Many of you say you don’t believe in God, but I don’t believe you. Call me an “aatheist”. I think you’re rejecting other negative things that you associate with belief in God, even you professional double black belt advanced level atheists who write whole books about not believing in God. I know you. You have been my friends, cohorts, co-employees and drinking buddies all of my life. I don’t believe there are really “40-50 million” of you in the U.S. as was blithely claimed in some article I read recently, but I know that the appeal of atheism is strong and you haven’t found a good reason to resist it. I can respect that. To a degree.
Read the rest of my strident, fanatical article at Creative Minority Report…
Reminds me somewhat of Aquinas’ chair argument against atheism.
Also reminds me of some of the scientific and geological evidence at http://www.s8int.com
Hi John! I’ve been meaning to say ‘hello’…thanks for all the other comments you’ve left, too. What’s Aquinas’ ‘chair argument’? Is that the argument from contingency?
Hi Dan nice to talk to you!
Aquinas’ chair argument was in response to a child’s question asking if it was possible for an atheist to believe in nothing based on science etc… And Aquinas replied that in order for him not to believe in a god he had to disbelieve in the sturdiness of chairs he sat on in order to believe they existed.
I’ve left a reply at Creative minority. I did come over. I”ll look over your site.
I think it interesting that you don’t seem to believe that anyone doesn’t believe in your god. I am science based. I don’t believe in anything that has no proof. I was a challenge to my parents. The love of the old testament…A minister had a bible studyin my living room. Many had trouble finding any love in the OT. I kept silent since I dont’ wan’t to corrupt my wifes belief.
Hey, it’s you! Welcome.
Intersting music. Not exactly my style. I am learning the banjo because my wife wants me to play at church first sunday of April. Terrible song! (A place in the choir). She wanted me to do the Bass Guitar but I figured a banjo would add more. It will be the only time I have planned to go to church this year. I cooked easter breakfast for the church but have no desire to sit thru a sermon that I am sure is just superstition.
Thanks–my music is definitely on the quirky side. And, if I could play the banjo, I would have added a banjo on every single song, I think. I think Steve Martin said somewhere, “It’s impossible to be sad when you’re playing the banjo.” Anyway, sorry you got roped into choir–but awfully accommodating of you. By virtue of your charity, you are probably more Christian than I am!
opps, first sunday of May….
Hi again, Rover. Sorry it’s taken me this long to put up a reply to the issues you brought up. Working for a living and all that…I’m sure you understand.
I’ll just cut and paste your initial comment and go from there:
“I think it interesting that you don’t seem to believe that anyone doesn’t believe in your god. I am science based. I don’t believe in anything that has no proof. I was a challenge to my parents. The love of the old testament…A minister had a bible studyin my living room. Many had trouble finding any love in the OT. I kept silent since I dont’ wan’t to corrupt my wifes belief.”
I should qualify that first sentence: in my article what I wrote was that I don’t believe that anyone is really a true atheist (with some exceptions, I’m sure). I believe that most everybody believes in something or other, and very often the “atheists” I encounter are just angry at Christianity or at religion and have chosen atheism as a convenient escape from having to deal with any of it.
But I have no problem accepting your assertion that you are truly a %100 atheist. You write that you are science-based, and you don’t believe in anything that has no proof. Also, in your original CMR comment, you wrote: “If some evidence of some god shows up, I will believe in him.” I can’t pretend to offer proof of God, but evidence? Definitely. There’s a lot available.
Here’s 3 examples.
1. Nature. There’s an entire universe around us, mind-bogglingly complex, from the intricate, finely-tuned microscopic world to the untold numbers of stars and galaxies whirling around us. It’s become fashionable to take the existence of all that for granted, but really: where did it all come from? What keeps it going?
2. Morality. You yourself are clearly a moral guy—you were nice enough to volunteer for choir practice, and you’re careful not to bully your wife for her faith in God (which is very cool of you). What explains morality? Why should a person feel he ought to do something, even if, as it often happens, it leads to extreme discomfort and even death? If we’re products of a meaningless universe, how did a moral sense come to be a universal aspect of humankind?
3. Since St. Thomas Aquinas is on my mind, how about his Argument from Contingency? Things possess a quality called ‘existence.’ A chair possesses existence, but it didn’t give that quality to itself. It received existence from something else, and one day it will pass out of existence. You and I are the same way—once we didn’t exist, but we received existence, and one day we won’t exist anymore. So, to rip off my man, Frank Sheed: “If nothing exists save beings that receive their existence, how does anything exist at all? Where do they receive their existence from? How did existence get into the system at all?”
This is bona fide evidence, and should be tantalizing for anyone who considers themselves rational and objective. “Some kind of Primary Being” is a rational explanation for all three. And this is really just scratching the surface. What do you think?
Gosh, I”m sorry for the long delay. Re: all your points: Thanks for the compliments! Secondarily, I agree with all your points but none point to the OT/NT God of the bible. None of your points paint to any god, let alone a specific one. As I said, without evidence or without logic, I don’t belive in anything.
Sorry to double up on this but….
Point not paint.
And, My wife and I had a heart to heart since this exchange. Although I would agree that God exists with enough evidince, I could not see myself “worshiping ” him ever. He has done so much bad in the OT and his son changes nothing. I would rather spend my inifinity in the defined hell than worship God (and all his history).
I am a very active person and accomplishing nothing for eternity would be hell for me.
Be well!
Rover.
I’m with you 100%, Rover–I wouldn’t worship God, either, under those circumstances. All you’re doing is acknowledging that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that there might be Someone There, right? It would be crazy to be expected to fall down in homage to That.
Even the Heavy Hitters from the OT didn’t do that, I notice. Abraham and Moses didn’t encounter God and immediately begin worshiping him. They began a pretty rational discourse, in fact: who are You? What are You up to? What do You want from me? And, at some point, if you’re not satisfied, you can be like Conan in his prayer to Crom: “And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!” (make sure you use a Schwarzenegger accent). But an attempt at a real conversation is in order. That’s logical. Otherwise, how can you know?
Dan,
I’m not an atheist (though I was down in that absolutist camp before), but an agnostic.
I was really only initially at your blog about six months ago because I’m a fan of your old band, but your talk on the church really got me interested right off — I like to think about god, religion, &c. because it is more than WORTH thinking about. After all, I’m in the “no stance/don’t know” area; why not think about these things? It could definitely be important — and to a lot of folks, it certainly is. So when I see you put your take on things, I mull them over. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don’t. We’re people, and I’m bound to disagree or agree at different points. That’s all well and good.
Dan, this is the least inflammatory and most sincere message to the godless(?) that I’ve ever heard, and I’m touched. I was actually in a conversation with my grandmother a week ago on this same issue; she’s sure I’ll convert back to the Baptist faith at some point. We’ll see.
As I stand now, I’ll say that religion and I don’t click. We never have. I have always operated with religion with more fear than faith. I just don’t feel that that’s the right path, and my very technical mind says the same as my gut there. That doesn’t happen much.
But none of that means that someday it won’t click. It may well. When and if I have that epiphany, I will come without hesitation.
The point is Dan, that I love this. I had been wondering your stance for a while and actually considered asking you — today I found out. I’m incredibly grateful that you know and recognize the issues with a /belligerent/ approach as opposed to a benevolent one.
Thanks a ton for your reminder, Dan. I’ve got the door open, and only spent 18 years, so I’ve got the rest to get a wife and a job and see what comes. If my call comes, that’ll be great. If I don’t feel it, that’ll also be fine. Right now I’m holding out hope that if the doubtful part of my brain (the dominant one, for better or worse) is wrong in the end and I haven’t converted by then that the Big Man understands.
I’ll give it a shot every now and again — after all, if the love is there and promised, why not try for it?
Thanks a million, Dan. Best wishes.
I’m really grateful for this comment, Taylor, and for your honest sincerity. Believe it or not, the Catholic Church has a long, proud tradition of what’s called “sacred doubt;” which just means not accepting religious propositions blindly but applying good, solid reasoning to them wherever possible. “Test everything,” said St. Paul, “Hold fast what is good.” And it sounds like you already know that. I think you instinctively recognize that God doesn’t want us to be mindless robots–he wants us to think clearly, and I can tell you with confidence that he’s with us every step of the way as we work out the tough stuff. Keep in touch!