On Atheism: Christopher

Dinesh D'Souza has an interesting piece at the San Francisco Chronicle, the subject of which is astonishment of prominent atheists at the continued growth of religion. He writes:

Biologist E.O. Wilson says there must be some evolutionary explanation for the universality and pervasiveness of religious belief.

Actually, there is. The Rev. Ron Carlson, a popular author and lecturer, sometimes presents his audience with two stories and asks them whether it matters which one is true.

In the secular account, "You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago. You are a mere grab bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a meaningless universe. You came from nothing and are going nowhere."

In the Christian view, by contrast, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with him."

Now imagine two groups of people -- let's call them the Secular Tribe and the Religious Tribe -- who subscribe to one of these two views. Which of the two is more likely to survive, prosper and multiply? The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose. The secular tribe is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. The secular tribe is made up of matter that cannot explain why it is able to think at all.

Should evolutionists like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Wilson be surprised, then, to see that religious tribes are flourishing around the world? Across the globe, religious faith is thriving and religious people are having more children. By contrast, atheist conventions only draw a handful of embittered souls, and the atheist lifestyle seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves.

He then goes on to list a number of significantly atheist nations (Russia, Japan, most of Europe), noting that their populations are imploding for lack of procreation. To me, a person's desire to produce offspring is directly related to the hope he has for the future. While I may be concerned for the future due to the instability of sociopolitical circumstances, this does not dash my hope for my daughter and for any siblings she may have down the road. In fact, there has always been strife in the world. One could argue there was intensely more strife in the worlds of those of the past, as their worlds were so much smaller and the strife, so much more acute and concentrated. In fact, this theme of hopelessness for the future is endemic in the atheist's world - well, discounting the 3 remaining utopians... who tend to be of the "spiritual, but not religious" crowd far more so than the atheist secular humanist sort. This is my experience; prove me wrong. Side note: Christ spoke directly (from His eternal standpoint) about this sort of worrying about the future:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Atheism, to me, runs counter to the human experience. I understand it on a philosophical level - the extreme frustration that one can harbor given the wonderfully big rational brain that God has gifted us with - that God's designs are not always apparent and explicable given pure rational processes. But I argue that God appreciates this frustration as it produces the possibility of action, the soul-wrenching seeking that can take place if one is frustrated enough. I further posit that atheists are often simply not frustrated enough to take such action. Thus, atheism to me seems largely a resignation, an admission of defeat: "I don't know, so I can't. Thus, I won't." In my experience, God honored my intellectual struggle with religious concepts by providing for me a way to reconcile those concepts without compromising my rational mind. Some would say I have subordinated my rational thinking. I would not argue with this, but I'd restate it more accurately that I have not only subordinated logic, but all elements of my life. Doing so provided the freedom to realize life is not all logic. Are atheists not also emotional creatures, motivated by emotions as well as logic? They may promote themselves as dispassionate, above emotion - but I think this is a flawed concept to place the rational above all else. Realizing my rational mind is a gift and that it's not in fact even a good thing for me to use logic in all cases has helped me immeasurably.