Diatribe: "The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists

[evangelicalhumanist]

(Originally written June 15, 2008)

Sure, everybody hates the virulent Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett (okay, Dan’s not so virulent) and Christopher Hitchens. So much less tolerant of their religious targets than their targets are of them, aren’t they? (And for the record, I’m not always thrilled with them, either.)

In a foreword to Rav Zacharias’s book, “The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists,” Lee Strobel refers to “the bankruptcy of living as if there is no God…” Bankruptcy! As if! A slur, surely, emboldened by certainty. Well, no doubt we deliberate doubters deserve it.

In the book itself, Zacharias’s chief argument centres on “the emptiness that results from the loss of the transcendent,” and the hopelessness of life faced with “the haunting spectre of the pointlessness of existence in a random universe.” Why, he even brings up a few attempted suicides, which he attributes to nothing more than a lack of purpose for living, which he goes on to assume can only be provided by God and eternal life.

Oh yes, I forgot his other chief argument: that, of course, we need God to be able to tell right from wrong.

It’s a good thing I’m a heathen, devoid of feelings, or these loving souls might have hurt them!

But wait a minute! What is it, exactly, that Strobel expects an honest atheist should do? Does he imagine that they deliberately suppress a belief which he supposes simply must be there? Does he think that if they just stop being so pig-headed, that belief will return to its rightful place as the chief guide to life? Or does he suppose it would do just as well, for one truly unable to believe in his god, that it would quite satisfactory to simply pretend? Shades of Pascal’s wager, and a deity too stupid to figure it out!

Mr. Strobel, my life is not bankrupt. It is as rich and full of love, joy, sorrow, beauty, ugliness, hope, doubt – and, yes, even anger at your pompous certitude – as anyone’s, with or without faith. And transcendence requires only the acceptance that there is knowledge unavailable to and beyond the limits of our human experience. It may involve God, but no god is necessary.

And Mr. Zacharias, like so very many others, speaks about “purpose” yet also like those same others, neglects to mention what that purpose actually is. (Okay, that’s not quite accurate. God’s purpose for us, as so many seem to infer, seems to be that we should have another life after this one as a reward for good behaviour – assuming we actually are on good behaviour. Otherwise, it seems, our purpose is to love everybody else. Now this strikes me as quite odd. “Hey,” says God. “There’s nobody about to love the others who also aren’t about, so let’s create so creatures so that they can love the other creatures we’ll create for that purpose.” Kind of involved, really.)

No, I have so far in my life never read a sensible suggestion of a purpose, assigned by God, to human life. This is not for want of trying, as anyone who has read the posts on this site, or my 3000 essays on [url=http:www.interfaithforums.com]this[/url] and various other forums. Surely I do try!

Yes, as I wrote some time ago, I can develop a purpose of my own, based on my own sort of love for humanity and its future. My purpose supposes a continuation of the universe and the life in it (no, sorry, no rapture and apocalypse). It assumes that I can and will have some impact on the world that comes after me, just as I have been the product and inheritor of a world shaped by the billions who came before me.

Why is it better to focus all of one’s energy and hopes on the belief – contrary to any evidence at hand – that some “essential you” is going to survive for all eternity? More importantly, why, if I believe this to be probably (no, almost certainly) false, would pretence at belief offer any comfort?

But most of all, I resent the assertion that I can’t know right from wrong because I’ve never “known God.” What, I’ve been unwittingly pushing old ladies down the stairs, stealing from friends and enemies alike, and molesting children? Rubbish! I’m a good man, as caring (sometimes more so) as anyone I know. A saint? Not hardly, but concerned for and contributing to the well being of others? Damned straight!

This attempt to claim the moral high ground only for those who believe as Strobel and Zacharias do is the very nadir of hypocrisy. Dammit, any one of us can identify a group (atheists, Christians, Muslims, artists, Indo-Europeans, short people) and then find exemplars within it of any sort of goodness or evil we want. But touting those examples for all to see is not going to establish a causal link between membership in the group and any personal characteristics beyond those that define membership.

This feud between believers and non-believers is doomed to go on forever, because we refuse to understand that belief cannot be turned on and off, and we refuse to accept that our beliefs are binding on nobody else. And until we do, I’ll let Shakespeare’s words speak for me:

“See, what a scourge is laid upon your hates that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.” Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene III

“A plague o’ both your houses!” ibid, Act III, Scene I

[Mirage]

I don't buy books by bigots, so I hope you got it from the library. As they say on the internet, "Don't feed the trolls." Unfortunately, for some reason we all love to feed trolls, in the hope we will kill them with rebuttals I suppose. Or rescue them perhaps if we want to be more charitable. I haven't seen it work very well. People like that have a right to publish, and a right to look down on others, and even a right to be hypocritical if they so choose, although without having read the book, I am not sure that they are. Luckily I have rights, too. I have a right to buy books by people I would like to see prosper instead. I have a right to go to the library or read excerpts if my curiosity ever overwhelms me so much I have to read such a thing. I have a right to give them none of the attention they obviously crave, and hope others also refrain, and that they fade into obscurity. You have a right to criticize and rebut them. You do a good job. I generally don't bother because I worry that any press is good press.

May they both love an atheist someday, and I mean that as a blessing, not a curse.

One comment about this:
“Hey,” says God. “There’s nobody about to love the others who also aren’t about, so let’s create so creatures so that they can love the other creatures we’ll create for that purpose.” Kind of involved, really.

Parents do that all the time. My mother actually had fertility issues and went through tremendous effort to have me at 39. Took 7 years and many miscarriages. Then she went through it again as soon as possible, and lost a baby. Then she went through it again at 41 and spent most of her pregnancy in bed, taking experimental drugs that may possible have caused her later fatal breast cancer. It was pretty involved, yeah. Why did they do it? So we'd have each other to love. I am grateful I have a sister.

[Baruch]

Buying a good book is a mitzvot. So is supporting your local library. But reading a good book is the best mitzvot of all, and inexhaustible delight.

Shalom