Thursday, July 7, 2011

Answers in Atheism?

If there is a valid critique of atheism, it should be that there are no answers in atheism, save one. The only answer in atheism is to this question, “Do you believe in gods or deities?” The answer is, “No!”



Religion, by contrast, offers all the answers you could ever imagine, and a few you can’t. But there’s a problem. While the questions may be consistent, the answers certainly are not. Hence, we have thousands of different Christian denominations alone. Every one seeks to answer the same questions, with varying responses. People go “church-shopping”, looking for the denomination or church that is closest to what they already think is true. But is that REALLY a path to truth?



This is, after all, a group that prides itself on being right. But with no evidence to back up a single claim, and with apologetics suggesting that without evidence all things are equally probable, why not look to the buffet of religions to find the one that suits you? As long as they talk about jesus, they must be alright, right? At least they have jesus.



It seems to me that most people cannot articulate why they are one kind of believer and not another. When they can, it is almost always an inheritance. They believe as their parents did. But again, for a group so focused on having the “T”ruth, isn’t this a really bad way to find it?



Atheism may not have answers, but I think that is a good thing. It’s obvious the answers are not in religion. Once we can get past the nonsense of “the-bible-said-it-so-I-believe-it-and-that’s-that” foolishness, we can start having a real discussion about what the answers might be. But we can’t do that with god in the way. We must find the answers. God isn’t here; we are.

No comments:

Post a Comment