Bonzer Words!: What Is 'Faithless' Exactly?
...As someone who has spent a lifetime in the 'logic' business, but with a fair amount of emotion thrown into the pot, no pun intended, it amazes me that rational people can have a faith that there is no God, or gods, and believe sincerely that this is more rational than to believe there is a creator God. Given the preponderance of evidence of rational order in the universe I believe it is completely irrational to believe that it is all happenstance, or happened irrationally by accident...
Robert Heller considers fundamental questions.
I was having a conversation with very good friend who appears to believe there is no God. I am not certain he believes this because, if I push him on it, he denies believing there is no God. On the other hand, he won't agree that there might be a God either, although I have managed to get him to admit that he believes there was indeed an historical figure represented by the person referred to as Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible.
This started me thinking a little about faith. One of the many conundrums is that many people use 'faith' and 'religion' synonymously. Allow me to define 'faith' as a belief in something you can't prove whereas religion is something you practice. It is a gross simplification, I know, but I don't really want to debate semantics here.
When I accused my friend of actually having a great deal of faith he appeared to get very angry. I think in reality he was quite probably angrier that I had presumed to know what he believed than that I had presumed the wrong thing, and it was presumptuous of me.
In a broader sense, Christians, but not just Christians, Jews, Muslims and the like as well, are derided for their faith in a supernatural power, or God. In fact in a similar way the New Agers are derided for their faith in crystals. The natural question then becomes, who's doing the deriding? Well, for the former it would appear to be the rationalist atheists and for the latter, pretty much everyone not a New Ager.
My contention then is that there are those who claim to have no faith that exhibit varying degrees of disdain for those that do, and many shades in-between. Agnostics have faith because they believe in a higher power, they just don't know who or what that higher power might be. That isn't to say that agnostics don't make fun of people of the more traditional religions, but they clearly have faith because they have faith in a higher power.
The atheist, on the other hand, firmly believes that there is no God. Of course, the avowed atheist has no way of proving there is no God. Ask any logician and they will tell you it is impossible to prove a negative. So, as long as the atheist believes there is no God he must have faith. Then the question becomes one of, 'In what does the atheist have faith?'. Well it must be that there is no God or gods, nor even a higher power. That is what I would call the negative side of their faith. Is there a positive side to the atheist's faith?
Well yes, I believe that the positive side to an atheist's faith is itself an element of the agnostic and New Ager's faith. The positive side of their faith rests in the fact that once this life is done, there is no consciousness, no consequences beyond the grave. In John Lennon's words, Imagine. They could be right, but it takes faith to believe so.
As someone who has spent a lifetime in the 'logic' business, but with a fair amount of emotion thrown into the pot, no pun intended, it amazes me that rational people can have a faith that there is no God, or gods, and believe sincerely that this is more rational than to believe there is a creator God. Given the preponderance of evidence of rational order in the universe I believe it is completely irrational to believe that it is all happenstance, or happened irrationally by accident.
So who is more irrational, the irrational person with traditional religion or the irrational atheist?
I would argue that the faith of the atheist is necessarily a stronger faith than even the agnostic because it is based on a lot less rational thought. The agnostic individual at least reaches a point where he acknowledges that something, somewhere, more rational is 'in charge'.
The atheist, on the other hand, contemplates the universe and says . . . based on current scientific evidence, I believe all of this happened 'by accident' and no-one is in charge. One of the problems with this thinking is that it is based on an ever-shifting foundation. What is deemed to be incontrovertible scientific proof today, even where there is scientific consensus, often lasts no longer than a generation.
To my mind that is a very unsteady foundation on which one might build one's faith.
© Robert Heller
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Robert writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
