Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Chuck, points taken and well made. I would assert that the act of proselytizing Atheism (and the word’s capital A) is a religious act.
While one might proselytize on the failure, foibles, corruption, power-mongering, exploitation, manipulations and other problems with organized religions, Dawkins frequently slips beyond this critique of human institutions of politics, power, and control to critique god itself: “[God is] a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser , a misogynistic, homophobic racist, an infanticidal, genocidal, phillicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Regardless of context, such a statement is a declaration of the unknowable. The “Gods” contrived by various organized religions is generally as Dawkins describes, but our distorted, exploitative definitions of the gods we employ to help us govern the masses and march in lockstep to enforce otherwise unsustainable claims are fabrications of humans.

Too often, Dawkins and other renowned Atheists are unable to separate their loathing of organized religion from their assumptions about god. Dawkins: “A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.” That claim is riddled with unverifiable assumptions. The simple fact is that a “god” may or may not be behind the machinations of the universe, and what we see may simply be its (“god’s”) method of executing the task of “creating” this universe.

As for our very narrow-minded interpretation of how life in the universe affects us, it is, as I said, ego-centric. We imagine ourselves as different from the rest of the particles in the universe, but we are no different in the “eyes of the universe” (or god) that an anthill or beehive. It is an illusion to consider ourselves special somehow…except in the fact that, as we strive to survive as a species, we are gaining minute amounts of power to manipulate the universe to our own ends. On that, I wholeheartedly agree with Dawkins.

Atheism is far too concerned about the existence of god(s). It’s immaterial. Atheism should have nothing to say about the existence of god, since in their lucid moments, Atheists confess to not knowing one way or the other. Atheists would make far more compelling arguments if they focused on the problems of religion and left the unknowable out of the discussion altogether.

My point is. We don’t know whether or not god is interested in your foul shot as you cross yourself at the line. We do know that, in light of the many other things that would demand a rational god’s attention IF god were concerned with such trivial matters, it’s irrational to BELIEVE that god gives a damn about your 1 and 1. The focus in that premise is on human folly, not on god. And that should be the focus of atheism (with deliberate lower-case ‘a’). Otherwise Atheism risks issuing dogma about the unknowable.

Gregory,

Well done. You make a good case, and I appreciate (and largely agree with) your POV.

Atheism is a faith…a religion in its own right. To echo James Smith, believing in whatever one cannot know takes “faith,” and, while only loosely organized, Atheism is based on faith and is, therefore, a religion. It has tenets, dogma, and well-known proselytizers. Some are utterly obnoxious in much the same way as Pat Robertson or other so-called religious leaders are. Atheists don’t KNOW, with certainty, that there is NO god any more than organized religions can prove that there IS a god. We simply don’t have the capacity…at least currently…to know one way or the other.

I’m Atheist, because I do not BELIEVE there is a god. My belief is based on the evaluation of circumstances and an underlying belief that no god worth its salt would manage a universe in a way that enables humans to be so barbaric to one another. But my logic model is, at best, contrived and based on a very ego-centric point of view. (Why would god let me or others suffer needlessly? Who knows. God could be an ass hole. The god who created our universe could be a juvenile god…tearing the wings off flies for its own entertainment. We simply don’t know.)

What matters most is that I don’t know for sure. And no-one else does either. Instead, I simply live my life ASSUMING there is no god, but I also accept the possibility that I could be wrong. Note that I do not say that I don’t believe in a higher-capability being(s)that have great mastery over the machinations of the universe. In fact, I believe it is our duty as sentient beings to both survive and to discover the mysteries of the universe so that we can transcend the lifespan of the universe and build a new to which we can escape when this one runs its course. (I’ve written on this in the MM blog, but I can’t find the post to reference.)

So, in reality, I’m an agnostic. I don’t know, because the existence or lack thereof of god is currently unknowable. Chuck points out that your declaration of belief in a god of some sort makes you a deist. I suppose it does, but given your treatise, I suspect you are, at “worst” a fringe deist.

You’ve done an excellent job of critiquing the failures of organized religion, while still confessing that you don’t know the unknowable. Thanks for sharing your views.

I, too, will get a lot of flack for declaring Atheism a “religion,” but it has all the earmarks – most notably the arrogant declaration of knowing the unknowable. In many ways, Richard Dawkins sounds for all the world like Pat Robertson. Undeniably, Dawkins knows a lot, but he does NOT know whether there is a god or not. Stand your ground, Gregory. Your critics simply cannot know more about this than you do, and the more vehement they become, the more they must rely on dogma of some faith or another to make their case.