Not Enough Faith to be an Atheist #2
Note: Some of the earlier pieces on my exploration on this topic can be found here & there
The debate on the existence of God is one of the longest, most interesting and important (if not the most important) debates that has been around for millenia. But in the excitement of arguing, we lose sight of the fact that the aim is to find the truth, not win an argument / have gotcha moments to put the other person/side down.
The built in assumption in the above statement is that truth exists. Because whether arguing for or against this proposition, one ends up positioning their answer as the truth (even if its a cop out like “no one can know”) .
One of the most common issues raised is that those who believe in God are either naive (polite way of calling someone “dumb / stupid”) or choosing to not use their intelligence (or even go against it). But these shortcomings are equally prevalent on the atheistic side. The only difference is that they are blissfuly unaware of it because,
a) They couch their arguments under high IQ signalling terms such as “rationalists”, “following the science /evidence”, etc to make themselves feel superior. Adding the suffix “science/evolution” or updated now to “anthropologically / culturally” to justify every argument is as annoying as a believer using the word “faith/ God did it” when unable to articulate/justify their positions.
b) Another approach you see is condescending humility, ie statements like, “I’m glad it works for you”, “I also visit the temple/church to not upset folks”, “I agree it is beneficial for society to believe something” or the current fad, “I am spiritual not religious”.
c) Then you have a combination of both, ie false humility rooted in an incomplete (hence incorrect) understanding of science. Basically assuming it is the the only sure source of all truth — this statement itself isn’t “scientifically” provable and hence a bunch of BS.
Just like “cultural believers “— those who go through the rituals without questioning because they are in a community, most folks are also “cultural atheists”, ie driven by pop cultural atheistic icons (Hitchens, Tyson, Ricky Gervais, etc). They regurgitate their arguments without thinking deeper about it for themselves, ie its mostly used to confirm their beliefs.
Why do I say this? The reasons are multiple, but lets start the dialogue with the simple fact that atheism (used interchangeably with materialism /naturalism which are practically the same) undercuts the very foundation of rationality which is glorified by atheists and used as a reason for arriving at their informed conclusion. If our brain is nothing but the product of random iterations programmed for survival / procreation, then how can we assume (believe) that what we see / learn is true?
I can grant that there are some decent justifications for this, but they are all not scientifically provable — they are assertions based on the premise that the natural world is all that exists. Yet we just take it for granted that not only do our senses give us a real picture of the world, but that our brains are processing them accurately, ie they reflect the external reality as is. This isn’t a logical conclusion but a starting assumption.
Don’t even get me started on free will — actually, please do as it will either be that or morality that I’d like to discuss next.
Until that time lets hopefully move closer to accepting that we are all people of faith — its just the object of our faith that differentiates us. This gap can be bridged by all of us trying to find the truth through a genuine search as fellow journeymen and not opponents in a TV debate show — the stakes are much too high.
