My opposition to atheism is philosophical, not religious.
One of the four branches of philosophy is epistemology, it is concerned with ‘how we know things’, or more simply, it is just the study of knowledge. My concern with atheism arises from the dominance within modern western culture that there is only one ‘way of knowing’, this being scientific rationalism.
Here is an example of another way of knowing from history. A famous Red Indian chief (I cannot recall who now) was asked at a trial to “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, he replied “I cannot do that; I can only tell you what I know”. To the Chief, truth was an impossibility, it cannot be known by any human. To the court, truth can be known.
What truth do you believe? Can we ever be certain of any truth? This is an epistemological debate; we should be prepared to accept that there are more ways of knowing than just the one currently dominating modern western culture. What irks me about many atheists is their certainty of a particular truth, that there isn’t a God.
Furthermore, this certainty in atheism arises at a time when definitions of God have become very broad indeed. Do atheists really dismiss every definition of God that exists in this post modern alternative age? One can only assume that they do, it’s not as if we are living a few centuries ago when the only God in the west worth denying was definitely a bearded elderly man with miraculous powers. No, today’s atheists cannot limit the definition of God, if they live within this culture and time then their arguments must be met in this context. Therefore, the question is, do atheists deny the biblical God, Allah, Jehovah, Godhead, Magick, Kundalini, Krishna, Haile Selassie, Ator of the Kabbalah, Gaia, Ganesh, the ‘secret’, Rael, L Ron Hubbard, and even Maradona? Clearly, we’d be astonished if anyone had seriously investigated all of the phenomena encompassed by modern definitions of God to arrive at a logical conclusion. Even earlier rationalists refused to move as far as atheism. Leibniz produced a mathematical proof that showed that evidence for or against the existence of God is equally implausible.
Consequently, modern atheists do not arrive at their position from careful research of empirical evidence; instead, they hold their opinions a priori. Thus, they are as guilty of certainty from mere opinion as the creationists. Therefore, I propose that many modern atheists are just the slogan chanting cheer leaders for the skeptical, anti spiritual, anti supernatural, scientific rationalist movement; rather than people with a carefully thought through opinion.
However, another of my contentions with atheism arises from moral philosophy. Aristotle’s ‘Nichomachean Ethics’ defines ‘reason’ in far more interesting terms than it appears today. He argued that to make a moral decision requires more of us than, say, solving a mathematical problem. We have to think and feel. Thus, ‘reason’ incorporates more than just thinking. Furthermore, this makes only morally good people ‘reasonable’, bad people are merely cunning. The importance of this is that it makes ‘I feel, therefore I am’, equally as important as ‘cogito ergo sum’. Again, it raises questions about how we actually know things, proposing that feeling is at least as important as thinking.
Similarly, there are arguments arising from literary expressionism and romanticism that also supports different ways of knowing. Meaning can exist outside of words, we may be unable to think without using words but we can feel without words. This personal experience is profoundly important to all of us. Think about how we feel when someone we love dies, this is a way of knowing that is very difficult to express in words. Many people who experience tragedy often complain that ‘no one understands’, this provides evidence for inexpressible personal truths. Oscar Wilde once quipped that “A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it” wonderfully stating the value of individual experience in expressionist opinion. Novalis also provided a definition for romanticism, “To romanticise means to endow base matters with noble meaning, ordinary matters with a mysterious status, familiar matters with the dignity of the unknown, finite matters with the appearance of infinity.” Maybe I’m getting carried away, but the upshot of all this is the support these ideas provide for valuing personal truths. This is relevant because one of the claims made by religious people is that they have experienced ‘revealed knowledge’, truths only made apparent to them personally, it is on this experience that many of them base their faith. For example, when someone is born again they describe being touched by God, Buddhists experience Kundalini, etc. The scientific rationalist approach is to say that if it can’t be tested externally it is inadmissible as evidence; the humanist position, and our own consciousness, demands that internal individual truths be respected. In short, the expressionist and romantic movements of the late enlightenment, along with humanist ideals inherent in human rights; both provide sound reasons not to outrightly dismiss individual truths, as the scientific rationalists and modern atheists blatantly do. These are simply moot points of epistemological philosophy.
Moreover, actual scientific measurement of the supernatural or the spiritual would be so important to humanity that it cannot be taken lightly. Imagine what it would mean to us all if we really proved the existence of ghosts, or that the soul did live on after death. This criticism is therefore pointed sharply at both the religious, who claim actual physical miracles that they won’t put up for investigation; and to atheists, whose a priori position prevents open minded research. Furthermore, both camps prevent the wonder of epistemological philosophy through their ignorance and arrogance.
Additionally, belief in spirituality of some kind has been with us so long to just dismiss it seems rather stupid. Did Socrates not see ghosts? Did cavemen really worship their own ignorance? Is the non-western world just wrong in being mostly religious?
Atheism: At the least it’s narrow minded, at worst it’s arrogant.
In summing up.
1. Epistemology is a valued division of philosophy that allows for different ways of knowing. Atheists appear ignorant of it.
2. Atheists hold their opinions a priori. On what evidence do atheists dismiss all definitions of God in the current historical period?
3. Atheists and creationists are equally sure of their a priori certainty.
4. Leibniz’ mathematical formula still stands, irrespective of what atheists believe.
5. Moral philosophy provides support for valuing feeling as much as thinking in reasoning.
6. Literary expressionism and romanticism, along with humanism; both provide sound reasons to value inexpressible individual truths.
7. What is unknown is too important for atheists to outrightly dismiss without careful investigation.
8. The historical record is full of evidence for spirituality.
9. Atheists believe that their western rationality trumps other ways of knowing all over the world (heard that one before).
Finally, I want people to understand my ‘expressionist meanings’ when replying to this. Please, no shallow arguments about the order of my words and their suggested connotations; have some courage, try and understand my meaning as it is meant and then debate me on the real heart of my argument. I am not arguing for the existence of God, but I absolutely reject the certainty with which atheists claim there isn’t a God(s?).
Once again I find myself in only partial agreement with you Brad. I don’t believe that atheists (at least not all of them) ignore epistemology; in fact the more prominent of them like Dawkins, Sagan, Douglas Adams et. al. have used epistemological arguments to support their atheism. My counter-argument therefore is that atheists don’t reject epistemology outright. They merely reject the idea that knowledge comes from God (however it is defined) or leads to one. Even so, all but the very staunchest of atheists discount the possibility of a god entirely, because if they did they would be guilty of argument from ignorance and make their own arguments contradictory. Even Richard Dawkins entertained the remote possibility of a Supreme Being in “The God Delusion” but added that the chances of such a thing being anything like any god we could imagine are “vanishingly small”.
My own opposition to religion stems from being traumatised by Bible bullshit at an age when I could barely understand it, but my real beef with it is that it belittles us both as a species and as an individual: a sportsperson defeats a more favoured opponent, for example, and then afterward says he has God to thank for his victory as if his own talent and ability had nothing to do with it and God, for some unfathomable reason, simply decided that he should triumph over the other, just-as-devout, competitor.
As a skeptic, I can’t consider anything to be “true” unless there is unshakable proof. Everything else is doubt. Certainly, it’s impossible to prove that God exists as much as it is to prove he doesn’t (a mistake that Dawkins makes), but the more I learn and the more I experience, the less likely it becomes to me that an ordered, just and fair God has been behind it. Nevertheless, if someone was to prove that God existed, I think I would be far more inclined to accept it than if a deeply religious person would be to accept the proof that He/She/It did not.