“I’m an atheist because I think of the universe as a natural, material system… I’m perfectly sincere and definite
in my belief that there is no God
”
—Philosopher Crispin Sartwell
We continue, from part 1, considering Crispin Sartwell’s “Irrational Atheism – Not believing in God isn’t always based on reasoned arguments—and that’s okay,” The Atlantic, October 11, 2014 AD; God help us, he teaches philosophy at Dickinson College.
Amongst other issue, including that Atheism is an anti-Christian support group which is statistically made up of young, White, males; I noted how being an atheist due to the universe being a natural, material system denotes a misunderstanding, misuse and abuse of science.
We now come to Crispin Sartwell’s encouraging “Irrational Atheism” which is tantamount to referring to “hot molten lava”: by definition molten lava is hot and by definition Atheism is irrational.
Note that he make a conveniently self-serving statement in asserting that “Religious people sometimes try to give proofs of the truth of their faith…But for many people, belief comes before arguments…The arguments are post-hoc rationalizations.” Yet, of course, since for many people, belief comes after arguments thus, the arguments are not post-hoc rationalizations (keep in mind the Romans 1 quote from part 1).
Sartwell admits that “This can be true of atheism as well. For me, it’s what I grew up with. It gets by in my social world, where professions of religious faith would be considered out of place. My non-faith is fundamentally part of how I connect with others and the world.” Note what a cloistered life he lives: 1) he accepts post-hoc rationalizations as proofs of Atheism, 2) he grew up with Atheism, 3) he is surrounded by Atheists, 4) they are involved in such group-think that professions of religious faith are considered out of place and 5) he has essentially turned Atheism into a worldview, “part of how I connect with others and the world.”
See my site’s section on Atheist Child Rearing to see how Atheists admit that they train their children to grow up Atheists (often hiding behind terms such as merely training them in rational thinking).
Crispin Sartwell is honest enough to admit “The idea that the atheist comes to her view of the world through rationality and argumentation, while the believer relies on arbitrary emotional commitments, is false.” He notes that “This accounts for the sense that atheists such as Christopher Hitchens or Dawkins are arrogant” yet, “the sense that atheists such as Christopher Hitchens or Dawkins are arrogant” is accounted for by the fact that they were and are arrogant respectively.
Sartwell point is to point out that “the atheist too, is deciding to believe in conditions of irremediable uncertainty, not merely following out a proof.”
There are many good reasons why he titled his article “Irrational Atheism” one of which is his statement that Atheists “offload their beliefs on ‘reason’ or ‘science’ without acknowledging that they are making a bold intellectual commitment about the nature of the universe, and making it with utterly insufficient data.” With this fact in mind, consider what that means for him as he wrote “I’m an atheist because I think of the universe as a natural, material system”: it does away with his Atheism or rather, makes his Atheism irrational.
He asserts that “Religion at its best treats belief as a resolution in the face of doubt.” Now, he does not define “Religion” and thus, I cannot answer directly. However, speaking for the biblical “religion”: “belief” is not “a resolution in the face of doubt” but rather, a resolution based on knowledge (even if that knowledge is incomplete as all of our knowledge of anything is, ultimately, incomplete).
He then admits that Atheism “at its best treats belief as a resolution in the face of doubt” by stating that he “want[s] an atheism that does the same” whereby he is admitting Atheism’s failure to show proof or evidence of its assertions and he calls his “Irrational Atheism” denotes “epistemological courage” (when, epistemological failure is more like it).
Crispin Sartwell writes that Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855 AD) “recommended Christianity”:
…because it constituted a paradox: “The eternal God had appeared in time and died.” That’s not just difficult to explain, he said; it is entirely contradictory. By any reasonable measure it simply cannot be true. But that’s why believing it called for total passion over the course of a lifetime. Christianity was the best thing to believe in part because it was the hardest thing to believe.
Well, it appears that we will have to point something out to Sartwell and Kierkegaard which is that “The eternal God” of the Bible, of Christianity, of Kierkegaard is a Triune being, a Trinity and the fact is that one of the persons which makes up the one God who is the Trinity, “appeared in time and died.” Thus, God did not die rather, one person died and thus, it is not entirely contradictory and not impossible to be true.
Of course, all Atheists are theologians (and very, very dogmatic ones at that: dogmatheism) and so it is, in fact, Sartwell’s theology which claim that it is “entirely contradictory…cannot be true” that ““The eternal God had appeared in time and died.” He does not explain why such should be the case but merely asserts it.
Sartwell is driving at the ultimate of that which has been pointed out by many; that Atheism begs, borrow and steals from the Judeo-Christian worldview theology. So devoid is Atheism of any point at which to even begin building a case for well, anything (as we are the result of a long series of accidents that began when no one caused nothing to explode for no reason and made everything without meaning) that Sartwell will appeal to Christians who, essentially, hold that Christianity is irrational and conclude that Atheists should do likewise with Atheism and get on with it making their irrational claims.
In the next section we will conclude.