A letter to a Minister

At my school chapel; where I am forced to visit periodically, The Reverend recently gave a fairly blunt attack on Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion'. While I haven't read his book, I had a fair few problems with some of the things with what our minister was saying. At the end of his speech he invited anyone with their own arguments to get back to him.

This is my response:

Firstly, Atheism is not a religion. There is no dogma or ritual which is essential or fundamental to being an atheist. It simply means not believing in God. And there’s no reason to say why an atheist can’t have religious thoughts or feelings, separate to the idea of God. In your speech you basically attacked anti-religious atheists, as opposed to people who cannot or do not see the ‘Light of God’. Buddhists are fundamentally atheists – and you’re forgetting that for the most part, Atheists follow a fairly Christian doctorate of ethics. It has been woven into the fabric of our society over the last couple of thousand years.

You did a good job of explaining the need for religion; In today’s sick, sad, depressed, uncertain, changing & impossible world it is good for the masses to have a sense of hope. It helps people come to grips with their situation and persevere to an ‘after-life’ if their current life is not what they think it should be. This; and the lack of scientific institutions, would do more than enough to help convert the masses of Africa, with their poor living conditions, mass hunger and terrible life expectancy. The church does a great job in supporting them and their plight. This does not however, prove the existence of a God.

Religion is very important, because as human beings we have an emotional side – a spiritual side, which you would exercise whenever you pray, or participate in ritual. This almost euphoric feeling, again is not proof of God, but instead proof that as human beings we exist as more than just logisticians – we do have a right and left side of the brain. I personally think that most Atheists do not fully understand, respect or acknowledge this facet of their existence, and this is a great shame. Harnessing the emotional power of an individual can lead to great personal gratification and understanding of things internal and external to themselves.

You may ask then, why don’t I like Christianity when I’ve laid out all these advantages of it? Because God doesn’t work for me. The idea that someone external to me and the people around me controls the future and my existence makes no sense. Nobody; not JC or your God himself has the power to better the world around me, other than myself and every other individual. Christianity does a great job of looking after the sick and the poor and the homeless. It also does a great job of suppressing free thought and rationalism, of controlling the masses in such a way that they act to deny all of their most basic human impulses; namely your seven sins. It turns the masses into sheep; by controlling their thoughts and feelings to the point where they act down aspirations of grandeur and ambition in general. To the point where they are scared of a place; Hell, which we only know of by people who are yet to travel there. So how on earth do we know what it is like?

Surely everybody is going to hell? If you are not a Christian, you are going to hell. If you are not a Muslim, you are going to hell. If you are not Jewish, you will go to hell. Etc etc. And so you will find all of your friends in hell. Or are other religions not as valid as Christianity? Why couldn’t we be terrible people our entire lives and repent on our deathbeds, be forgiven our earthly sins and still make it up to heaven? I support the idea of religion. But basing it in lies creates more internal conflict than harmony. Somebody created Christianity, and created the God so many people worship. Why not create your own? Surely that would be more appropriate to you?

You cannot justify or smash a cause by the people who support it or oppose it. There will always be people you would rather were on the other side of the line. Did you really expect to sway atheists by saying that people with doctorates believe in God? That scientists believe in God? Or that Stalin was an Atheist? As I said before, Atheism is NOT a religion. And Christianity does a great job of helping people through their beliefs, providing hope etc – and I’m not against that. I just think it’s folly to actually believe, in your heart, that God is real. Or to tell people who don’t believe in God that they’re wrong just because so many people do.

You also said that questioning the existence of God was the most important question that could be asked. Allow me to rebut. Will either answer actually affect the world? You would be better just to accept it on faith – evangelists who find the need to try and justify Christianity with modern science have obviously missed this point. I think you were alluding to this: (which I’ve copied from an article on wikipedia called “presupposition”)

In epistemology, presuppositions relate to a belief system, or Weltanschauung, and are required for it to make sense. A variety of Christian apologetics, called presuppositional apologetics, argues that the existence or non-existence of God is the basic presupposition of all human thought, and that all men arrive at a worldview which is ultimately determined by the theology they presuppose. Evidence and arguments are only marshaled after the fact in an attempt to justify the theological assumptions already made. According to this view, it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of God unless one presupposes that God exists; modern science is incapable of discovering the supernatural because it relies on methodological naturalism and thereby fashions a Procrustean bed which rejects any observation which would disprove the naturalistic assumption. The best the apologist can do is to argue that the resulting worldview is somehow inconsistent with itself (for example, via Argument from morality or via Transcendental argument for the existence of God).

As Nietzsche said; “God is Dead”, which as I see it encompasses the idea that if God is so great, and all powerful knowing and helpful etc then why haven’t we seen any miracles recently? Why doesn’t he visit some great geneticist and tell them the cure to cancer? Why bother questioning the existence of such a god that just watches – when we could spend our time trying to cure cancer ourselves?

I have answers for this rhetoric – and no doubt you can ascertain the points I’m trying to make. If we go past this question of the existence of God, I ask another question; what are the grounds for then basing a religion on it? On worship?


(While I understand that you weren't there, it has been nearly a week and I haven't copped a response back - I would like to know what's next from him, and what arguments are still relevant in this field)

Mon, Jun 2, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Richard Dawkins, God, Atheism, Spirituality, Philosophy