|
From Steve's LiveJournal
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Here's a new article by a university Ph.D, no less, named Barry Cooper.
Feel free to read it for yourself. It's a little poke at atheism based on the subtle question, "why do evangelical atheists need to shout so loud?", and he explicitly states that the arguments of prominent atheists such Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins "don't amount to a hill of beans" for his money, and that they're simply opposing one dogma with another.
In the initial defense of those referenced, I've watched and listened to at least 20 hours of both Hitchens and Dawkins, and I don't believe I've ever heard them act in any way which could be described as "loud," let alone with the later label of "obnoxious." Both of their manners are calm, eloquent, and well-planned. The furthest they ever impose their views on anybody is through print, their own web sites, public debate, or public television. All of their work is optional. Perhaps Cooper considers the specifically religious habits of writing hate mail, picketing funerals, indoctrinating children, and leaving their logically tattered material attached to our apartments' doorknobs less deserving of the labels "loud" and "obnoxious" than the aforementioned forms of discourse.
I've acquired this looming feeling that the term "athiest" to Christians is often terrifically misrepresentational. I've seen Q&A pages on large church web sites that actually promote the impression that if someone calls themselves an "atheist," it means that they're certain that there is no god. I believe that the most extremely uninformed people think that all atheists don't believe that anything even exists until they've become aware of it through evidence. (Some go even further and publicize that atheists don't pay heed to any set of morals.)
Needless to say, that ridiculous description is representative of very few atheists. The certain belief in no god has been labeled in the past as "strong atheism," but in this day and age, all you can be sure of when meeting a self-proclaimed "atheist" is that they don't believe there is a god. Once again, it does not mean that they do believe there is not a god. To allay the possibility of remaining confusion, it's correct to say that a person who believes that there could be a god, but does not therefore believe that there is a god, is an atheist.
Back to the article: this is where I think that Cooper is vastly mistaken. He mentions Dawkins' gene's-eye-view of life, which makes animals out to be survival machines for genes which can reproduce. It's an good once-sentence summary, and he concedes that even the religious have no problem thinking of themselves as such, but what people like Dawkins don't get is that they have "a few other questions to ask," like where the first gene came from, or how the universe came to exist in the first place.
Does he actually mean to infer that atheists don't wonder how the universe was created, or how life began? How could he even imagine that there's a single human being who has never wondered about such things?
After a little more interpretation on his part, he does indeed conclude by claiming that "wonder is something enlightened atheists could never abide." So, here's what I think Cooper is completely ignoring.
There is a difference between asking the question, "what happened before the big bang?" and answering the question with "before the big bang, a benevolent, loving God planned how the universe would be, and Jesus Christ was his son, and we need to admit we're sinners and pray to him to forgive us and accept his sacrifice."
The former is what everyone does, including atheists. The latter is what only Christians do. In answering the question that way, they risk committing to the wrong answer.
Of course we don't know how the universe began. It could have sprung out at a right angle from a previous universe. It could be the result of the last Big Crunch. It could be merely one atom in another universe entirely. It could be that time is increasingly meaningless as you approach the beginning, and completely so when you reach it. It could have been designed by a celestial man at a celestial computer that the lowly species pursuant would come to postulate and call "god."
Again, everyone wonders about this, and no one knows for sure. However, religious people say that they do know for sure. Since when does not taking this totally irrational step (which is the only qualification to be an atheist) become synonymous with not wondering about the question?
I've heard the odd Christian who's said, "of course I don't know for sure that there's a god." Presumably, those Christians pray. They read their bibles. They go to churches wherein their pastor says, not "it could be the case that God tells us to do this or that," but "God tells us to do this or that." If they don't believe it for sure, they certainly act like they do.
If by "Christian," you mean something other than "someone who believes in Jesus Christ as a god," which is what I believe is the distinct impression of just about everyone, it would be useful for you to at least clarify a little and help clear up the misunderstanding. I hope I've done that a little on behalf of atheists.
Comments Page
From Steve's LiveJournal
Monday, August 25th, 2008
OMG. It's the first weekday in weeks during which I haven't had a morning and an evening commitment, and I've spent almost the whole day on my web site redesign. It's so addictive. I almost wish I used Dreamweaver or something instead of coding everything from scratch. Or do I?
By the way, please learn the word "addictive."
Comments Page
|
