[SOC] A Few Thoughts Regarding Atheism

Recently, I had a brief exchange with an atheist on Facebook. For many atheists, my conversion has been a bit of a shock. For the record, I want to declare that I was not some sort of lukewarm atheist. I was a hardcore atheist. I even resigned from a group called "Godless Columbia" because they wanted to drop the "godless" part and go with something that was warmer and friendlier and not so negative. A former girlfriend would drag me to her liberal Methodist church, and I would fill out prayer cards for intercession for various ailments of either a sexual or scatological nature. I was evil. Nothing was ever going to turn me from that evil.

My conversion was very simple. I did not lose a debate with a Christian. I did not find God in a foxhole or in a copy of the works of Aquinas. My conversion came from a blog reader who felt compassion for me and asked for the intercession of the Blessed Mother on my behalf. I married that woman. It was the best thing I have ever done in my miserable life.

I always get credit for being a good person because I have done reasonably well on keeping the commandments on that second tablet Moses brought down from the mountain. But I have utterly smashed up that first tablet. I was a blasphemer and a hater of God. And there was no institution on this earth I hated and despised more than the Roman Catholic Church. This was a hatred I had even before becoming an atheist.

This past weekend, I underwent the Rite of Welcoming and Acceptance into the Catholic Church. This is one of the milestones in the RCIA program. I still have more steps to go in this journey. I am very happy about it.

I continue to contemplate my exchange with the atheist. I don't think anyone has ever been argued into faith. I think there are many good arguments in defense of the faith, but I don't think they matter to the atheist. I was listening to Sam Harris mock God for allowing children to die or for waging holy war in the Old Testament. This is the same guy who defends abortion on demand which kills millions of unborn children and also argued for a nuclear first strike on Muslims. Basically, Sam Harris calls God immoral for letting people like himself exist in this period of mercy. Yes, atheists can be this foolish.

How can you argue with people like this? When God is merciful, He is called unjust. When God is just, He is called unmerciful. When God allows people to have free will, He is called weak. When God calls people to account for their actions, He is called a tyrant. No matter what God does, He is always at fault in the atheist worldview. Yet, those judgments against God are the very words that God will use to judge these proud atheists.

You cannot make moral judgments without God. Either God exists and there is a right and wrong. Or, God does not exist, and nothing is right except for might. The atheist has no leg upon which to stand. The Wisdom of Solomon speaks directly to atheism:

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,

"Short and sorrowful is our life,

and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,

and no one has been known to return from Hades.

Because we were born by mere chance,

and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;

because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,

and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.

When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,

and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.

Our name will be forgotten in time

and no one will remember our works;

our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,

and be scattered like mist

that is chased by the rays of the sun

and overcome by its heat.

For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,

and there is no return from our death,

because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

"Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,

and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.

Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,

and let no flower of spring pass by us.

Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.

Let none of us fail to share in our revelry,

everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,

because this is our portion, and this our lot.

Let us oppress the righteous poor man;

let us not spare the widow

nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. 

But let our might be our law of right,

for what is weak proves itself to be useless. (Wisdom 2:1-11)

This is the epitome of atheism. You should have never been born. When you die, you will cease to exist. The only happiness in this world is hedonism and materialism. There is nothing inherently right or wrong. There is only what the strong decide to take for themselves. And the weak and the helpless should be devoured. In the end, we will be dead and forgotten.

Many if not most atheists reject these teachings. Yet, they have absolutely no basis for rejecting these teachings. Maybe they hate the bad PR such teachings generate. Or, perhaps they are horrified at the prospect of living in a world where such teachings actually hold sway. But make no mistake about it. Without God, this is the world of horror you will get. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, the French Revolution, and all the rest should show this to be the case. And thinkers like Nietzsche and Sartre knew exactly where their atheism was leading them. If God is dead, we are our own gods, and we are cruel gods indeed.

No atheist disbelieves purely on the basis of cold reflection of the facts. This is the image the atheist wishes to portray as if cold reason is what has made them what they are. Yet, they abandon this cold reason every time they make a moral claim or appreciate anything that is true, good, or beautiful. The fact is that every atheist wants to keep those things they find true, good, or beautiful, but they want those things without God not realizing that those things come from God. It's like someone wanting to end pig farming but wanting to keep eating bacon. You get both or neither. It is a package deal.

The atheist will offer a reasoned defense, but the basis of that unbelief is unreasonable. Saying that you want to be an atheist in order to have an unhindered sex life is not nearly as flattering as claiming that you are an atheist because you read Darwin and Hume. But the former is more likely the case than the latter. Similarly, the Christian believes because they want the ecstasy that comes from regular encounters with the Divine and not merely because they read Anselm or Pascal. Cold reason is merely ex post facto excuse making for living for what makes us happy.

I believe in God because God makes me happy. The atheist will decry this as some hedonistic emotional delusion. But that delusion makes me live better, think better, act better, and love other people. I see beauty again where I saw only ugliness and despair. I have love where I could only feel hate and revulsion. I have hope where all I had was gloom and doom. And I can call something wrong when I know it is wrong.

I have learned from St. Augustine that faith precedes understanding. It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed. That is all I had. But that is all it takes. If you want to know if God exists, you only have to have enough faith to ask Him if He exists. That is all. Just ask. The atheist does not ask not because he knows he will not get an answer. He knows he will get an answer he does not like. And this is why the atheist does not believe. I know because I was that atheist.

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