Posted on 08/06/2007 5:21:00 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
As if we were back in eighteenth-century France, atheist tracts are abroad in our land, their flamboyant titles defiant. The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, Letter to a Christian Nation, Atheist Manifesto, Atheist Universe: These are not subtle insinuations against God, requiring inferences from readers, but open opposition inviting readers to join in thumbing their noses. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, newly published, offers comfort and scholarly reassurance, if not consolation, to atheists who might otherwise feel lonely--as, believing what they do, they surely must.
Atheism isn't what it was in the eighteenth century. Now, the focus of the attack is not the Church, which is no longer dominant, but religion itself. The disdain one used to hear for "organized religion" extends now to the individual believer's faith. Despite the change, politics is still the thrust of the attack. It's just that the delusion of religion is now allowed to be the responsibility of the believer, not of some group that is deluding him. A more direct approach is required.
In our time, religion, having lost its power to censor and dominate, still retains its ability, in America especially, to compete for adherents in our democracy of ideas. So to reduce the influence of religion, it is politically necessary to attack it in the private sphere as well as in the public square. This suggests that the distinction between public and private, dear to our common liberalism, is sometimes a challenge to maintain.
If religion, then, cannot be defended merely on the ground that it is private, what might be said in its behalf for the public good? We know from behavioral studies that, to the embarrassment of atheists, believers, or at least churchgoers, are better citizens--more active and law-abiding--than those who spend Sunday morning reading the New York Times. But why should this be so? And is it really true that atheists, with their newfound aggressiveness, are not public-spirited?
A person of faith might respond to the atheists that God's providence rules, but His mind is unknown to us. We might hope or guess or infer that God gives us freedom to make mistakes, to sin, to offend God, even to expound atheism--but we could not be sure of this. Our uncertainty as to God's intentions preserves the distance between man and God and prevents us from claiming imperiously that we know what God wants to happen. From this negative conclusion one might move to the positive inference that in leaving us free, God leaves us to choose and, to make choice effective, leaves us to choose not merely this or that detail of our lives, but a way of life comprehensively in politics.
But surely not just any politics, arbitrarily posited. We must have a politics that aims at justice. The atheists say that God is unjust because He allows injustice to exist, to thrive. Worse than that, God is complicit in injustice. The reason why "God is not great," in Christopher Hitchens's book title, is that God allows himself to be used, hence diminished, by His believers. Note that the atheist Hitchens, like a believer, wants God to be great. A God of limited powers is not God; God must be omnipotent to ensure that justice triumphs in the world. Hitchens doesn't believe in God, but that is because he does believe in justice. Justice must be realizable if the reproach to God is that He is unjust.
Now we must take a further step guided by human reason alone. Edmund Burke said, with a view to the atheism of the French Revolution, that we cannot live justly and happily unless we live under "a power out of ourselves." By this he meant a power above us, transcendent over our wills and our choices. We must choose to live under a power that limits our choices. In America we have a Constitution that limits our choices, not so much by forbidding things as by requiring us to make our choices through a political process of checks and balances, enforced by a separation of powers. But Burke means to argue that humanly contrived constitutional limits are not enough. Human government is not viable or sufficient without divine government above it in some unspecified relationship.
Is such a divine, transcendent power possible? The atheists say it is not. They say that man is by nature a tool-maker, not a religious being who yearns to worship God. In their view worship is nothing but a tool to get what we want; the power allegedly over us is "out of us" in the sense of originating in our selves. "Religion poisons everything," says Hitchens in the subtitle of his book, because every believer's private desires are given terrific force over others' desires without their consent. Religion makes believers into tyrants. The source of religious tyranny is therefore human, when men conceive of religion and convince themselves while fooling others that they deserve to have what they can get. Atheism uncovers the fact of human tyranny that uses religion as a mask.
Is there an atheist alternative to tyranny? Is there such a thing as a non religious principle, replacing God, that is truly transcendent and not a tool of our passions? One can think of such a principle, something like Kant's categorical imperative that requires each person, without appealing to God, to act only on a universal idea, not one that favors himself or promotes his own interest over others. But how does this work in practice? Has Germany, the country of Kant, been a paragon of justice in the world since Kant fashioned his theory? More pointedly, has not the atheist totalitarianism of the twentieth century, with its universal pretensions, proved to be the worst tyranny mankind has ever seen?
There was an Epicurean atheism in the ancient world quite different from ours today. That atheism also uncovered tyranny behind the mask of religion, but it was content to point out the power of injustice. Injustice in this view was the way of the world, and there was no remedy for it. The only recourse for a reasonable person was to stay out of politics and live a life of pleasure, seeking calm, watching storms of the sea from ashore, and suppressing one's indignation at injustice.
Today's atheism rejects this serene attitude and goes on the attack. In its criticisms of God it claims to be more moral than religion. But it cannot do this without becoming just as heated, thus just as susceptible to fanaticism, as religion. Today's atheism shows the power of our desire for justice, a fact underestimated by the Epicurean pleasure-lovers. But it ignores the power of injustice, which was the Epicurean insight. Atheists today angrily hold religion to a standard of justice that the most advanced thinkers of our time, the postmoderns, have declared to be impossible. Some of those postmoderns, indeed, are so disgusted with the optimism of atheism that, with a shrug of their shoulders, they propose returning to the relative sanity of religion.
It is not religion that makes men fanatics; it is the power of the human desire for justice, so often partisan and perverted. That fanatical desire can be found in both religion and atheism. In the contest between religion and atheism, the strength of religion is to recognize two apparently contrary forces in the human soul: the power of injustice and the power, nonetheless, of our desire for justice. The stubborn existence of injustice reminds us that man is not God, while the demand for justice reminds us that we wish for the divine. Religion tries to join these two forces together.
The weakness of atheism, however, is to take account of only one of them, the fact of injustice in the case of Epicurean atheism or the desire for justice in our Enlightenment atheism. I conclude that philosophy today--and science too--need not only to tolerate and respect religion, but also to learn from it.
Harvey Mansfield is professor of government at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of Manliness.
If you can imagine Hell and not Heaven? the Paradox escapes you on so many levels it begs the question...what you do believe?
However, if you see the paradox then you lie to yourself...
The point of these isn't to provide comfort to supposedly lonely atheists. It's to make it easier for atheists to come out of the closet, because Christian society, beginning with Constantine, tagged atheists as incompatible with society and worthy of government-imposed punishment. These books are designed to communicate with Christians, not atheists, just like abolitionist literature was designed to communicate with slaveholders.
In our time, religion, having lost its power to censor and dominate, still retains its ability, in America especially, to compete for adherents in our democracy of ideas
Hardly. Christianity is still powerful in America and it does exercise its powers to censor and dominate. Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court, for example, was only necessary because of that power.
We know from behavioral studies that, to the embarrassment of atheists, believers, or at least churchgoers, are better citizens--more active and law-abiding--than those who spend Sunday morning reading the New York Times.
Believers are more likely to be in prison than atheists (only 0.2% of prisoners are atheists vs. 83.8% for Jews and Christians, as of 1997-- 74,731 in the sample). Atheist nations like Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands have higher rates of life expectancy, adult literacy, female representation in the ranks of government, per-capita income, and educational attainment, and lower rates of infant mortality, homelessness, homicide, STD infection, sex discrimination, and poverty.
A person of faith might respond to the atheists that God's providence rules, but His mind is unknown to us. We might hope or guess or infer that God gives us freedom to make mistakes, to sin, to offend God, even to expound atheism--but we could not be sure of this. Our uncertainty as to God's intentions preserves the distance between man and God and prevents us from claiming imperiously that we know what God wants to happen.
Atheists think it says a lot that believers believe in a God who has promised eternal torture for not doing what God wants without making it clearly known what God wants (what's on his mind).
From this negative conclusion one might move to the positive inference that in leaving us free, God leaves us to choose and, to make choice effective, leaves us to choose not merely this or that detail of our lives, but a way of life comprehensively in politics.
If the punishment for exercising your free will is eternal torture, it's hardly free.
More pointedly, has not the atheist totalitarianism of the twentieth century, with its universal pretensions, proved to be the worst tyranny mankind has ever seen?
Religion and totalitarian regimes are quite similar-- an unquestionable authority. Authoritarianism involves an authority giving orders on how to think and behave (10 Commandments, etc.) and severe punishment for failure to do so (Hell) and doesn't allow the governed to have input in how they are governed (God is an absolute monarch). We have present day atheist societies in Japan and the Netherlands and in Sweden and Norway and those places are quite nice places to live.
Today's atheism rejects this serene attitude and goes on the attack. In its criticisms of God it claims to be more moral than religion. But it cannot do this without becoming just as heated, thus just as susceptible to fanaticism, as religion.
Not all fanaticism is created equal. You can be fanatical about not believing all you are told by authority figures and demand evidence for claims; about seeking knowledge and truth; about educating yourself about science and how the universe works; about leaving valuable contributions for future generations; about courage, honor, faithfulness, hospitality, industriousness; about treating others the way you would like to be treated, etc.
Well put.
No comparison is even remotely relevant...with that analogy you have lost the arguments!
I am an American, I pray to my God and we go solve my problems. When we have forgotten God, we will pray to the Government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave.
There is zero evidence that God will permit people into heaven who believe in him based on Pascal's Wager. In fact, given that he refers to the narrow gate, the odds are probably very small. Pascal's Wager is pointless.
I see life here as this:
In the presence of God (or heaven), sin does not exist. God knows all from beginning to the end. He may not control all, but he knows all. He created Lucifer in heaven. He gave Lucifer and others great knowledge. Knowledge of all things, including sin. Lucifer gets curious and wants to experience sin. He tells the Father that he would rather rule in hell then serve in Heaven. The Father knew this and said so be it. The Father now creates a planet. On it, he puts a balance of good and evil. He puts his image on the planet and gives them free will (this is when he lets the repercussion of sin effect man). Now, when I have come to God, I have recognized that without Him we have disease, dishonor, war, distrust, and many other sicknesses. I say to him, that I have seen sin. I have tasted it, smelt it, and felt it. I would rather serve in Heaven then rule in Hell any day.
I think all people will come to this conclusion that they need God and the last being to do so, will be Lucifer. Why do I say this? My God tells me to forgive all. Forgive the devil himself. We all have fallen short, we all need forgiveness. We all will recognize that they need God. Be it here on earth or tempered by the fires of hell. (fires of hell is the absence of Love)
That is why I think we are here. We are here to be tempered by the fire and to make a choice. I choose a lawyer. He has never lost a case that he has defended with the blood of his life. It works great for me and I am happy.
I hope you have your happiness too.
DTD
NOT ME!
I stand my post.
the Gate to Hell will be very wide...your point is lost unto your own reality!
Already disproved above.
But I notice that you've opted to go for the full troll here, attempting to compare God with a common criminal. Do you think such immature and nonsensical statements will make be angry?
That sort of action really is below that of your average Freeper.
Free will is nothing but an illusion if you believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient.
Wrong again.
You can do nothing except at its direction and control.
Still wrong, no matter now many times you attempt to requote it.
If you would take the time to read the Bible, you would realize how silly these statements are.
Hell has an awesome house band.
Right, which is why He send His only begotten Son to save all of mankind, because each of us, each "flip of a coin" matters that much to Him.
God is love. If you know Him, you know love. If you don't, you end up bitter and hollow, posting things on a forum to make others angry, knowing that it only earns you their pity.
Just by giving into the size of the Gate to heaven opens the question to the existence of God! by your own words...have you not seen the pics of the universe vis the latest Hubble, and other astronomy views of the Universe???every time man tries to define how old the universe is they find it is much larger and older than they imagined...that is the just the beginning of what our understanding of God will be when we are in Heaven... God grandeur is beyond our understanding...you do not need to believe in God...just that you do to enter Heaven! If by chance you can make your Heaven here on earth without harm...Enjoy!
How is my point lost?
The fact that you are alive after typing such blaspheme.
Well, MAYbe you are.
Christ said, the Kingdom of God is at hand.
I pondered that for a long, long time. I wondered how this could be. Look at the world. It is full of sin, how could the Kingdom of God be at hand?
I found that when you can find peace amongst all this chaos, God is with you and the Kingdom of God is at hand. I found that when I remove the sin from my life and find a little more righteousness each day, the Kingdom of God is at hand. I found that if I look at the world, I will see good and evil, but if I look at myself then the kingdom of God is at hand. And most importantly, I found that when I forgive myself and others, the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Christ gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit with his promise that the Kingdom of God is at hand. When I found this gift, I found Love and I found a taste of Heaven. I found that promise Christ gave us, the Kingdom of God is truly at hand.
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