Time to speak up for the atheists, or some of them. Not the ones who
cross-post here, God [presupposing His existence] knows; but they are not
the only ones, even if they think they are. This will be slanted to one
particular type of atheist: the type I used to be. That seems, though, to
be a highly atypical sort, a fact that it has taken me a long time to
realize and even longer to be reconciled to: after all, my own approach is
so reasonable!
On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:58:31 UTC, "AJA" <ahnemann RemoveThis @optonline.net> wrote:
>... I understand why people would call themselves atheist and would for
> a time pin their hopes on science, biology and the like. I don't understand
> how they can keep it up and I don't think they do- as evidenced here and
> all over the 'net by meeting self-described atheists and agnostics who think
> so much about the lack of God which is, of course, thinking deeply and
> earnestly about God.
But do remember the sampling effect: You hear from the ones who are
concerned and spend their time talking about the issue. There are plenty
of people who will state, in answer to a direct question, a belief that
God does not exist, but who do not devote much time to arguing about it.
> "Whosoever looks for God, finds Him." (Pascal) And,
> [the atheist] "cannot guard his faith too carefully; dangers lie in wait for
> him on every side." (C. S. Lewis, _Surprised by Joy_)
> The debate here, for instance: Was C. S. Lewis an atheist? Of course he
> was, he _says_ he was. What is a _real_ atheist anyway? A God hater, a God
> judge?
You're certainly on target here as to the constant arguments about what
true atheism is. I detect a grin in "he _says_ he was", and I share it;
but I'm happy to take Lewis's word for it: he was not lying about it, or
failing to remember what he truly had thought.
Last night I saw a reference to a book that starts by developing what the
author calls negative atheism, which is the belief that the evidence does
not support the existence of God, and proceeds to positive atheism, which
is the belief that the evidence is strongly against it. Drop this into a
room with 10 atheists, and see the 10 or 12 reasons, probably mutually
incompatible, why it's totally wrong.
> If that is the kind of atheist one is talking about, one is speaking
> of a person who very much thinks about God and believes in God enough to be
> burned up that anyone else might love God and Jesus Christ- burned up about
> it to the point of setting out to prove the irrationality of such a belief.
I can't agree with this. Not in the general case, anyway. If one has
worked it out and believes that theism is wrong, then it is reasonable,
and even something of an obligation(*), to set the matter straight. It is
all the more so when one is more or less surrounded by people who are
asserting the incorrect belief; even more so, if one considers the wrong
belief to have bad practical and moral consequences.
Flipping over to your point of view, or at least trying to: According to
the beliefs you've worked out, thinking about the question of God's
existence is a type of thinking about God. And you are "more or less
surrounded by people who" are denying God's existence, and this is a very
bad thing. Your position is entirely logical, but so is the atheist's,
per se. (It may be wrong, or even inconsistent, but you have to go
outside this argument to prove it.) What's more, you and the atheist are
_both_ right about the empirical matter of all those wrong-headed people
surrounding you -- differing only in a quantitative judgment of which side
is dominating the media and trampling on the other one's rights.
(*) Here you may question what is the basis for moral obligations
(ethical, as atheists prefer to say) if one is an atheist. Go ahead; it's
a find old debate. But there's no question that the atheists you're
talking about *consider* themselves to be bound by certain obligations.
> Wouldn't a hard-bitten atheist not think about God at all, much less take
> the time and trouble to argue against God?
Right you are. Why waste time thinking about something that doesn't
exist? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has spent a great deal of time
acting on this idea. But after all, one can't entirely ignore the
question. First of all, the materialist who prides himself on following
scientific principles has to devote at least a little attention to looking
for evidence that he may be wrong. And anyway, I can't ignore the
question when it's forced on me any time I look at money or participate in
the mandatory recitation of a Pledge of Allegiance.
("...one nation, indivisible, with liberty, justice, and equality for
all." If I had known about that early draft of the Pledge when I was in
high school and Eisenhower's boys forced the new establishment of religion
into the document, that's what I'd have recited.)
> And a dangerous idea against agnosticism is the naturalist's contention that
> her mind and reason are the result of "a fundamentally non-purposive system,
> [which would] end up describing something that cannot be genuinely called
> reasoning." (Reppert, _C. S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea_) Though, as CSL knew,
> no one argument changes a person's view.
I've stayed mostly out of that thread, even after reading Reppert's book
(or most of it) and admiring a great deal about it. It's just too
difficult for me to express quite clearly and unambiguously where the
problem is. I'd have to write a book. Perhaps, by Bacon's principle, I'd
have to write a book just to understand my own argument well enough. But
the argument from Reason is still not convincing to me, and here's my
one-sentence summary: The argument from Reason actually rests on (or
incorporates, or presupposes, or is) an argument from Consciousness, and
while this may be valid, it loses the logical simplicity and force that
Lewis tried so hard and so nearly successfully to give it.
I didn't say "one simple sentence", did I?
>
> Last night I re-read David Porter's marvelous book _The Practical
> Christianity of Malcolm Muggeridge_.
Must read it. Blanching at the thought of how long that list is.
Doubtless will read John Searles's new book on Mind first, so at least
I'll be equipped to think about consciousness.
>... "When we know (as we no doubt will
> some day) the transcendental verities of our existence, we shall find that
> our attempts to convey or express our ideas of God and heaven and so on were
> no more that the writing of children before they knew their letters. And
> therefore the particular idiom in which any man chooses to approach his
> creator will be so utterly beside the point if and when we know what is
> truly signified, that it's not a matter of major importance."
Saint Paul -- now *there* is a taste I've been acquiring late in life --
said something about that, didn't he?
>...
All the best,
--
dd RemoveThis @dandrake.com
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