Why I am not an Atheist

Some of my favorite contemporary philosophers are self-proclaimed atheists. These include Peter Boghossian and James Lindsey. Their individual and combined work in dissecting modern American culture, illiberalism and anti-racism has been both welcome and refreshing. I’m a big fan of Boghossian’s Beyond Woke podcast and his Youtube videos.

Peter Boghossian taught philosophy at Portland State University for a decade until unceremoniously resigning in 2021. He published A Manual for Creating Atheists in 2013 to help people who think like he does talk people out of their faith and turn them on to reason and rationality. Lindsey, one of Boghossian’s partners on the infamous Grievance Studies Affair hoaxes, also authored a book entitled Everybody is Wrong about God. In it, he discusses how to have conversations with believers that will lead them to question their faith and move towards a more rational world view.

Readers of More Spock know that at the bedrock of my writings is the attempt to analyze issues of the day using more logic and less emotion. In that regard, I am a kindred spirit of Boghossian and Lindsey. They became famous for demonstrating that many degree programs in modern universities have sacrificed academic rigor by accepting certain emotion-based constructs without challenge. But from the start of this website, I have made clear that I am not an atheist. What does that mean, exactly?

Humans are naturally religious. People of faith might say that since humans are created by God in his own image, God wired us to be religious and seek spiritual truth. Atheists would say that behavior is simply a function of our abstract thinking ability and that we naturally create explanations for things we can’t otherwise explain. The latter part of their explanation is clearly true, but that doesn’t automatically eliminate the faith position.

We can’t prove God. However, for 70,000 years of human existence, we couldn’t prove gravity either. While many ancient philosophers discussed gravity tangentially, it wasn’t until Newton in the 17th century, and later Einstein, proved the concept mathematically. Yet, people knew that if you dropped something, it would fall rather than float away. Likewise for 70,000 years humans couldn’t explain the cause of most diseases. It was only in the 19th century that Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur provided a scientific explanation (bacteria) for natural phenomena that humans were all too familiar with. Because the existence of God is only a construct and not provable by science in early 21st century, doesn’t necessarily mean that there must not be a God.

Atheists like to point out the irrational things that people have done in the name of faith throughout history. It’s certainly true that many ambitious political leaders used the religion of their societies to gain populace support for their wars to consolidate power and enrich themselves. The crusades of the 12th century are the best known, but the Old Testament is full of examples of God instructing the Israelites to attack its enemies. At the time of this writing, Hamas and Hezbollah are attacking Israel. While political causes are at the root of the violence, Islamic leaders are using religion as a justification just as the Spanish conquistadors did in the 17th century. And it’s not just violence. Death cults like Heaven’s Gate and Jim Jones made headlines. As did the Rashneesh cult in Oregon that tried to poison an entire town to impact local elections. You occasionally read about parents who refuse their child medical care in favor of a prayer-only approach only to see the child die. And the list goes on. Yes, religious fervor can sometimes lead to negative outcomes. But that doesn’t justify a Chinese or North Korean-style system where religions are not tolerated.

The great American experiment included the concept of separation of church and state. For the first time in history (that I’m aware of), there was no official religion linked to the ruling class. While some societies were more tolerant of people practicing religions different than the state religion, it seems there was always a state religion. One of the positive consequences of not having a state religion is that America has thousands of religions. Perhaps a negative consequence is that its population becomes less religious every decade as the people begin thinking more like Boghassian and Lindsey. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does have an impact on culture.

A friend of mine who is a person of faith and also a successful business owner once told me, “If I go into someone’s office for a business meeting and there’s a bible on the desk – I run!” Likewise, if they have a Christian fish logo on their business card or on their company vehicle, my friend would tend to avoid that vendor. The reason is not because my friend is not a person of faith – he is! The reason is because he is suspicious of people who try to leverage their faith for economic purposes. Real people of faith (in my experience) tend to be generous with their time and money, empathetic toward the plight of others, and are law abiding. As Americans have abandoned religion in growing numbers, it seems that we are also abandoning generosity, empathy and respect for institutions in growing numbers.

So there are two reasons why I am not an Atheist. First, it seems illogical to confidently deny that God exists just because I can’t prove that he/she/it does. Second, how am I or society better off if we convince someone to abandon their faith? And how are they better off?

I can confidently say that I don’t believe any sect, denomination or religion that has attempted to systematize its theology has even come close to getting it right. And I can confidently say that I don’t personally enjoy participating in organized religious activities. I have friends who genuinely believe the earth was created four to six thousand years’ ago, that the earth did flood with only Noah and his passengers surviving, that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, and that Jesus died and was resurrected. There are some items on that list about which I remain a skeptic. But these people of faith I know are good people who treat others with dignity and respect. Their sometimes irrational beliefs don’t typically have a negative impact on me or anyone else.

The only exception to this is when they try to force their beliefs on others via legislation or censorship. Then, I lump them in with all the other bad actors who want to restrict the freedoms of those who disagree. But even then, I don’t see how embracing atheism gets us to a better place.