On a typical day, a perusal through the front-page dregs of Digg.com will yield an abundance of posts on highly predictable topics. I refer, of course, not to technology issues (you must be thinking of Slashdot the 2005 version of Digg), but the mandatory anti-Bush posts; a daily prescription of environmentalist bromides; a fair measure of paranoid anti-corporatism; and, inevitably, the minefield of anti-theistic sophistry and exercises in intellectual self-congratulation. Each of these deserves its own post, but the volley of arrogant comments from atheists gets the hat-tip today.
It looks like atheism is gaining currency in the United States: While the most comprehensive study I found shows “Atheism” declining modestly from 1990 to 2001, “No Religion” more than doubled, to 27.5M people — and it’s hard to imagine that a good number of them aren’t actually atheists, in deed (and online discussion) if not in polling honesty. The atheists on sites like Digg have the rather charming tendency to proclaim themselves more enlightened, scientific, worldly, and sophisticated (and sometimes altogether smarter) than the poor, benighted Christians and other theists. In story after story, the comment threads teem with vitriolic rejoinders of that nature to the relatively few theistic comments. But then, you’d probably miss the latter entirely if you didn’t think to show the comments that are buried with negative scores. Being ceaselessly berated with this kind of arrogant rhetoric naturally raises the question: Is atheism, in fact, more intelligent, more logical, and more enlightened than theism? Are Christians nothing more than a sad anachronism, a self-delusional throwback to our medieval ancestors, the last holdouts in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence?
[A note on terms: Atheism can refer to a few different things. An atheist generally believes: a) that there is no credible evidence of God's existence (weak atheism); b) that God does not exist (strong atheism); or c) both. Weak atheism, also called nontheism, is equivalent to agnosticism. Anecdotally, I'd say strong is the predominant usage, but strong atheists might just be more likely to star in anecdotes. In any case, my casual use of atheism does refer to the latter.]
The atheist’s first appeal is likely to be that of ridicule: “You really believe some 2000-year-old book of fairy tales?” Criticizing Christianity — or any other organized religion — is very easy, no doubt about it. There are far too many details, dramatic events, and literary flourishes to not strain even the most forgiving reader at some point. But unless the religion’s assertions can be disproved empirically, the atheist’s ridicule is nothing more than an appeal to “common sense,” which itself is all but useless when it comes to fundamental scientific truths about the universe –refer to particle physics and quantum mechanics as support for this. I’ve also read several atheistic appeals to Occam’s Razor: Why invent a complex god, with all his properties, rules, and history, to explain our origins, when there are simpler explanations to be found? But again, when the atheist’s responses are either to not supply an answer at all (which, while indeed simpler, somewhat sidesteps its duties) or to replace one paradox with another (see below), he may as well leave Occam’s Razor in the drawer.
But Christianity can’t be disproved! It’s made to be non-falsifiable for just that reason! I know, that’s got to be frustrating. But is it really that it was designed that way, that maybe only the non-falsifiable religions have flourished, or that by their nature, any philosophy that includes the origins of the universe must, at its core, be non-falsifiable? Even those scientific theories that concern minute details of our universe’s mechanisms are at present unfalsifiable — string theory, for instance (a point of no minor contention in scientific circles). The Big Bang is unfalsified, as are its competing theories, and science can’t even come close to touching things like the cause of the Big Bang itself.
It’s been claimed by atheists that such things are mere details, temporary swaths of darkness that will, in turn, be illuminated by science and reason in their relentless forward march. But at its heart, these questions are more fundamental than even science: logic, as currently conceived, is absolutely incapable of addressing our ultimate origins. While Christians allege that God always existed, atheists often counter that the universe was a spontaneous event, matter from a vacuum in the ostensible manner of quantum foam. While I’m sure that theory is one among many within atheistic circles, one constant binds all of these: None can skirt the logical axiom of causality. What caused God to exist? What caused the mechanism that birthed the Big Bang? “The Big Bang just appeared” is no more satisfying than “God always existed”; from the standpoint of logic, each is a dreamland fantasy.* Atheists’ assertions of intellectual superiority would thus appear to be ultimately empty expressions of self-aggrandizement.
In the final sum, a casual examination of atheism reveals a pseudo-religious affirmative belief in metaphysical constructs, the lack of empirical evidence for which undermines the scientific posturing that buys atheism its very credibility. The scientific method, in reality, is invoked by atheists only to deconstruct the peripheral concepts of other creeds, such as those of Christianity; for its part, atheism’s own rationalistic denial of God’s existence hasn’t even the most tenuous semblance of scientific rigor. Does this lack of logical mooring impugn atheism even more than it does theism? Not intrinsically. But for a movement that has coalesced on a supposed foundation of rationale and proof, atheism’s rather vacuous counterclaims border on the hypocritical. At best, the weak atheist’s “Eh, I dunno, show me proof” sentiment, while laudable, is hardly a watershed of critical thought.
No religious ideology can be based on pure reason, and one that claims to the contrary is mistaken or lying. Given that many atheists refer to themselves also as rationalists, their intentional claim on a rational path to transcendent truths is bold and clear. Claims are not truths, however, and boldness is no substitute for knowledge. Atheistic exceptionalism is an imaginative falsehood; but I applaud the unwavering faith of all those who steadfastly believe in it nonetheless.
* NOTE: Quantum mechanics has somewhat altered our understanding and observation of cause and effect. However, atheism was not predicated on these new understandings; and far from offering any answers to deep metaphysical problems, quantum mechanics raises many more questions.
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, for training purposes, things like that. Not wanting to be caught completely flat-footed on the podium — especially knowing what stage fright itself can do to your memory acumen, however remarkable it is while you’re practicing solo — I’d refine a fairly strict speech ahead of time, taking down notes of key points to refer to once on stage, expecting deviation in the details of how I present it (pending what feels most natural, crowd reactions, time strictures, and so on). The whole process, to me, was always stressful and exhausting. So I’ve got sympathy for teleprompter dependence in an abstract sense.