Anti-theism

So I’ve been on a pulp fiction kick recently.I’m suffering a bit of fatigue from trying to read Shelby Foote’s 3000 page history of the civil war and nothing cures the I’ve-been-reading-too-much-serious-stuff blues like Burroughs, Howard and Lovecraft.

While looking for some creepy Lovecraftian diversions at the local library I found his name attached to a book called “Atheism: A Reader” edited by S. T. Joshi. I have a lot of religious readers and selections from world scripture, but I’ve never read an atheism manifesto. “Atheism: A Reader” is a collection of essays by many famous atheists, agnostics and skeptics and, according to Joshi, describes why atheism should be the philosophy of choice among humans.

Not being atheist, I was curious about what he had to say. In the first two pages of the book’s introduction Joshi describes me, among other things, as “blind…unthinking…incapable of comprehending the issues at stake…unable to conduct logical reasoning on this (or any other matter)…” because I’m religious.

I must admit that the petty assault of Joshi’s opening killed much of my desire to find out what he had to say. But I did grit my teeth and skim through the introduction. He, of course, starts out with the typical shot across the bow that I’ve heard from other contentious atheists.

“Of course, religions have always used the inability of science definitively to disprove the existence of God as an excuse for continued belief, forgetting both that it is just as impossible to prove God’s existence.”

This statement shows the utter disparity of frame of reference that all religion vs. atheism debates I’ve heard have shared. The typical atheist espouses a “rational” world view. Rationality, in this case, has a specific definition. It means a world view based on repeatable, observable evidence. An assumption is made that there is nothing supernatural going on. “Putting the existence of God aside…” so to speak, the rational man logically tries to make sense of the world.

Of course it’s impossible that God’s existence can be proved or disproved using this approach. Where Joshi gets it wrong is that God can make him self known as he wishes. In short, religion is NOT rational.

It’s almost funny to hear one who doesn’t believe in God stand up and tell me how God should be and use this as proof He doesn’t exist. Joshi makes this mistake as well, he even goes so far as to say, “one could easily argue that God cares more for fishes than for human beings, since he gave them three times as much space to flourish than he gave us.”

Joshi throws out the fundamental horror of atheism in a rather off hand fashion.

“How did we get here? What is our purpose in being here? Where will we be after we die? Of course, primitive peoples – and many not so primitive – are unaware that these questions are perhaps faulty in the very manner of their formulation. It is inconceivable to such people that we very likely ‘got’ here by natural rather than supernatural means; that there is no ‘purpose’ to our existence beyond the goals we envision for ourselves; that life ends utterly upon our deaths.”

From a secular standpoint, I will readily agree that there is no purpose to anything; that there is nothing inherently “good” or “evil”; the right course of action for anyone to take is purely subjective. Later on in his introduction, Joshi lists the horrors perpetrated by religionists, which I will not argue. But at least I can say that what they did was wrong. In Joshi’s purely secular view you can’t even say that. The horrors of the world simply are.

Joshi concludes his essay, in part, with this:

“So what is the atheist, agnostic, or secularist to do?

“In the First place, we should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.”

Understanding God can only be done on His terms. One can’t throw out God-defined morality and expect to have some sort of communion with Him. An important crux of the whole question of God’s existence is to discuss morality. A liar, murderer, fornicator, adulterer nor coveter can have communion with God.

However a lying, murdering, fornicating, coveting man of reason can experimentally confirm everything from Newton’s laws to Darwin’s observations.

If one wants to know God, one should do what He says. That’s about as rational as this whole religion thing gets.

As one atheist acquaintance once told me, atheism doesn’t equate to anti-theism. I don’t think the atheism vs. religion discourse can really go anywhere until both sides realize they are looking at things from completely different angles and allow a bit more mutual respect into the dialogue.

By the way, if you want to read a creepy H. P. Lovecraft story check out The Music of Eric Zann.