Expert: Vincent M. Wales - 2/22/2008

Question
With all due respect, I'm not sure if your answers are valid. My Christian friend corrected me on the responses you gave me. Basically, he said there are fallacies in your answers.

First, if humans wear clothes for protection or warmth, why wear bathing suits while swimming? Why wear clothes when it's not cold? Why not be naked like other animals?

Secondly, I assume you were referring that humans descended from apes when you say we have become less hairy. Well, if that is so, why don't apes continue to evolve into humans today? Has evolution just stopped?

Thirdly, my Christian friend pointed out that the sin in the garden was not "gaining knowledge," but it was disobedience to God. God did not care that Adam and Eve were clothed or not, it was Adam and Eve who felt ashamed and clothed themselves...

anyway, I just wanted to let you that answers weren't satisfactory. They were not received well.

Thanks again for your time!

Answer
In case you hadn't noticed, we humans have become fairly hairless over the past few million years.  Without clothing, we get a tad chilly in the winter.  Clothing is protection from the elements... a sort of mobile home for the body.

As to why we feel "shame" at nudity, it's because it's been beaten into us by thousands of years of religious brainwashing.  Look at any child young enough to be immune to such claptrap.  They're little exhibitionists!  Kids love running around naked and think absolutely nothing of it.  And why should they?

Justin, the next time one of your Christian friends pulls that whole Adam and Eve sinning crap on you, try this:  Ask them why, if nudity was nothing to be ashamed of BEFORE eating from the tree of knowledge, why was it shameful AFTER?  This implies that being nude was WRONG, somehow.  We just didn't know it until we ate from the tree.  But clearly, God didn't care that we were nude (that's how we were allegedly created, after all) BEFORE we ate.  Why would he care, afterward?  

This whole argument is so boneheadedly stupid that I can't believe anyone with a brain even buys it.  But then... consider what the Adam and Eve story is REALLY about.  What was the sin?  Gaining KNOWLEDGE.  

How sad is that?

Answer
You ignored part of my previous answer regarding clothing.  (Oh, I'm sorry... I mean you forgot to mention it to your "friend.")  I'll repeat it:  "As to why we feel "shame" at nudity, it's because it's been beaten into us by thousands of years of religious brainwashing.  Look at any child young enough to be immune to such claptrap.  They're little exhibitionists!  Kids love running around naked and think absolutely nothing of it."

Regarding evolution, I'm not here to give you (er... your "friend") a lesson on that.  Pick up a science book.

Also, if your "friend" is so naive to believe that it was the disobedience that was the real issue, well... that's what it is: naivete.  Your "friend" is a very shallow thinker.  Or perhaps a non-thinker.

Truth is, ANY answer from an atheist won't be "received well" by someone like this.  Nor are questions from people like this received well by atheists who are sick and tired of being asked these sorts of questions by people pretending to be someone they're not.  

Sorry my answers weren't "satisfactory."  But neither were the rebuttals you presented here.