Is Atheism The Most Rational Religion?

BELIEVERS CREATE MUCH OF WHAT IS GOOD

Sunday, February 24, 2013

— Movies, TV shows, books such as Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and countless letters to the editor promote the myth that believers in a personal God (monotheists) are irrational whereas atheists are rational. A second popular and pernicious myth holds monotheists have perpetrated history’s worst atrocities.

Because they’re common in popular culture, both myths should be examined.

Today I’ll focus on the fi rst myth.

Ironically, the claim believers are less rational than nonbelievers itself is an irrational prejudice.

Prejudices are refuted by experience.

Believers’ work throughout history in business, literature, the arts, philosophy, politics and science has createdmuch of what is good in Western culture - rational products of rational minds.

The achievers’ higher motivation was often, in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Most monotheists believe with atheists in an orderly, understandable world. Codiscoverer of DNA’s structure Francis Collins adheres to that traditional Judeo-Christian tenet, as does his atheist partner Francis Crick. The 40 to 50 percent of American scientists who believe in a personal god see no conflict between belief and science.

Still, more scientists areatheist. This fact tempts some atheists into the logical fallacy of false authority, granting authoritative standing to someone outside his or her area of expertise.

Scientists do have deep knowledge of the material world. Their work is to seek material answers to material questions. Since God is claimed to be a supernatural spirit, the scientist’s expertise in the material world does not confer authority. A scientist’s faith carries no more weight than a plumber’s. Logically, God either exists or doesn’t, independent of anyone’s opinion.

Science is indeed the most useful method known for examining and approximating physical reality, but the materialistic assumption necessary to the method is not a theory of reality, a metaphysic. To assume so is a category error: Method is not metaphysics. The God-haters like Dawkins, though, make this error, an irrationality born maybefrom hating something they believe does not exist.

The atheist’s category error causes problems when a scientific discovery, such as the Big Bang, implies God’s existence. As physicist Steven Hawking said, “It would be very dift cult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.” He recanted in 2010.

Hawking’s fi rst statement was not wrong, just an understatement. The Big Bang’s creation out of nothing, “ex nihilo” as theologians put it, requires both a beginning to the universe and its physical laws and something outside the universe and those laws to begin it. God’s like that.

So some speculate about aliens or parallel, unobservable universes, hoping no one will notice that in avoiding the creator question, they aren’t doing science anymore.

Some make the circular argument that material is all that exists because materialis all science has discovered.

Brandon Carter’s anthropic principle might break that circle and point toward a transcendent answer. The anthropic principle is that if our physical laws or such values as the acceleration of the universe’s expansion were slightly diff erent, the universe would not exist.

Sounds like someone knew what He was doing. Even though proposed by a scientist, this notion may be unscientific because it cannot be falsifi ed.

Rather than grapple with “why” questions for which science is unsuited, some place their faith in chance, semantics and a brainierthan-thou attitude. Dawkins and American philosopher Daniel Dennett want atheists called “brights” in contrast to less-than-bright believers.

Also, rather than acknowledging “why” the Big Bang occurred is something science cannot address, they call it “a singularity,” so we don’t have to think about it. Naming suggests understanding tothose not paying attention. I am not making a “God in the gaps” argument. No matter how much science learns about “how” the Big Bang occurred, it cannot answer the “why.”

But people do think about the why. When they do, they realize creation by the atheists’ god, chance, entails ultimate meaninglessness.

Creation by a personal God entails ultimate meaning.

The online First Church of Atheism claims ordaining more than 7,000 atheist ministers. Although the stated reason for the church is practical, to perform God-free weddings, the inadvertent honesty of admitting atheism is a religion is refreshing. In this country, people are free to worship what they please - God, money, power, themselves, even chance.

God bless them.

BUDDY ROGERS, A ROGERS RESIDENT, ONCE DRANK THE WINE OF ATHEISM AND FOUND IT SOUR AND OVERRATED. HE IS NOW CHRISTIAN.

Opinion, Pages 11 on 02/24/2013