Apologetics
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Chaplain’s Corner
Matt Brown
August 2014
My favorite (living) atheist
Some of you have asked me recently about the comments made by famed atheist Richard Dawkins. Since it is my day off and I have already run my errands, fed my goats and rescued baby chipmunks from my cats - I will take a crack at it. While his comments are deplorable, please remember that his comments are usually deplorable. And this is precisely why I admire Richard Dawkins. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, a quick primer on my unbelieving brethren out there.
While I’m not Catholic, I applaud Pope Francis for opening up some channels with his recent comments about unbelief. I think the Pope recognizes that not all unbelievers are hardened atheists. Most are skeptics, “recovering” Christians, cynics and the disillusioned. True atheists are a rare but recently trendy breed. There has been an increase in atheistic literature in the past couple decades that I have tried to keep up with.
Optimistic atheism has been sprouting up among Wikipedia intellectuals and dorm lounge debate champions. Armed with the chip on their shoulder, an internet connection and some Pabst Blue Ribbon they wage their holy war against all things holy. At their disposal are hundreds of atheist websites filled with sketchy facts, ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, non sequiturs, half-hearted research and bad jokes. It may sound counter-intuitive to be an optimistic atheist but hear them out first.
Neo-Atheists like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens tell us that we don’t have to believe in God to have a positive outlook on life or to be a good person. Species propagation and the sentimentality of making the world a better place are the only real virtues in their brave new world. These aren’t bad goals. In fact, they are good goals if they serve a higher goal. They don’t though. They are the end game, the greatest possible good one can hope to aspire to. These are stillborn dreams, dead before they arrive. A person can never hope to matter to the universe. Keats’ epitaph is fitting, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” So there it is. Keep the human race going so that your descendants can enjoy an equally meaningless existence.
I meet all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs as they are nearing the end of their journey in this life. As a hospital Chaplain I am blessed to roam the dimly lit halls at night and in the still hours of the morning. These are the times for the dark night of the soul, the witching hour. Frivolous optimism fades and our minds give way to more primal, ancient concerns. These are holy moments. In emergency department calls, Chaplains often get to be with people in the worst moments of their lives, a front row seat to real nightmares. These moments do not abide the flimsy slogans of youth or the glib musings of the hobby philosopher. Flowery theology doesn’t hold up so well either. Savage grief and numbing despair have no vocabulary. Human death and loss stand before us and mock our well laid plans, our life scripts, our bucket lists. I have watched people die with grudges. It looks uncomfortable. I have also watched people die without hope. They look scared.
Anticipatory grief, as well as death itself, brings us to the cusp of the abyss, and it is scary. The old atheists knew this. Everyone used to know this. The old atheists like Voltaire, Bertrand Russell and even Nietzsche were more intellectually honest than the new ‘sugar added’ atheists. When Nietzsche declared, “God is dead!” it was not with triumph. It was with trepidation. What monstrosity would man replace God with? The displacement of God as the centrality of our lives is the great modern experiment, practiced in earnest by the Bolsheviks. I’m not sure it’s going so well. Nietzsche was right to be concerned. The old atheists wouldn’t have been caught dead ‘whistling past the graveyard.’ Pun intended.
When discussing his atheism, Russell did not deny the profoundly nihilistic implications of his belief. He stated that man must embrace the “unyielding despair” that we are alone in the universe and that our lives lack “ultimate meaning”. Imagine that on a Hallmark card. Russell was able to see the ultimate conclusion to his beliefs and it is easy to admire that kind of stiff honesty. You live for a while and then you are no more. Nothing really matters. Nothing you do matters ultimately. Being a good person is merely a convention of those in power to keep you in line. Trying to find purpose in life is a welcome distraction from the sad futility of our existence. We are all just rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic as we slip into the cold darkness.
And that brings us to Richard Dawkins. His latest less-than-sensitive statement called for women, pregnant with a Downs baby, to abort it and try again. For those of us who know and love someone with Downs, this sounds pretty soulless. Which makes sense since Dr. Dawkins doesn’t believe in such childish superstition as souls. Dawkins has made other cringeworthy comments through the years. He would probably resurrect the Lebensborn program if he had his druthers, and the funding. Dawkins is a brilliant man with scary ideas. More important though, he is consistent. The man has the courage of his convictions. It is important to understand that he isn’t just a mean old codger who happens to be an atheist, as some of his apologists are claiming. His beliefs are consistent with humanistic atheism. The great culling of mankind is the great dream of serious atheists. As comedian Blake Clark likes to say, “It’s time to thin the herd!” Well, these folks aren’t joking. I wonder who gets to do the culling?
Dawkins, when pressed on the implications of atheism admitted, “Yes I suppose it is depressing…but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” Dawkins isn’t drinking the atheism-lite. Unlike the other modern atheists who stared into the abyss and blinked, Dawkins has embraced what he believes are the ultimate consequences of an impersonal universe. Frou Frou atheism just isn’t becoming a man like Dawkins or the atheists of yore. True atheism is unyielding and unrelenting despair, with a couple of commercial breaks.
This is probably why atheism is still, almost without exception, the playground of what author Phillip Yancey called “triple W men”…white, wealthy, western men. White guys with internet connections living in post-Christian cultures seem really drawn to this idea of an accidental universe. Atheism has always been the elixir of the elite. Most of the world can’t afford such luxurious theories. The poor, the marginalized and the broken often have only their hope at the end of the day. The appeal of a terminal existence is lost on those grinding out the years in a cruel world. In Jesus we find a God who became poor, marginalized and broken. We see a God who knows our struggle personally. We see the God who stooped. I need that kind of God. I want that kind of God. Jesus is my crutch, my opiate, my shoulder to lean on, my purpose in life. I need all that. Maybe you do too.
I encourage you to reach out to your unbelieving loved ones. Chances are that they still believe in God, they’re just not happy with those invoking his name. Love and patience go a long way. Faith and love cannot be proven but they can be felt…and they’re never trendy.
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