An honest atheist strikes the right chord
Is it possible that most atheists reject God’s existence not because they lack evidence for God but because of a deep revulsion to the thought of answering to such a being? Could atheism be misguided wish-fulfillment? Some atheists would like us to believe that there is simply too much evidence against God. They mock God with silly false comparisons to Santa Clause and Easter Bunnies. Lacking the ability to offer substantive responses, they resort to childish behavior (and many children behave better). But after years of interaction with atheists, I suspect deeper reasons for their rejection of God. Allow one honest atheist to explain it:
“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning and design as fundamental features of the world” (New York University philosopher, Thomas Nagel, “The Last Word”).
A few additional comments are helpful. “In truth, many academics are naturalists or atheists as much or more on the basis of such wish fulfillment as they are on the basis of any reasoning or evidence.” (Dr. Michael Murray). Conversely, “Perhaps a God really does actually exist, and many humans–especially those not blinded by the reigning narratives of modern science and academia–feel a recurrent and deeply compelling ‘built-in’ desire to know and worship, in their various ways, the God who is there” (Christian Smith, “Moral, Believing Animals”).
Jesus exposed the true motives of those who reject God when he said, “God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed” (John 3:19-20).
Steve Cornell
Uncomfortable unbelief: http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/uncomfortable-unbelief/
Consider Nagel’s analysis of the “yearning for cosmic reconciliation that has been part of the philosophical impulse” and his recommendation of “a non-religious teleology.” Nagel aspires to answer the question: “Can one bring into one’s individual life a full recognition of one’s relation to the universe as a whole?”
http://records.viu.ca/www/ipp/pdf/2.pdf
Consider also:
http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/a-worldview-that-fits-reality-and-offers-hope/
Filed under: Anxiety, Apologetics, Atheism, Creation, Fear of God, Fear of religion, God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science, Thomas Nagel, Worldview
Personally, I hope that your god is not real for a few reasons:
1) The universe lends itself to being much older than 6000 years, why would a god trick us?
b) The atrocities Yahweh and the Jews committed in the old testament suggest a monster of a god, no matter how much you say he is loving, killing suckling babies and the unborn along with cattle and donkey, along with the destruction of the world once, and promised a second time shows makes me your god is petty, hateful, and more like a child than an enlightened god. I am more moral than Yahweh.
III) If your god exists, he destined me for hell before I was ever born with the poor publishers he chose for his only book, the book reads like it was written 2000 – 4000 years ago by goat herders and other laymen, not by a god who would realize that his work was going to be read by people way later on.
First, Christianity and the Bible do not set an age to the earth. Some believe in a young earth but many Christian scholars believe in an age for the earth in keeping with scientific evidence–an old earth.
Second, I cannot completely understand God’s judgments but your rejection of a God who commands death and destruction exposes your presupposed notions of God or at least how you think God should be if he exists. Where did you get such notions? Why do you hold them—so forcefully? Should others be obliged to comply with your notions and definitions? If so, why? What should we make of your moral outrage? Is it possible that God’s mercy is elevated in allowing any rebellious creatures to live? Why should we rebellious ones expect God to conduct himself as we think best? Maybe we misunderstand both justice and mercy.
Thirdly, what makes you think God has predestined you to hell? This is not taught in the Bible. And, for being a goat herders book, the Bible sure has made an unusual impact on the entire world. I think I will find some goat herding ghost writers for my work. NYT best seller coming up!
“Where did you get such notions? Why do you hold them—so forcefully? Should others be obliged to comply with your notions and definitions? If so, why? What should we make of your moral outrage? ”
The very same questions could be asked about why should people have reason to feel obliged to have faith in christianity.What should we make of it.Where did such biblical notions come from.Why were the beliefs often seeming so arrogant and harsh and forceful.What should we make of morals within faith that often dont always really even seem so moral.
Unless god actually finally turns up to explain it all himself.
The faith and morals and thoughts are only ever relative to thoughts of the humans who think of them anyway.
First of all, I think you know exactly how old the Bible implies the Earth to be (determining the age through the lineage given in the Bible). How could the word of a god be wrong? Why does science disagree with the word of God?
“Where did you get such notions?”
From the Bible, there are multiple instances where Yahweh commands the Jews to commit atrocities. 1Samuel 15:1-3, Deuteronomy 32:21-25, and Hosea 13:16 come to mind.
What kind of God should I see after reading those passages?
The only information we have about Yahweh is in the Bible, with that information alone, I would never convert. It’s full of holes and inconsistencies and hate. I think that if a god really existed and had a book written he would have done a much better job of explaining why he commands these things.
If I had my own pick of a god I most certainly wouldn’t want a god who commits any acts of violence. I would pick some sort of watchmaker god, who sets the universe in motion and leaves, possibly destroying itself for good.
The age of the earth should not be read into what you refer to as “lineage”. They only tell us the age of people who lived on the earth. You work off an assumption that the earth was formed in close association with the people who originally inhabited it. This is an unnecessary assumption.
God’s judgments are just and deserved. It is his mercy on any of us that amazes me. Sinners deserve to die–all of us. Mercy from God is not owed to anyone. Be amazed that you have escaped God’s judgment for the present time (see: Luke 13:1-5).
I am not sure what YOU mean by holes and inconsistencies in the Bible. You must be specific. And, I am not surprised that you flee from a God of judgment. But I am quite sure you would vote for justice in some circumstances. Perhaps it would be justice defined by you, on your terms. We don’t get to make all those decisions. You are very much like Nagel in your response.
Sisyphus: I appreciate the informed response you bring. You are keen to observe that the Herbrew Bible demonstrates that YHWH is not exactly a jolly old chap who is perpetually warm and lighthearted with his creation. I think no intellectual could defend otherwise.
I will say this however, the fact that you do not ‘want’ this kind of God to exist is not the same thing as that kind of God not existing. To say it inversely, the existence of metaphysical things (be it a chair, a locomotives, or God) is not contingent upon whether or not conscious beings prefer them to exist or not. So, while I appreciate your critique of YHWH’s character traits or ‘temper’ I would remind you that he could exist even you and I abhor him. Perhaps this is obvious to you, but your comment did not seem to concede this.
Again, thanks for making informed comments. I would appreciate it if more people commented like you do.
Errata: Please change “Mr. Nathan” to “Mr. Nagel.” thank you.
[...] see also: http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/i-hope-there-is-no-god-thomas-nagel/ [...]
[...] http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/i-hope-there-is-no-god-thomas-nagel/ [...]
Your quote: “Is it possible that most atheists reject God’s existence not because they lack evidence for God but because of a deep revulsion to the thought of answering to such a being?”
Answer: No. It is not possible that most atheists reject god because of a deep revulsion. Do some atheists? Perhaps. In fact, there are many of us who really liked God until we found out he was made up.
You……found out….he was made up?
Interesting conclusion you came to. Too bad it’s logically impossible to come to any sort of truth about a being that is metaphysical in nature. You cannot “find out” he is made up any more than any other metaphysical idea.
Are you then saying that all metaphysical ideas are just nonsense? That’s an intriguing idea, but I doubt you’d want to go that rout.
We cannot rely entirely on the metaphysical and do often end up concluding certain things are most likely made up.
Its important we do.
Imagine the chaos if everyone lived our entire lives based on speculative or abstract reasoning.
[...] also: I hope there is no God http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/i-hope-there-is-no-god-thomas-nagel/ Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)economist and people, who are more stupid?What Do [...]
It is the nature of humanity is to seek autonomy from external authority. The moment we honestly admit to God, we face the reality of accountability. We all share an aversion to this. Prideful arrogance keeps us from admitting our sinful rebellion and need for a savior.
Premoderns (conservatives) emphasize a “strict daddy” (authoritarian/hierarchical) model of society, and/or politics. Order is maintained via a system of punishments that are justified via images of a distant, impersonal thundering sky god. Some accommodation of the divine feminine is allowed, such as the intense devotion that the previous Pope had for Mary/Mother.
Postmoderns (liberals, progressives, pluralists, feminists, relativists, multiculturalists) primarily emphasize a “nurturing mommy” model.
Integralists emphasize holistic (“third way”) models that include, but transcends, both male/female models.
As a western Druid-Buddhist (ex-bahai), the “ALL unbelievers are going to hell” thing seems like a ridiculous artifact of a conformist, ethnocentric premodern form of culture. Please note that such (agrarian) cultures used both psychological violence and physical violence to maintain slave economies and rigid class structures that were undemocratic and that enforced injustices that served to maintain the privileges of rulers and religious elites. This is true, in varying forms, for all medieval societies (regardless of the specific religion).
Such artifacts appear bizarre to modernists (including evolutionary scientists), but apparently give great comfort to those that fear (due to a lack of maturity) the unbeliefs and uncertainties of the age of reason, and are disturbed (understandably) by the narcissism and nihilism of postmodernism.
I believe that something in the structure of existence drives people to search for meaning, purpose, community and transcendance (spirit).
In Ken Wilber’s integral (A.Q.A.L.) theory, four quadrants represent the combinations of interior/exterior and individual/collective awareness:
(I, We, It, Its)
(I) spirit = interior/individual
(We) morals = interior/collective
(It) reason = outer/individual
(Its) ecology/systems = outer/collective
http://www.formlessmountain.com/aqal.htm
The Abrahamic “prophets” explained transcendance (and the usual other questions about the Kosmos, society and existence {soul, mind, body}), as well as they could to a premodern audience. How would it have made sense for Moses or Jesus to talk about the truths of evolution, or any other modern science, to people that did not have the intellectual tools to understand it?
Evolution certainly explains some things well, but is a young science that contains, for mostly understandable reasons, a tendency to be hostile to conventional religion (large parts of which are artifacts of premodern culture). As such, it is difficult to reconcile evolution with some aspects of conventional religion. Religious people are offended, somewhat understandably, by the hostility that many in science have to spirit.
Neither science or evolutionary theory are perfect.
This simple fact would presumably give (open-minded) religious people many opportunities to explore new areas in which spirit and reason might be seen as complementary parts of a holistic model of human consciousness.
(This would however require people to stop engaging in un-necessary psychological violence against real or perceived “opponents”.)
The premodern artifacts of culture (mythic archetypes, conformism, outmoded morals, ethnocentrism, hate ideology) that are imbedded in conventional religion are not perfect, and must be understood as being imperfect and limiting in order for humanity to advance to a higher (more enlightened) developmental stage.
The current “reason vs. faith” debates provide considerable evidence that much of what is being said by both sides is not the result of mature psychological paradigms, and is not open to other perspectives outside the narrow conventional confines of the “reason vs. faith” debate.
I would suggest that any “faith vs. reason” debate should include consideration of alternatives outside of that framework, such as holistic, complementary or integral theories (e.g., Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber).
Thanks!