Is Atheism Viable?

Hilton Head Island, SC – May 13, 2012
The Chapel Without Walls
Psalm 14:1-7; Psalm 53:1-6
A Sermon by John M. Miller

Text – The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”  They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. – Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1 (RSV)

IS ATHEISM VIABLE?

From the inception of this purportedly Christian nation, whether you date it from 1607 or 1620 or 1776 or 1789, atheism has always been given a very bad rap.  Many Americans have considered atheists to be in league with such people as axe murderers, anarchists, and Al Qaeda.

Apparently atheists did not fare any better in public opinion in biblical times either.  It is impossible to know how widespread was a rejection of belief in God back in the 6th century BCE or the 1st century CE.  The fact that Psalm 14 is repeated almost verbatim as Psalm 53 would seem to indicate that whoever put together the Hebrew Bible thought atheism was sufficiently odious as to deserve a doubled whammy.  They didn’t approve of it at all.

I am sure atheism is not a modern phenomenon.  No doubt there always have been atheists.  If it is intellectually possible to believe in God, it also is intellectually possible to believe there is no God.  After all, either position represents what the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and the German-American theologian Paul Tillich called a leap of faith, and there can be no absolute certainty either way.  To suppose otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of both faith and belief.  Make no mistake about it; to believe in God or not to believe in God is a matter of faith and belief, despite what some theists or atheists might insist.  No one knows whether or not God exists; we can only believe it one way or the other.

According to a survey by the Pew Forum on the Religious Landscape, 6.3% of the respondents described themselves as totally secular and unconnected to God.  I take that to mean they profess themselves atheists.  But 18% of the respondents said they don’t think God has a purpose or plan for everyone.  That apparently means they believe in a distant, impersonal God.

We may deduce from this that all of us know some atheists, but they have never told us they’re atheists.  That’s because they, like most believers, are not loud proclaimers of what they do or don’t believe.  They aren’t zealous.  Liberals like that.  They don’t warm up to zealots.

However, in recent years a group of what we might call “evangelical atheists” have arisen, who are zealots.  Collectively they have been dubbed the New Atheists.  They include men such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others.  In March some of them held what they called The Reason Rally in Washington.  The implication seems to be that faith in God is unreasonable, but faith that there is no God is reasonable.  I would observe this: that just doesn’t seem reasonable.  Faith and reason are not enemies.  In fact, both can be, and are, employed in the attempt to establish that God does or does not exist.

The surprising thing about the New Atheists is that they have become very militant.  They act as though they have discovered something no one else has ever sufficiently understood until they came along.  Some very impressive and intelligent historical figures have claimed there is no God, people such as Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Bertrand Russell.  None was a mental slouch.

Some researchers at the University of Oxford have postulated that human beings are somewhat disposed to believe in God and an afterlife.  Professor Roger Trigg said we are not “hardwired” or “programmed” to believe, but nonetheless there is a predisposition for people all over the world to suppose that God exists and that when we die we shall live again.

Some atheists, and also a few theists, would dispute the latter notion.  Furthermore, many would say that the religious impulse out of which most theism springs is suspect.  The French philosopher Alain de Botton has just published a book called Religion for Atheists.  He wrote, “One can be left cold by the doctrines of the Christian Trinity and the Buddhist Eightfold Path and yet at the same time be interested in the ways in which religions deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use of art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude at the beauty of spring.”

It may seem peculiar to you that atheists might also have the inclination to form their own religion.  Why would they do that, you wonder.  It is, as Alain de Botton suggests, a way of creating a community of like-minded people and sharing their insights with one another.  If theist birds of a feather flock together, why not atheist birds?

At Ft. Bragg, NC, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, where thousands of troops have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, atheist soldiers staged a Rock Beyond Belief event after a much larger evangelical Christian event had earlier been held.  Richard Dawkins, the British biologist, was one of the main speakers.  He said, “We’re never antagonistic toward religious believers.  We’re antagonistic toward religious belief.”  Knowing how negative his true feelings are about organized religion, that would be like someone saying, “We’re never antagonistic toward criminals; we’re just antagonistic toward crime.”  The point is that the secularist soldiers want to be recognized as a – quote -- “distinctive faith group.”  One of the soldiers, Pfc. Lance Reed, said, “I’ve been an atheist pretty much my whole life, and where I was growing up in Texas, I didn’t know another atheist.  It’s important to meet people who have some of the same beliefs and interests as you do, and that’s what this is about.”

What I am attempting to do here, Christian people, is to say that these sentiments are not the off-the-wall ravings of misbegotten lunatics.  Atheists are also our brothers and sisters in faith, as are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and so on.  Most atheists would probably deny they have “faith” that there is no God, but I would argue that only faith of a sort could allow anyone to come to that conclusion, just as only faith could allow anyone to believe that God exists.

Nevertheless, what is peculiar to me about some atheists is why they would choose to gather together in a – quote – “religious setting.”  “Evangelical atheism” mystifies me, in other words.  What is the point of trying to convince anyone else that you don’t believe in God?  It seems perfectly natural to have a discussion about that, even an intellectual argument about it, but why would anyone seek to win converts?

On the other hand, I admit I am not overly thrilled when anyone attempts to strong-arm or coerce anyone into believing in God or Jesus Christ either.  Traditionally, efforts to describe the intellectual basis for Christianity is technically called “Christian apologetics.”  The word apologetics conjures up notions of apologizing for something, but that isn’t what apologetics is at all.  Rather it is the process of presenting as coherent a system of belief as possible.  If A is true, then B is true, which also leads to C, D, and E.  Apologetics tries to persuade people, but it doesn’t try to defeat or bowl over or steamroller anyone.  In any case, it certainly does not apologize for the system of belief it proclaims, but rather it seeks to explain it.