Victor Reppert links to this page, commenting:
There are no ex-atheistsNow, no one is a Christian by birth (interestingly, some 'atheists' like to claim that everyone is born an atheist ... being a Christian, I would say that that is *almost* correct, the truth being that everyone is born in a state of enmity to God). Even if there were a person now living whose every ancestor going back 1800 or 1900 years had been a Christian, that person will not be, and cannot be, a Christian by virtue of his birth or ancestry. Everyone who has ever been, or will ever be, a Christian must decide to believe that the claims of Christianity, and the reasoning advanced in support of those claims, are true and sound, respectively.
I guess this is the atheist equivalent of the Fifth Point of Calvinism: There are no ex-atheists. People who claim to be atheists but became Christians [] were never REAL atheists in the first place.
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.- I John 2:19.
To put it into the form of an aphorism: "God has no grandchildren."
Now, the truth-claims of Christianity are not changing. The evidence advanced for those truth-claims, the evidence upon which one will reason whether to embrace or reject its truth-claims, is mostly not changing (by which I mean that such things as miracles at Lourdes are really superfluous). And, the rules of logic, the rules by which we judge an act of reasoning to be valid or invalid, are not changing.
AND, truth does not change to un-truth, nor un-truth to truth. Thus, if the truth-claims of Christianity are true, they are always true, now and forever.
And so, if a person examines the truth-claims of Christianity, and the evidence advanced in support of these truth-claims, and decides to become a Christian, but later renounces this decision, then EITHER:
1) his initial decision was based on some error; meaning that, either:That is, EITHER his initial decision to become a Christian was logically invalid (which still doesn't tell us anything about the logical validity of Christianity itself), meaning that he didn't really understand the decision he made, OR his subsequent decision to renounce Christianity was logically invalid.
1a) the evidence advanced/presented to him did not really support the decision he made;
1b) his reasoning on that evidence was logically invalid in some way;
OR:
2) his subsequent decision to renounce the prior decision was logically invalid.
And, the above doesn't begin to address that persons have "converted" to Christianity for many reasons other than a rational examination of its claims and evidence; for instance, social convenience.
And so, this New Testament verse Mr Reppert quotes is saying something very different from the (increasingly common) atheistic claim or argument that anyone who self-identifies as an atheist and later converts to Christianity was never an atheist in the first place.
The "reasoning" of 'atheists' on this seems to be something like this:
1) There are no, nor can be any, real evidence(s) nor rational argument(s) to support the belief that God is;
1a) therefore, atheism (God-denial) is ipso facto rational;
1b) therefore, Christianity and Judaism are are ipso facto irrational;
2) Rational persons do not embrace irrational beliefs;
2a) therefore, 'atheists' (God-deniers) are ipso facto rational persons;
2b) therefore, Christians and Jews are ipso facto irrational persons;
3) Therefore, anyone who previously denied that God is, but now embraces Christianity (or Judaism) is not a rational person;
3a) therefore, he never was a rational person;
3b) therefore, he never was really an atheist in the first place.
Now, as to my initial question: "Are there *any* real atheists?"
Just as one can't *really* be a Christian (no matter what one calls oneself) while denying the divinity of Jesus, the Christ, so too, one cannot *really* be an atheist (no matter what one calls oneself) while denying the propositions which *must* be true if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality. If one calls oneself a Christian, or advocates that Christianity is true, yet denies the divinity of Christ, then either one does not *understand* what one is claiming/advocating, or one is a liar. If one calls oneself an atheist, or advocates God-denial, yet denies the logical consequences of atheism, then either one does not *understand* what one is claiming/advocating, or one is a liar.
Friedrich Nietzsche might have been a real atheist (for a *real* atheist is simultaneously a nihilist). Bertrand Russell was just a poseur.
Of living famous so-called atheists, Daniel Dennett, and Paul and Patricia Churchland seem to come closest to being real atheists ... and all three are still just poseurs. And Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous of living God-deniers? He's just a fool and a liar (there is a redundancy in that statement); he's a mere poseur -- who *knows* he's a mere poseur -- who doesn't even come close to being a real atheist.
The three I mentioned come close to being real atheists because they understand and acknowledge certain unwelcome truths (*) which logically follow from the denial, and therefore *must* be true if the denial is true, that we are creations of the transcendent God. For instance, acknowledging (some of) the inescapable logical entailments of atheism, they assert such things as:
1) consciousness in "an illusion;"
2) there is no self;
3) there is no free-will (**);
(they are fond of denigrating the concepts 'consciousness' and 'self' and 'free-will' as "folk psychology," by which they mean something like "the erroneous-and-unscientific beliefs-about-themselves-and-about-their-natures of ignorant-and-prescientific persons").
BUT, they are poseurs because they don't really believe these things they acknowledge and assert; certainly, they do not believe these things to be true of themselves ... but they also don't believe them to be true of you and me (so, they are not solipsists). For instance, they try to convince you (whom they assert doesn't even exist) that you do not exist -- the mere attempt to convince you of anything is the acknowledgement that you exist, that you are a self, that you are a reasoning self, that you are a self who may freely embrace or reject the claim being advanced.
Now, it is true that their attempts to convince you that you are an illusion are built mostly on bluster and attempted intimidation (Just LOOK at my credentials!) and hand-waving (among other things, the "folk psychology" trope); it is true that there is precious little reason in their argumentation (and, given the content and the target, how can it be otherwise?). But nonetheless, the fact remains: they're still trying to convince you to believe the false things they want you to believe about reality and about yourself. They have no choice, really:
1) since you *are* a self, a reasoning being, if they want you to believe that you are not a self, nor a reasoning being, they *must* somehow convince you to believe it;
2) since what they want you to believe is false, and anti-rational, they *must* resort to anti-rational argumentation: assertion, bluster, intimidation, equivocation, burden-shifting, and so forth.
(*) That is, these propositions are unwelcome to most self-identifying atheists and agnostics -- most of those folk will do any number and sort of logical contortion to avoid even noticing these propositions, much less admitting that they are truth-claims which logically follow from God-denial.
(**) Almost every discussion of, or reference to, "free-will" is mis-stated: it is not that we *have* something called "free-will;" rather, it is that we *are* free-wills.
7 comments:
Ilion,
Re: Sam Harris, here's the full quote:
The link between belief and behaviour raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas. (The End of Faith, p52-53.)
But it's not an "ordinary fact". It's a mutilated one, where Harris is trying to get license to regard certain beliefs as dangerous so beliefs themselves can be policed by his ideal state, right up to killing people for having 'bad beliefs'. Of course, the Islamic states probably agree exactly with Harris on this. So, you know. Irony of ironies.
I was making a point about the Anonymouse's attempt to denigrate Aquinas.
Sorry, I'm slow-witted tonight. :)
Ilion,
Do most people actually reason through and choose Christianity or any faith?
Now, of course some do, but for many people, and I know this is true of the folks around me growing up, it was simply part of the culture to go ahead, get confirmed (since we were all already baptized and hence, formally Catholics), partly because that's what was expected of them.
I know that at 12-13, when I was confirmed, alternatives, at least when I was that age, were fairly scare on the ground.
Then, once the deed was done, they acquiesce and simply keep going in inertia; and often loyalty to group identity.
They may question later, but some folks simply aren't the type to think about spiritual or religious issues.
I know *I* questioned, later when old enough, though I'm also constitutionally a curious fellow wanting to know the whys and wherefores of things, and the evidence for things.
Not all of us are Aquinas.
Crude:
That quote by Harris is pretty damning. I have atheist friends who object to the charge that atheists wish to wipe out believers, and complain of comparisons to Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
I did point out to them that the logic of wiping out belief may justify or, even, in some thinkers, entail wiping out the believers if you can't convince them.
This sort of thing only reinforces that view, and provides evidence that there is reason to fear this from the Atheist.
There are times when Bertrand Russell comes close to understanding the consequences of his beliefs such as here.
From "A Free Man’s Worship":
"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; . . . that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built."
You can see the nihilism within this specific passage.
A lot of the times when reading Russell I get the feeling that he understands where his beliefs lead, he just doesn't want to accept it. He wants to believe there is more to life and that people's lifes do have real meaning, hence he constantly was searching for meaning through pushing liberal political ideals, politics became his ill-fitted substitute for religion, but he could never find any true meaning because his beliefs stopped him from ever being able to do so.
“… I get the feeling that he understands where his beliefs lead, he just doesn't want to accept it. He wants to believe there is more to life and that people's lifes do have real meaning, hence he …”
Or, as I put it, he was a poseur (though, I had more in mind than just his shying away from nihilism -- the reasoning he advances for atheism sucks).
Consider the quotation. What he is saying is that only by accepting that there is no reason/purpose, nor can there be any reason/purpose, to any individual life or to any corporate life can we ever hope to find/build reason/purpose in our individual or corporate lives: in hopelessness is there sure hope! *sniff* Big Brother would have been so proud.
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