Atheist's Challenge

An Atheist's Challenge
By John Taylor; 2006 December 02

When I was a student at Guelph University I hung around with the likes of Jimbo and Afshin, and there was also Ed de Jong, who as I recall was living in Angus at the time. We did not see him as often because of the distance. Ed is a dedicated Baha'i who pioneered to South America in intervening years. We just reestablished email contact and he sent the following, of which I quote only part:
Hi ... I'm trying to put this together and would like some comments on what I'm doing. Is this worthwhile? What improvements would you make -- even if it's radical? If you know of any related texts or arguments, please pass them along. It's for my brother, but if it's usable for people in general considering atheism as an alternative to religion, that would be good too.
Here goes:
I just read Dawkins "Why There is Almost Certainly No God." A few questions that I would like to raise ... Just because most politicians are power-seeking egoists does not mean ALL are. Just because many used car dealers give a bad name to used car dealers, doesn't mean you cannot find one honest one. Even if the majority of religious people seem to be off the track about evolution, reality or reason doesn't mean that all of them are. It could be considered prejudice to paint all with the same stripe.
This point, Ed, is your most effective one. As a former atheist, I would say that this should be the seed that you try hardest to nurture to fruition. I have not read Dawkins book but I heard a lecture by him this week on CBC, and have read summaries of his arguments in newspaper articles. He is the most vocal crusader for atheism and against religion since Bertrand Russell and Sigmund Freud. As I understand it, he argues like this:
There is no more, or less, evidence for God than there is for believing in beings such as fairies or pixies. There is no more or less reason for believing in Him than any number of other gods held in reverence by millions throughout history. In Viking times, you believed in Thor because everybody else did, and because questioning it meant death. Same for Jupiter in Roman times, Zeus for the Greeks, and so forth. All these gods are discarded, defunct, believed in by nobody. We laugh at anyone who does believe in them. In order to increase the humor, Russell used to talk about believing in orbiting toasters, and Dawkins talks about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The atheist Dawkins says that he has to be agnostic about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It may well exist. Though there is no verified evidence so far that a FSM is flying above us, it would be arrogant to say that such a thing may not someday manifest itself. Same thing with God. The atheist and agnostic will accept it when there is clear evidence compelling them to accept that God, as opposed to Jupiter, Thor, fairies or FSM's exist.
We see here the divide and conquer technique in its full splendor, though perhaps here it would be more accurate to picture it as an atomizer, you know, the device on a spray bottle that turns liquid water into a fine mist. Once God is broken up into a little droplet indistinguishable from other drops and from the air around us, He can be dismissed along with the thousands of other obsolescent doctrines that catch on for a while and then are tossed on the garbage heap, forgotten, and left to disintegrate.
What, indeed, is to distinguish theism from other beliefs? For one thing, well, One Thing. To believe in God is to posit One over many. There is a unity behind the many outer appearances, the atomized mist that our eyes witness of the universe. It is therefore appropriate that the consummate believers in the many should attempt to use the atomizing technique from which they derive their own agnosticism on those who know the One. But the fact is, as `Abdu'l-Baha pointed out, the word "agnostic" literally means "ignorant." One cannot derive knowledge from ignorance, only from truth. For the same reason, you cannot drink from an atomizing spray bottle.
Thus theists hold that theism is not a belief like any other, but that it is rather the beginning of knowledge. It is the truth from which we take the leap of faith that allows the advancement of all knowledge, and all good. From the One comes many. From the many comes nothing but more multiplication. Consider the following parallel situation using a similar twist of terminology meant to atomize and conquer:
A school wishing to establish peace among battling students comes out with a policy of "zero-tolerance" for violence. The student representative comes back with a protest:
"You teachers are just playing with words. Zero-tolerance is just a sanitized way of saying `intolerance.' In other words, you are bigots. You want to exclude the many alternative ways of behaving that do not fall under your narrow set of values. What makes your set of beliefs any different from any other? We are followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and he tells us that there are many other things in heaven and earth than fall under a teacher's philosophy."
What would the teachers have to say against such an argument? They would be in the same boat as the theists affronted by the atomizing argument of crusading atheists. One against many. The teachers would have to say, "We are not upholding just another opinion among many other opinions. We are not bigots. We are simply establishing the known preconditions for peace. And peace is a necessary precondition for gaining more knowledge." Thus the student who rejects the zero-tolerance policy is not doing what he purports, that is, upholding choice and a more open-minded, creative, multi-lateral spectrum of values, he is really choosing ignorance, violence, and ultimately death. Hence the crucial dictum of God in the Pentateuch:
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed... (Deut 30:19, WEB)
Yahweh in the next verse declares that He is "your life, and the length of your days..." In other words, this is no mere difference of opinions, or clash of contrasting but ultimately indistinguishable values. This is the difference between life and death, success and collapse. For the human body politic lives and dies according to the quality of the ideas upon which it agrees upon and, as it were, "ingests." It is not just a matter of choosing a belief from the vast smorgasbord of opinions devised by philosophers and prophets, be right or wrong, flakey or solid. It is a vital matter of our collective survival, and of choosing a prosperous, happy future for us and our children. Choose life, God implores us.
The world's religions offer a big picture of the results to be derived from reverence for life (choosing life), or, more narrowly defined, belief in God. These systems constitute centuries-long experiments in the efficacy of theism. True, some have been tossed on the garbage heap, in fact, a great many. But many more have survived and thrived for millennia. They continue to live on in the hearts of millions, even billions of people. Lives are changed, made better. The poorest people in the world tend to believe, and their courage in living hopeless lives is a proof in itself of the vitality of theistic belief. The beliefs of the very rich tend to be forms of denial, atomized mist. To pretend that all religions are useless, dead and gone and that the only living, enlightened belief is atheism and agnosticism is as bigoted and parochial as anything upheld by the most blathering fundamentalist.
The atheist will of course respond that all religions are evil and corrupt, that they only lead to fanaticism, to yet more conflict and violence, and ultimately they do more harm than good. This is a crucial stage, the next logical step in the argument. I do not have space or time to defend the world religions here, but I did recently come across a good mini-response by Scott Adams, the cartoonist who writes my favorite strip, Dilbert. In his book "God's Debris" he imagines the following dialog:
"Are you saying that all the religions work? What about all the people who have been killed in religious wars?"
"You cannot judge the value of a thing by looking only at costs. In many countries, more people die from hospital errors than religious wars, but no one accuses hospitals of being evil. Religious people are happier, they live longer, have fewer accidents, and stay out of trouble compared to nonreligious people. From society's viewpoint, religion works." (Scott Adams, God's Debris, A Thought Experiment, Andrew's McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 2001, p. 32)
In other words, a fair accounting of religion involves, as with everything else, a clearheaded cost-benefit analysis. Sure, religion comes with a price, as do all things. Sure, it can be used for great benefit or great harm, as can any tool in my garage. Religion covers the highest plateau of our existence, but it also is about the worst evil to which a human can sink to. To use Baha'u'llah's image in the Hidden Words, the teeth of a comb can be used to dress the locks of the Beloved, or they can be used to tear at His throat.



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John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com