The following was written in response to a Christian (here) who talked about the need for support of like-minded people in order to remain faithful. He linked to an article in about.com on the topic. I have often thought about the irony of Christians needing so much support while I deconverted in isolation deep in the heart of religion. As do so many others.

Here's my reply:

I am not surprised that you find it difficult remaining faithful to a lie, and that you require the support of the majority of your countrymen to do so. (If you disagree that Christianity is a lie, provide evidence for the existence of your god and explain why he exists above his own law, i.e. he refuses to forgive the repentant without murdering his own son. Be sure that your explanation meets the requirements of the scientific method and court of law procedures. I insist on these requirements because God should be better than humans and humans must meet these requirements to pass muster.)

As stated above, I am not surprised that you find it difficult living a lie without the support of others. Lies require that you cover not only your tracks but your back and front as well. Lovers of truth for its own sake can deconvert without the aid of anyone, without even knowing a single nonChristian. That is because truth is on their side. But Christians need entire masses on their side in order to remain faithful.

Truth can stand on its own two feet. Truth is obvious even in the darkest of times. Jesus said, "Let those with ears, hear and those with eyes, see." The truth is all around us. Dead fish flow with the current but live fish swim up-stream. Thus, when people stand up for their convictions against the traditions of the dominant culture's belief in God and Jesus--all too often risking home, family, and career in doing so--it is quite obvious that the truth does not reside in Christianity.

This being the case, it is no wonder people have to club together to maintain a lie. Lies cannot stand on their own.

This includes not only fundamentalist Christians. Last night I watched Voices of Science, a video in which Richard Dawkins interviews various scientists. So far, the only interviews I have seen are with the atheists Steven Weinberg and Lawrence Kraus. Earlier this winter I studied the leading American scientist Kenneth Miller who is apparently a Christian. Miller served as expert witness at one of the prominent trials against Intelligent Design. (See sticky threads in Science forums.)

One thing Kraus and Miller have in common is that they tell students that one does not have to be an atheist to believe in evolution. They differ in that Miller presents himself as an example of a person who is a Christian and believes in evolution while Kraus uses it as an entrance with the hope to seduce ("seduce" is Kraus's term) and eventually deconvert. When one reads op-ed pieces written by Miller on atheism, it becomes clear that he holds the same attitudes toward his religion and toward atheism that the majority of fundamentalist Christians do. At the same time, he claims to have nothing in common with them.

Here are some links:

• http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html#miller
• http://www.templeton.org/belief/index.html
• http://www.templeton.org/belief/debates.html

In the Q&A after a speech to a large audience of high school students (Evolution: Fossils, Genes, and Mousetraps), Miller subtly coaches the students on how to integrate religion with science--or science with religion, whichever way around it is. It's a soup that, to me, appears toxic and anti-social.

Here's why. In the Weinberg interview, Dawkins prompted Weinberg to talk about theories he (Weinberg) and colleagues are investigating about origins of the universe. So Weinberg explained someone's theory of what might have happened before the Big Bang. At that point, I was asking myself, "Could a Christian like Ken Miller even go here?" The way I see it, Miller is so busy coaching students on how to integrate science and religion while also defending his place as religionist within a largely secular discipline (40% scientists are religious compared to more than 85% of the American population)--and a scientist within a community of the faithful, that he can have no energy left to further human knowledge to the extent that a man like Weinberg was doing.

Also, while coaching students on how to integrate science and religion, Miller provides the recipe for fundamentalists to further their purposes. Some of his students looked to me like Muslims, and spoke with a heavy Arabic accent; for all I know, they were international students. While they themselves might not be fundamentalist radicals, they probably have the same relationship with Muslim fundamentalist radicals that liberal Christians like Miller have with Christian fundamentalists. Weinberg told Dawkins that science education has all but disappeared from the curriculum in the Islamic world.

It would make sense to me that Muslim students who can afford to do so are going to other countries for a science education and will return home as for teaching positions of some sort. It is also possible that radical fundamentalists hide their most extreme religious elements in order to get the education they need to go back home to do whatever they wish to do in the name of Allah. Another very real possibility is that they have immigrated legally, and will continue to live outside their birth country after they get their degrees, but are in close communication with the people back home. It seems family ties in the Islamic community was very close-knit and that it is almost impossible for an individual to "run away."

Just putting continents and oceans between oneself and feared family/community members is not enough, and no other planets have yet been found that are habitable for human life. I learned much of this about Islamic relationships from Muslims and Muslim apostates in my own town here in Ontario, Canada, where quite a few come as refugees, students, and/or immigrants.

This is why I say it seems toxic and anti-social to me when leading scientists like Ken Miller teach students how to integrate science and religion. As a fairly liberal religionist, Miller is covering--and providing cover--for any fundy radical extremist suicide bomber and raving lunatic who wants a solid science education. Not only is he providing cover, he is going beyond academic training and providing religious training. He says in various places that the Intelligent Design (ID) people are so good at PR or public relations. Seems he is doing what he can to help the scientific community catch up. Kraus seems to be pulling with him on this.

Dawkins seems not to understand this aspect of Kraus's enthusiasm. I, too, have a hard time understanding. Both Dawkins and I are outside the culture wars of the United States. Maybe this is why we don't understand. Maybe the culture wars are what unite Kraus and Miller. I think Christopher Hitchens is a Brit, too, and he also takes a very confrontational approach. I haven't seen as much of the Americans Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet, but I think they might come across less aggressively. Harris writes a "Letter to a Christian Nation." It's as though he loves his own people enough to write them a letter. In Four Horsemen, he says, "I still use words like 'spiritual,'" a word Dawkins says (in Root of All Evil? on the Bonus Disk, that atheists should not use because it is confusing or deceptive.

Thus, it occurs to me to ask whether we are talking about an issue here that nonAmericans cannot possibly understand? On the other hand, if I'm not mistaken, it is the American Harris's idea that the moderate and liberal religionists are more dangerous than the fundamentalists because they make the world safe for the radicals. That is exactly what I see Miller doing. And he is teaching a new generation how to do it.

All for the sake of a lie.