bad light!

I guess it's OK for Christians to accuse all atheists of lacking any moral restraint, even though the claim is false, but if atheists object to it as bigoted, it's only because they want Christians to look bad. It's not Christians holding or expressing bigotry that makes Christians look bad, it's only atheists having the temerity to draw attention to the bigotry and challenging that bigotry which makes Christians look bad.

Maybe this is another reason why so many Christians just want atheists to sit down and shut up?

Anyway, I have to point out that "greatest source of restraint" isn't much better than "no restraint." Claiming that theists alone have the "greatest source of restraint" suggests strongly that atheists are far less likely to be moral, decent, kind, etc. Given the complete absence of any actual evidence to support such a position, we are once again faced with a negative portrayal of atheists that is not based on facts -- it's only basis can be bigotry and hate.

What was that again about painting people in as bad a light as possible?

Mel Andrews, naturally enough, disagreed. He insisted that when he says atheism "removes the greatest cause for restraint," it only suggests that "God is the biggest reason for restraint". Huh? Someone doesn't quite get what "suggests" means because that's just a restatement of the original assertion. The question I focused on is what this assertion means about atheists. If it's true that atheists lack the greatest source of restraint, then how could they possibly be just as moral, decent, kind, etc. as theists?

Mel insisted that I would "have to take [his] word for it," but frankly Mel never demonstrated a firm enough grasp of facts, evidence, or logic for me to be willing to take his word for anything at all. Indeed, I'm not even sure I can believe that he has sincerely given up his original assertion. My skepticism is based on other things he said on the nature of morality:

Mel Andrews: If God doesn't exist, neither does morality.

Mel Andrews: The existence of morality is evidence itself. We are the only beings on earth with a sense of Morality. Where's it from?

If morality cannot exist at all or in any form unless his god exists, then it would be difficult to defend the idea that atheists who don't believe in his god could have any morals. Indeed, it would be difficult to defend the idea that even theists who believe in a different god have morals, but it would be harder with atheists. This position is far more consistent with "atheists have no restraint" than with "atheists don't have the greatest source of restraint." The former is a statement of atheists not having any morals; the latter is more a statement that atheists lack the best or perhaps most secure source of morals.

Actually, I think I'm being extremely generous here because "restraint" isn't identical with "morals." Mel Andrews' idea of "restraint" doesn't seem to extent beyond "No one wants to stand guilty of atrocities before an omnipotent God." That's not morals, that's just fear of punishment. So, in a sense he's not claiming that he has more morality, he's just claiming that he has more fear -- or worse, that he needs to have that fear in order to avoid doing bad things.

Since I don't need that fear in order to avoid doing bad things (like making bigoted assertions about entire classes of people, which Mel Andrews doesn't even manage to successful avoid), shouldn't that suggest I'm actually more moral? Insofar as atheists' behavior is equally or more moral than theists', isn't the fact that they achieve this level of behavior without the "greatest source of [fear]" a testimony to how much more advanced their characters are? I'm sure Mel Andrews didn't intend to communicate this -- like so many Christians, I suspect he may not differentiate between "threat of being punished" and "reason to be moral," and that's how I treated his claim above. I did, however, want to draw attention to that, especially given this:

Mel Andrews: Without Christ, I am nothing.

Maybe one of the reasons why some Christians reach so quickly to bigotry and hate-mongering when dealing with atheists is that our moral lives demonstrate that one doesn't need Christ, God, or religion in order to be something, to be decent, to be moral, or to live a good live. This, in turn, may imply that Christ doesn't necessarily add anything after all. This might make some sense if a person is obsessed with being "retrained" by threats of eternal punishment and how others manage to live just fine without being threatened.