Atheism

[Adrift]

Yes.

Okay. I find it highly unlikely that when you were an atheist (especially the second time around) that you did not at least doubt your own atheism. I cannot comprehend how someone could even explore the question of God and finally come to a conclusion that he does exist if that person did not at least doubt his own skepticism/atheism. But, I can't climb into your brain either, so, while I find it hard to believe, I'm not going to call you a liar. I imagine there's some disconnect in how we perceive knowledge of God.

[Truthseeker]

I don't think it's a matter of being a 'closet' theist. I think that when confronted with the truth at the judgment even the strongest atheist will have to acknowledge that the only thing really stopping them from having known was their own unwillingness to see what was right before them.

I do think that there is a level at which we know that God is there because we are made in His image and given an instinct to seek Him. But it's a mistake to think of that knowledge as being the same as conscious knowledge. It's more akin to the way we know how to breathe from the instant of birth, despite having never before been exposed to air.

That seems to describe some sort of instinct.

[Teallaura]

Eh, maybe. Truth is, most of the concept of mental knowledge sans conscious recall is just theory we've given a bunch of important sounding names. Is subconscious significantly different from instinct or from repressed memory?

When I became an atheist, I knew full well there was the chance I was wrong and that if so, there would be no valid excuse (turned out there was even less of an excuse than I'd have thought then... ). I had known God existed but had decided that that was incorrect. So, if I know X and decide X is not true, if I am in error and X is true, can I legitimately argue that I didn't really know X?

Epidemiological tailspins aside, I think the problem is that we aren't really talking about 'knowing' so much as 'knowing with high degrees of certitude'. We want a degree of certitude that probably exceeds what we actually have in the 'real' world. I may be really sure the table is solid - but in reality, the particles that make it up don't touch each other and are separated by ridiculously huge distances (if we scaled up) - it's not solid at all. So what I know with a high degree of certainty isn't actually true, from an atomic POV - maybe trusting certitude has limits.

Um, you can safely ignore the rambling...

[Rushing Jaws]

I think what people have a harder time with is the notion that literally every atheist does this.

## And if people say that the concept of God - or god - has no meaning that they can make sense of, I think it is good sense as well as good manners to believe them. For, if Christians use arguments implying that atheists are being insincere, there is no rational defence for Christians if atheists retort by using arguments that Christians are being insincere. ISTM far less superficial to make the point that Christians are more atheistic than than they realise, though how far atheists are more Christian than they realise is another question; I think that suggestion is less true than it might have been 60 years ago.

What St Paul says in Romans is all very well, but how does it follow that, because what he said then was true of unbelief in the times he lived in, therefore, his words are equally applicable to unbelief today ? Wittgenstein would probably have wiped the floor with him. St Paul is not above using fallacies: his "But who art thou, o man, to answer against God ?" in Romans 9 is a good example of a veiled argumentum ad baculum; he doesn't even attempt to answer the objection.

If people do not believe in the God of the Bible, it is often because He is an intolerable affront to their moral sense. Granted, the reasoning objectors use is often flawed - it is absurd to judge the barbaric and brutal god of Joshua and Samuel by the standards of the NT - but their mistakes are often explicable as the result of Christian failure to notice that revelation is progressive, and that the contents of the Bible differ very widely in their character. The murderous ethics of Esther could hardly be more opposed to the Teaching and Example of Christ. Nothing is gained by an apologetic that fails to admit that parts of the Bible are immoral and perverted, and that such parts fall far short of the highest pagan ethics. Illogic and depravity in the Bible, even in the service of God, are still illogical and depraved; that they appear in the Bible, is neither a defence nor a justification. Behaviour outside the Bible that is rightly called barbaric, savage or illogical, does not become holy and wise by being in the Bible with the words "And the Lord said unto X..." prefixed to them.

The massacre of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 is more depraved, not less, for being ascribed to God - to make things worse, the Nazis who committed the massacres at Oradour and Lidice did at least have the decency not to ascribe their actions to a command of God; but the author of 1 Sam.15 does ascribe the massacre of the Amalekites to a Divine command. As objectors have so rightly implied, the fact that God in the Bible commands X does not even begin to guarantee that the allegedly Divine command is morally good. Divine Command Ethics abolishes the difference between God and the devil, good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, between belial and Christ.

None of this means that wicked and depraved passages in the Bible are not in some sense inspired, but who believes that they are as theologically central as Hebrews 1, or the gospels ? Repellent as they are, they are of great value for showing where the Gospel came from historically. Even so, that Christians can make sense of the depraved parts of the Bible does not mean atheists will not be scandalised by them, or by Christian lack of indignation with those passages. And how does one persuade an atheist that such passages are inspired ? To believe that, requires faith in a very specific God.