I'm one step away from being an atheist

Readers of this blog know that I believe in God, and am, obviously, a theist. And most know that I also believe that God's existence can be rationally justified -- as I have attempted to demonstrate on this blog -- even if not everyone finds such justification to be overwhelmingly persuasive. I, thus, believe that my belief in God is rationally grounded.

So how, then, can it be the case that I am "one step away from being an atheist"? Is this an exaggeration? Well kind of, but...not exactly. Let me explain.

My daughter Norah is currently sixteen months old. She's the light of my life, and that which puts everything in perspective. She gives my life more meaning and joy than I ever thought was possible. My first twenty-four years of existence without her pales in comparison to the life that I now enjoy with her and my wife. The love that protrudes from my heart to her being is transcendent and unparalleled. She is my life.

And, unfortunately, as a normal parent, I constantly hear stories of the tragedies that befall parents with children. Heck, my wife works as a neonatal intensive care nurse, and comes home with horrific stories of infants dying and suffering every week, it seems. When I hear of these stories I am always grieved, and I immediately wonder what I would do in those situations. I mean, seriously, what would I do if something happened to my daughter?

Well, many things would happen, and none of them good, I can tell you that. But one action that I genuinely think would be a strong possibility is that I would abandon all belief in a God. To lose the most precious thing I have ever laid eyes on, and have completely given my heart to, would destroy me, and it would annihilate any belief in a God that has even an ounce of love. If something happened to my daughter I would curse God forever, and lose any heart that any such maximally loving being existed at all. That's it, I would be an atheist at heart.

However, there's an inconsistency here that many attentive readers may have picked up on. As I just said, and as anyone would acknowledge, these events happen constantly every day -- children are dying needlessly every minute. How, then, can I sit here and say that one child's potential death would be a sufficient condition for my non-belief, and yet this potential is being realized in thousands of other families every day? That is, how can I consistently say that one turn of events is enough to convert me to atheism, when these very events are ubiquitous in the world we inhabit, and yet nevertheless continue to believe in God?

I think that the answer here is to be found in emotion. No matter how rationally justified and reasonably held our beliefs are, they are still, most likely, predicated on emotion, more than reason. In fact, this is already something that psychologists have inferred. So, even though I believe that the existence of God is rationally justified, it is the case that a flood of emotions so significant and so powerful can overthrow this belief. And it's important to note that this is the case with anyone -- emotion can easily overthrow anyone's reasonably held beliefs, especially if one does not realize that this is occurring. What this also means is that my reasons for believing in God are not purely rational either. They are most likely rooted in just as much emotion as they are reason. In fact, it means that most of our reasonably held beliefs are probably predicated more in emotion than in reason.

So, even though I do in fact have rational justifications for why a "good" God would allow suffering and evil, when this suffering and evil lands on my front door, my emotion is enough to supersede such justification. This isn't always a good thing, but it's the condition of human nature and thought nonetheless. However, though it might not always be a good thing -- when considered from a purely rational perspective -- this sway of emotion is a form of justification in itself, and by that I mean that if one's child unfortunately dies, they are indeed warranted in entailing atheism from this event. I mean, how can they not be warranted? Because they should know William Lane Craig's logical arguments against the problem of suffering? Come on. If God made us, then he made us with a rational faculty that is just as sensitive to emotion as it is to reason -- in fact, it may be even more sensitive to emotion. Therefore, I don't see how God can be upset that an individual infers atheism from tragic and sorrowful circumstances, since God's the one who arranged our cognitive faculties to be swayed in this way to begin with! But, I digress.

To come back to me personally, I'm not even sure if what I've said is correct. That is, I don't know for sure that if the aforementioned circumstances obtained, that I would abandon theism on emotional grounds. I say this because I used to think the same regarding my father. Three years ago my father was killed crossing the street in a residential area by an idiot going fifteen over the speed limit. I always thought that if something like this happened, then, it would drive me away from God. But, here's the thing, it actually brought me closer to God. Contrary to my thoughts, the pendulum swung the other way. So maybe I'm not as close to atheism as I thought. Who knows?

What I think is important here is that we need to be aware of how powerful our emotions are, and how fragile our "rationally justified" believes are. We tend to think that we're straight-shooting logicians, unaffected by the throws of emotion and sentiment, but chances are we're always a few emotional steps away from whatever belief we most oppose.

God has not revealed

I don’t believe that God has explicitly revealed anything to us as a human race, and it’s here that I part ways with the traditions of mainstream Christianity. I don’t believe scripture is God’s revelation to man—i.e. I don’t believe scripture can be preceded by a “Thus saith the Lord.” Obviously, I think the same regarding all other self-proclaimed holy books—even without needing to read them (see below). (Note that I do not take this to imply that scripture is not inspired, since I don’t believe inspiration necessarily entails any objective revelation.)

So why do I hold this belief, despite my self-identification as a Christian? Well for one thing, if the Bible is God’s be-all end-all of revelatory knowledge, he seems to have done a poor job of unambiguously alerting us to this fact. Are all the individuals who were raised Muslim, or Mormon, or Hindu just supposed to have a Damascus Road experience, and subsequently bow down to the book that completely contradicts their own worldviews that they have been indoctrinated with? Were all the millions of individuals who have perished, and continue to perish, without accepting the “good news” of Christianity simply being rebellious sinners who resisted God’s clear revelation? Forgive me, but I find this to be ridiculous. I personally have met adherents of other faiths (as we all have) who were devout and faithful followers of their God, and I find that it strains all credulity to believe that they knew that it was actually the Holy Bible that was God’s perfect revelation, as opposed to their own holy book, and were simply resisting this intuitive knowledge.

Moreover, are we just supposed to take the Biblical claims of revelation at face value? Well, if we can do this, then we have warrant for doing this for any self-proclaimed holy book or piece of writing, and thus we end up in confusion and contradiction. Heck, I once encountered a homeless man who claimed that he was a modern day prophet for God. If claims of revelation can be taken at face value, then who are we to say this man is a false prophet?

This leads us to another point, namely that the act of God supposedly choosing prophets to privately record his revelation seems extremely problematic. Understand that inspiration by God of prophets in order to expound revelation is a private and subjective experience, on the part of the prophet. So how can we, who are not in any way involved in this experience, ever objectively verify that God is behind the scenes pulling the strings, as it were? As outsiders we are in no epistemic position to affirm, or deny, that an individual is indeed a spokesman for the big man upstairs. The role of prophet, then, as a medium for revelation is not satisfactory—at least not if God wants this revelation to be clearly given to all mankind.

This isn’t even the worst part, however, regarding God’s supposed method of revelation. For it’s not as if the so-called vehicles of divine revelation are contemporary individuals with whom we can converse and question. No, the mediums of so-called divine revelation are primitive, anonymous authors writing hundreds (and some thousands) of years ago. How can a reasonable person ever be convinced that writings of this nature are indeed God’s clear message to the human race? Not to mention that these writings are liable to a myriad of different and often conflicting interpretations. Couple this with the fact that there are innumerable denominations based on these differing interpretations, and one is inevitably drowning in the sea of uncertainty and obscurity. These are the fruits of God’s “clear” revelation.

Please understand that my point of contention here is not necessarily that God has not revealed anything to us. Rather, it is that even if he has indeed done so, he has done so in the most ambiguous, obscure and confusing fashion possible. It is not clear that God’s revelation is to be found in the Christian scriptures (which cannon?); it is not even clear that Christianity is true; it is not clear that Jesus is God; it is not clear that God has explicitly intervened in the world in the past; it is not clear that God has a plan for us; it is not clear that there is hope for a future realm wherein we will be in communion with him; it is not clear that God even desires communication with us; it is not even clear that God exists.  Note again that I’m not claiming that any of these propositions are false, but only that their truth is not clear, irresistible, and unambiguous.

These are the reasons I don’t believe that God has revealed anything to us. This is hard for fundamentalist Christians to swallow, and obviously they wouldn’t agree with me. But my faith is more than believing that the Bible is a manual that has been dropped from heaven, pre-packaged with the do’s and don’ts of God. The Bible is nothing but our own struggle to understand what in world is going on in this universe, and where God fits into this discussion, if anywhere. I’m alright with the ambiguity and obscurity of existence, and we all should be—there’s nothing we can do about it. But most of all we should stop pretending that this ambiguity doesn’t exist and that God has explicitly lifted the veil from our eyes. For as Paul said, indeed we see through a glass darkly.

Why I bother reading scripture

I am a Christian. And as a Christian it is no secret that I read the literature that grounds Christianity itself, which would be the Bible (among other things). I try to read the Bible as often as I can, sometimes with my wife, and other times by myself. However, this seems to puzzle non-believers for the very reason that I adhere to and accept most of what the scholarly consensus says about the Bible. That is, I believe certain parts of scripture to be legend, myth, fiction, and fabrication. More than this, I recognize that certain parts of scripture are barbaric, primitive, misogynist, and downright immoral. Hence, some wonder why I would waste my time with a piece of writing that should be considered nothing but the result of primitive superstition and historical fabrication. Why not pair such writings with other primitive myths like The Odyssey, and call it a day?

 I maintain that such a mindset is just as wrong-headed as the Christian fundamentalism that regards these same writings as the inerrant and infallible Word of God. It’s not as if the only two alternatives with regards to scripture are to uphold it as the inerrant Word of God, or else delegate it to the trash—and only those still stuck in such a fundamentalist mindset would think otherwise. I, and many others, can cherish the Bible without needing to view it as having been handed down by God, and I can criticize it without needing to view it as nothing but superstitious sophistry. So, let me articulate exactly why I still give the Bible the time of day.

 First, let it be known that, Bible or no Bible, I believe and hope in the existence of God. I believe in God for many different reasons, some philosophical and others not. With that in mind I believe it is man’s highest duty to submit himself to the divine; that is, to submit one’s being to the source of being; to submit one’s love to love itself. Therefore I find it quite rational to pay attention to and take note of those who have done this very thing. This includes, but is obviously not limited to, most of the tradition of Christianity and the Bible. For while I don’t agree with all that is affirmed in these traditions, such disagreement is hardly warrant for ignoring them. Thom Stark articulates my point:

[To ignore the parts we disagree with in scripture] is to hide from ourselves a potent reminder of the worst part of ourselves. Scripture is a mirror. It mirrors humanity, because it is as much the product of human beings as it is the product of the divine. When we peer into the looking glass and see the many faces of God, we see ourselves among them. The mirror reflects our doubt and our mediocrity. It mirrors our best and worst possible selves. It shows us who we can be, both good and evil, and everything in between.

Therefore, as a believer in God, I identify with those who took up the task of writing scripture. I identify with their struggle to comprehend and interpret the divine. This struggle is my own, and all of ours. The Bible is a dialogue, made up of many different perspectives and voices. There is the pessimism of Ecclesiastes, the accusations leveled against God in the book of Job, the prayers of the Psalmists, the hope of restoration in Isaiah, the selflessness of Jesus, etc. Many forget that these dialogues are some of the same dialogues that we continue to have today: Is life meaningless? What is God doing about suffering? Is there a life beyond this life? Etc.

 Now some might claim that such speculations are themselves a waste of time and subsequently meaningless. We have, they might say, no reason to believe in God or the afterlife any more than we have reason to believe in fairies, or the flying spaghetti monster. Yet, the one who claims such things is, I believe, making the same mistake that the Christian fundamentalist makes: assuming that we have certainty of such a position one way or another. I don’t believe that we have the certainty one way or another to say God does or does not exist, or that life continues after death, or that suffering is part of God’s plan. Existence is too ambiguous; life is too obscure. Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is positive evidence in favor of many of my beliefs, but I would not claim that this evidence is irresistibly overwhelming.

 So, for the most part, I hope in the existence of God and the afterlife etc. (Some might retort that this is simply wishful thinking. But, this might only be the case if I claimed that my hopes made it so, of which I do not claim.) Hence my hope in the aforementioned warrants interaction with the literature and traditions that also employ and discuss the same hope. That is to say, I continue to interact with scripture because the hope that resonates with me was also expounded and wrestled with in scripture. And this is why I identify with scripture, and read it.

The argument from reason

Let us examine the following familiar syllogism: 1) All men are mortal, 2) Socrates is a man, 3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal. This syllogism is logically sound, and it can be reasonably seen why the conclusion follows from the premises. But, how exactly is it the case that we reasonably deduce the conclusion? Well, it’s the case because we understand the semantics behind every proposition in the syllogism. That is, we clearly comprehend what 1) and 2) mean, and we logically deduce the third proposition (the conclusion) based on the meaning of the preceding premises. This is the process of reasoning, namely, making deductions based on the semantic content of previous concepts, propositions or ideas. Thus stated, our deduction from 1) and 2) to 3) is based on meaning, semantics, and reason.

Now what is going on psychologically when we make our way, logically, through this line of reasoning? Well, we have a brain state and a mental state associated with upholding premise 1), and the same with regards to 2) and 3). The brain state is just what is happening electrochemically in my brain when I uphold a certain proposition or thought, and the mental state is the associated with the actual mental apprehension of said proposition or thought. (Note: even if one is an eliminative materialist and therefore doesn’t believe mental states exist, the distinction between brain and mental states is not crucial to my present argument, and would actually make the force of the argument stronger.) It should be obvious that brain states and mental states are different with regards to the different propositions we are upholding. That is to say, the brain state and mental state we have for 1), will be different from the brain and mental state we have for 2), and 3).

However, one immediately encounters a problem with the above promulgations if one is a naturalist. Why? Well, remember that a naturalist believes that all that exists is mindless matter, or energy, governed by the laws of physics. A corollary of this is that any thoughts (and, therefore, any mental states) are ultimately the result of physical processes swinging to the tune of physics. But, this means that the mental states associated with upholding 1), 2) and 3) are ultimately grounded in, and caused by, the electrochemical properties of brain states.  A consequence of this is that when the brain state associated with 3) succeeds 2), which succeeds 1), this succession was the result of only physical laws acting on the matter that makes up these brain states.

But, this completely conflicts with what we expounded above, namely, that is it the meaning and semantics associated with our syllogism that causes us to arrive at such a deduction. On the naturalistic account of the world, when one makes their way down the syllogism, it is not the meaning or semantics that leads one there, but, rather, purely  mindless electrochemical processes. But this means that, on naturalism, it is not reason-- making deductions based on the semantic content of previous concepts, propositions or ideas—that grounds our thinking. In fact, based on what we’ve discovered, there is no room for such a thing as reason on naturalism!

The naturalist position, then, results in a reductio ad absurdum. That is, if naturalism were true, then we could not reason, which means we could not arrive at the conclusion of naturalism, since to do so would require reasoning deductively. Naturalism, therefore, cannot possibly be true.

Warranted belief

As a believer, I am frequently bombarded (usually on the “sophisticated” blogosphere) with the question of why I personally believe in the existence of God. When asked this question, I can usually rattle off a few (among many) reasons: because the universe seems clearly contingent; because there is so much design which seems to imply a designer; because Near Death Experiences give compelling evidence in favor of the supernatural; because the ubiquitous nature of consciousness that is crucial to human cognitive function seems inexplicable on a naturalistic worldview; because innate human feelings such as love and goodness seem to transcend us and, arguably, have an absolute source etc. Now, it is at this point that my interlocutor will roll their eyes and ramble on about how the arguments for God’s existence have been refuted a thousand times, especially by Hume, or how NDE’s do not constitute valid scientific evidence, or how neuroscience demonstrates that consciousness surely must be dependent on the brain, or how the feelings of love and goodness are explicable in purely naturalistic evolutionary terms etc. Case closed, right? Well, no.

You see, my interlocutor has made an error in comprehension. Remember that I was asked why I believe in the existence of God, and not what logical proofs I have for the existence of God. Now, while these two questions might seem to be prima facie identical, they’re not. A warrant for belief in a specific inference is not equivalent to having logical deductive proof for that inference.

For example, it might be the case one day that my wife wakes up, after I have left for work, and discovers that the toilet seat was left up. She will immediately infer the following conclusion: my husband left the toilet seat up. Notice that this conclusion is a mere belief, as opposed to a proof. My wife has simply reasonably assumed this belief, based on the fact that I do this constantly and we’re the only two people in our house. She does not have any proof for such a belief. That is, she didn’t see me leave it up, nor has she called me and asked me if I did in fact leave it up. But the question that can be posed here is this: is my wife’s belief warranted? And surely the answer is in the affirmative. Indeed my wife has enough warrant to infer that I left the seat up. Now, could she be wrong? Yes, she could. But, does this possibility of fallibility render her inference unwarranted? No. So, even though she could be wrong, she is still warranted in holding her conclusion.

So, let us turn back to our original context, namely, belief in God. The question arises whether or not I have personal warrant for concluding, based on my reasons above, that God exists. The answer is surely that I do. Is it possible that I am mistaken in my conclusion? Of course, but that is not the point. The point is whether or not I have reasons that provide me with warrant to infer a specific conclusion, and I surely do possess these reasons.

Now, my interlocutor might claim that he himself has reasons for doubting the existence of God, or lacking a belief in the existence of God. For example, he might hold that the amount of suffering in the world is incompatible with the existence of God, or that God has not made his existence abundantly obvious, or that phenomena in the world can be explained in purely naturalistic terms, making God superfluous etc. So, is my interlocutor also warranted in his conclusions based on these reasons? Yes, he is.

We see then that both the theist and the atheist can be warranted in their conclusions even though such conclusions are mutually exclusive.

To return to my example, it could turn out that I do not remember using the bathroom that morning, and therefore it’s probable that I did not leave the seat up. So, I am warranted in my conclusion—that I did not leave the seat up--as well. Notice now that both my wife and I hold mutually exclusive inferences, yet we are both warranted in arriving at the conclusions we have arrived at. Now, when I get home we can discuss who is correct. That is, we can discuss whether I was so tired that morning that I forgot that I did in fact use the bathroom, or we can discuss whether one of the friends we had over the night before left the seat up and we never noticed etc. However, it still follows that we are both warranted in holding our beliefs.

Similarly, the theist and atheist can hammer it out constantly and provide their reasons for belief, or disbelief. However, this does not entail that both individuals cannot walk away from the discussion still warranted in their positions.

What is usually desired is logical deductive proof. And similarly, both sides can usually produce a logical proof of their own, and which one of these individuals can provide a successful proof I will leave for another time. But whether these proofs are valid, or whether they will persuade the other side is peripheral here. The point is that a conclusion can constitute a warranted belief without itself being the inference of a logical proof. And furthermore, two individuals with mutually exclusive beliefs can still both be warranted in said beliefs. Hopefully, this can help the fruitfulness (or lack thereof) of discussions such as the atheist/theist divide, in the sense that these discussions need not be predicated on who can “win” the argument, but, rather, they should predicated on simply demonstrating the reasons one has for their conclusions. People should still be able to walk away from a discussion knowing that even though they don’t agree with their interlocutor, they can still appreciate that their conclusion is warranted.

A consideration of (a restricted) religious pluralism

My father unexpectedly passed away early last year. His passing was commemorated with a memorial service whereby dozens of family members and people who had known my dad attended and offered their condolences. Many people stood up and nostalgically told stories illuminating the integrity and humorousness that my dad always employed in the public eye—you see, my dad was an extremely well-known television reporter here. I greatly enjoyed these stories, because they illuminated many aspects of my dad that I was not there to witness.

 I spent the whole twenty-two years of my life with my dad by my side, and (due to my parent’s divorce) I spent the last eight years of my life with simply my dad and I. So, I always felt like I knew my dad better than anyone else. If people said he was funny, I knew how much funnier he was. If someone said he was caring, I knew how caring he really was. With that in mind, my dad, like everyone else, was not perfect, and he certainly had major flaws. And it was these flaws that almost no one, apart from family, knew about. I felt that I alone had the most accurate and intimate understanding of who my dad was.

But, does this mean that those individuals who encountered my dad on a much more superficial level did not really know my dad? Well, while they didn’t know my father as intimately as I did, I fail to see that this entails that they didn’t know him at all. For they surely had experienced accurate aspects of my father, e.g. his charm and sense of humor, and could indeed make positive knowledge claims about what made him him.

It is probably being wondered at this point exactly what such musings have to do with the title of the post, namely, religious pluralism. Well, I believe an analogy can be drawn here with regards to our portraits of God. For when we gaze upon the face of Christianity, we see a multitude of interpretations of God and his will. The Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Unitarians, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans obviously all disagree about certain aspects of what God is like and which theological doctrines accurately reflect his will—otherwise there would be no reason to differentiate these denominations. But, do these differences in interpretation of God entail that these different denominations do not worship the same God? Certainly not. Just like the differing interpretations between me and someone who only knew my dad superficially does not entail that we both did not have the same individual in mind as John Morris—my dad’s name, obviously.

It should be realized that differing interpretations abound between individuals even when dealing with the same referent. I will not interpret an American flag the same way a Korean will, even though we would both have the same object in front of us. Similarly, I might not understand God in the same way a fundamentalist Christian would, again, even though we have the same entity as our referent. And should this even surprise us? Should the fact that I don’t believe God commissioned Noah to build an ark, while another Christian does, entail that, therefore, our Gods are wholly different? I fail to see how this could be so. To continue the analogy, the fact that I know my dad had a temper, while another person who knew my dad did not know this, does not entail that we don’t have knowledge of the same individual. What is true is that one of us has more accurate knowledge of my dad, and I would also promulgate this regarding differing opinions of the nature of God. Since two contradictory opinions cannot both be true, it follows that only one can be correct, but this, again, doesn’t mean that both opinions do not have God as their focal point. It simply means that one has more accurate knowledge of him.

It should seem logical that I would also predicate the above thesis of differing religions. While Muslims, Mormons, Jews and Christians all have differing interpretations and understandings of God, I fail to see that this necessitates that they all therefore worship a different God. It is not at all illogical to assert that these religions have God as their focal point. What is different is their overall portrait of God. But, we have seen that differing pictures of a single referent does not entail that that is not indeed the same referent to all.

Now I, as a Christian, do believe that Christians have a more accurate portrait and understanding of God—I believe this especially because of Jesus of Nazareth. Subsequently, I believe that Muslims and Mormons have very many misunderstandings and imperfections in their portraits of God. However, I do not find that these differences necessitate that we all, therefore, worship a different God.

It is this type of religious pluralism that I adhere to, and I see it to be a kind of restricted pluralism, if you will. It is not a pluralism that claims that all religions are true, which is logically impossible. Rather, it is a pluralism that considers that we, Muslims, Christians, Mormons etc., are all worshipping the same God; granted that our worship is focalized through differing interpretations.

Atheists and their obsession with God

The odd behavior of non-believers

I am a theist, and obviously that means that I profess a positive belief in the existence of God. Naturally, a belief in God—who is claimed to be the source of being, consciousness, love etc.—shapes and molds almost all of the ways I carry out my life. I pray, go to church, read the Bible, talk about the faith I share, fellowship with other believers, and read books concerning my faith etc. A lot of the things I do are done with a thought towards the divine in some sense. Now, it should seem quite reasonable to state that if I lacked a belief in God, I would not concern myself with many of the aforementioned activities. Why would I pray if there’s no God to hear me? Why would I talk about the faith Christians share if I don’t share it? Surely these endeavors would be a waste of time. However, such a reasonable line of thinking seems to be absent from the “New Atheist” movement—which is ironic since atheists pride themselves on being at the frontier of the movement of reason.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that even though atheists lack a belief in God, they nevertheless still pray, or go to church, or read the Bible devotionally. Of course they don’t. But my point is this: atheists do spend a lot of time constantly discussing the very thing they claim not to believe in. Surely this is, to say the least, a bit strange. Why spend so much time arguing over, talking about, and demeaning something you belief is non-existent? Has anything ever seemed like such a waste of time and energy? I think Neil Degrasse Tyson said it perfectly:

I don’t play golf. Is there a word for non-golf players? Do non-golf players gather and strategize? Do non-skiers have a word, and come together and talk about the fact that they don’t ski? I can’t do that. I can’t gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn’t believe in God. I don’t have the energy for that.

Yet, the lifestyle of the new atheists is even more embarrassing than the picture Tyson paints. It’s not as if these individuals only occasionally sit around and discuss their non-belief; rather, in many cases people are devoting so much of their time and energy to such non-belief! Think of the hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites predicated on atheism, or the dozens of books printed each year on the “delusion of belief”. Dinesh D’Souza articulates my point:

I don’t believe in unicorns, but you’ll notice that I haven’t written any books disputing the existence of unicorns. I am not the author of, for example, The Unicorn Delusion or The End of Unicorns or Unicorns Are Not Great. I don’t attend conferences on the fallacy of unicorn belief, nor do I go around debating people on whether there are in fact unicorns.

The point is, when you lack a belief in something you ignore it. Why, if you lack a belief in a supernatural entity, would you spend your energy discussing your non-belief in the existence of said entity?

Now, I anticipate the response of the non-believer: so much time is spent arguing over belief in God because our society is overrun with the delusional belief in such a thing! Perhaps if the world was populated with a bunch of people believing in invisible unicorns then we would be obligated to focus our energies on them.

But surely this is not a good analogy. It is true that if people by the millions believed in invisible unicorns I might occasionally feel obliged to “set them straight”. But, I wouldn’t see myself devoting much time at all to converting the unicornists to a-unicornists. I would, most likely, just ignore such delusions, and probably laugh incessantly anytime the topic came up. Who wouldn’t?

But, this is not the path of the atheists, who, instead of ignoring the thing they lack belief in, utilize their efforts trying to convince the believers (and themselves) that they should lack belief too! And every once in a while you’ll see an atheist come to their senses and realize how absurd their endeavor is. Take John Loftus over at Debunking Christianity. Every couple of years or so he realizes exactly how meaningless his whole cause is and attempts to jump ship. Take these claims made from him in May 2012:

I have no more desire to engage Christians. They are deluded, all of them. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now. I have better things to do. I spent 39+ years of my adult life on a delusion. If I add the years of my childhood that’s almost my entire life. Yet this is the only life I will ever have. It’s time to move on[…]I see no reason to waste large chunks of my time on this delusion anymore.

Yet a few months later Loftus was back posting full time on the blog. How sad.

Why would anyone, as Loftus articulated, want to waste large chunks of their lives on what they take to be a delusion? Why waste your resources writing blogs, writing books, posting videos, setting up conferences, and even making television broadcasts talking about the very thing that you find to be nonexistent and delusional? I mean geez, I’ll bet that John Loftus spends more time thinking about God than most the congregation of my church. Is this not insane and delusional in itself? Do not these actions on behalf of atheists beg for a psychological evaluation?

Obsession with God

It is, I dare to say, an obsession with God. Why would you waste your energies and resources on something you don’t believe in unless you are obsessed with that very something? You don’t write books and blog posts on a constant basis on a topic unless that topic is constantly on your mind.

But what does this mean for the atheist? Are they, deep down, trying to constantly resolve some sort of cognitive dissonance they harbor? Perhaps they have given up an intellectual assent to a divine being, but maybe they still feel that personal lure of something beyond themselves and beyond the world. Perhaps they still have the knowledge of the divine embedded in their consciousness or being. Why else would someone constantly spend their time discussing how much they lack belief in something, unless they are trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance that accompanies the lack of belief in said something.

 Non-believers have claimed that one reason believers meet every week is to constantly reinforce their own delusions. But what does the same line of reasoning mean with regard to atheists, who constantly (and also at least on a weekly basis) feel the need to write about, talk about, discuss, and argue about what they claim to not believe in?

Perhaps atheists are trying to reinforce their own delusions.