Militant Fundamentalist Atheism

I’m not talking about atheists who mind their own business. I know plenty of these and they are smart, moral and often kind-hearted people. I’m talking here about militant fundamentalist atheists.

I get it. They think they have found the cause of all the world’s problems (religion) and if they can just eliminate the cause, the world will be a better place. That’s the same thing all militant fundamentalists think and they’re all a pain in the arse.

They are also wrong. There is no single cause for all the world’s problems and people, especially people who claim to be so especially rational, should acknowledge this. The fact is, human beings choose some Ultimate Value, and if you claim to respect human beings, then respect their choice. Their Ultimate Value may be God, love, nature, or beauty but it is theirs and who are you to dictate someone else’s’ Ultimate Value?

I was an atheist once. I had a bunch of logical, rational reasons for that position. Eventually I had to admit that I could not know there was no God, so I said I was agnostic. I did not know. I firmly believed no one else knew, either. But since I did not know, how could I be militant about not-knowing? I also thought the existence or non-existence of a God was an important question, so I investigated claims of other religions, like Buddhism and Hinduism-then the whole realm of religious experience throughout time. I concluded that something was going on here with human beings, but I did not know what.

I became a convinced Christian through a personal revelation, which I will not share here. I do not want to hear psychological explanations attempting to explain away this revelation. I could offer psychological explanations for atheism, too. (Got daddy issues?) Christians are not all superstitious, ignorant snake-handlers and that characterization is unworthy of people who claim to pursue rationality above all else.

Blaise Pascal was a genius and he had a spiritual experience that changed his life. Spinoza was excommunicated from the synagogue for atheism, yet he offered a logical proof that not only was there a God, there was nothing else besides God. Einstein said his was the God of Spinoza. I suggest militant fundamentalist atheists open their minds just a crack and let some light in. Get off the atheist forums where you merely reinforce your own biases.

I have to laugh at Dawkins writing on religion. How about Mother Teresa writing on astrophysics? He has no idea what he’s talking about, but this God-bashing is a fad that will get you on the talk shows. It’s a money-maker. Have hideous things been done in the name of religion? Yes! I am no fan of political religion. That has very little to do with God and everything to do with human powerlust.

There is a God and God is good. That human beings use this concept to promote their own power agendas is irrelevant. Militant fundamentalist atheists want to change other people’s core beliefs. So do all militant fundamentalists. It is impossible, a waste of time and repulsively arrogant.

Am I trying to change the core beliefs of atheists? No, because that is impossible, a waste of time and repulsively arrogant. I would like atheists, and all people (including myself) to admit: I don’t know everything. I believe things, based on probabilities as I see them. Other people do the same. Respect that.