I was listening to Dennis Prager the other day. They had a show on why atheists suck. According to the author of a new book about atheism called “The Devil’s Delusion”, we atheists are paranoid superstitious cranks who – in the face of mountains of science – reject the reality of God.
That’s easy to make fun of – after all the genius behind that book works for Seattle’s “Discovery Institute” – a group which spends more on marketing than on science and whose primary interest is in promoting “Intelligent Design” (i.e. the whole Adam and Eve thing).
But let’s take this guy at face value. He’s certainly not alone in portraying atheists as closed-minded, it seems to be the consensus view amongst everyone who isn’t an atheist. I think this comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of atheism.
A lot of people seem to think that we think that there is proof that there is no God. I don’t think that – I don’t think God’s existence is a falsifiable thing. I think it’s a dumb thing, but I don’t think it’s something for which you can test.
Now I guess that’s what you expect from an atheist. But here’s where a lot of atheists differ from the stereotype.
As an atheist, I don’t absolutely reject the possibility that there can be a God – that is if you define God as a creator from beyond this universe. I can abstractly conceive of a scientist or a group of scientists living on some other level of existence out there in the multiverse, twiddling away with black holes and creating life, the universe and everything. That’s credible-ish. Of course it depends on how many universes there are. If this is something like the third or fourth universe to ever exist, then certainly it makes sense that there would be some ‘help’ behind the scenes. But if this is the 10 trillionth universe in an infinite sequence of universes, then there’s no need for the god hypothesis – the only help required is time and random variation.
So yes, the idea of a creator, it’s possible, and even likely if certain conditions are met, but still that doesn’t mean that that creator is your Allah or your Yahweh. Allah, Krishna, Jehovah, all of these guys are just preposterous.
God is a possibility, but your God is not. That’s what being an atheist means to me. I can accept the idea of a class of beings beyond the universe. But I can not accept the idea of a class of super beings beyond the universe with the properties of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence in this universe. That idea is so obscene, so ridiculous and incredible that it can’t be accepted, even conditionally, without extraordinary proof. The fact that there is absolutely no proof whatsoever just clinches it.
It’s not being closed minded, it’s having common sense – it’s normal and logical for a person to refuse to believe your ludicrous claims of invisible supermen unless you can come to them with some objective evidence. I can’t prove that your god doesn’t exist, but I can prove that the idea of your god is so incredible and implausible that it’s safe to take that .1% leap from being 99.9% sure of His absence to becoming an atheist.
So with that incoherent rant out of the way, an open question for the comments – how do you define atheism?
Filed under: Uncategorized , Atheism, atheist, God, Religion
@Ray:
“Religion” is derived from the orignal ‘religios’, which is – by definition – belief that there are ‘powers’ or ‘principles’ that are powerful and important enough that they must be worshipped and/or appeased in order to ensure they do not harm us.
I should have been more accurate in my comment. Thank you for pointing it out, so I may correct myself:
Religion need not specify that the ‘other-than-natural’ which may affect them must necessarily take the shape of a ‘deity’. This would be ’spiritual atheism’ – by definition.
Sorry I was sloppy earlier…