Irony, atheism and analysis

I experienced a moment of great irony this morning as I walked through university. Campus Bible Study has recently started its typical Second Semester Mission on campus. One of the activities involved in this is something called soapboxing. For the purposes of Sem2 mission, basically it involves standing on a milk-crate somewhere public (in this instance the Science Lawn just off the main walkway) and giving your testimony of how you came to have a relationship with God. The idea is that it’s a public way to discuss one’s faith and hopefully people will stop and listen to what’s being said. The aforementioned ironic moment that coincided with this little tangential story however, was that as I walked past where this soapboxing was occurring, one of the other students walking past looked up, shook his head and muttered ‘...Jesus Christ!...’ and kept on going. I don’t think I need to explain why I found this ironic and quite humorous at the time – it truly does ‘speak’ for itself.




Mission this semester is being run under the title of ‘Living for Nothing?’ and addresses the New Atheist movement in particular, looking at the claims that they make and addressing ideas such as that Jesus never existed (something extraordinarily claimed by Christopher Hitchens in his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), is there truth out there, the problems with religion, can I be good without God and what sort of evidence is there for God? In essence, the purpose of the different talks and outreach events is to challenge people in regards to what they believe, why they believe it and to consider Jesus and Christianity as a viable and worthwhile system that deserves consideration.



To coincide with this, as well as just to develop my personal understanding of the arguments and issues at hand, I’ve recently been reading Christopher Hitchens’ book (that I mentioned just above). It seems to me that a lot has been said and written about Hitchens, Dawkins et al and the issues that they raise are significant enough to necessitate public debate and have translated into very sizeable book sales for most of the relevant parties. Instead of taking the approach of the New Atheists and not actually engaging with the issues at hand, but simply bad-mouthing everything that has ever been associated with your opponent, I thought it would be better at a personal and academic level to actually read their books and address their areas of concern and criticism – giving them the respect they’ve denied to world religions. This area of respect is a key difference in what make the New Atheists actually ‘new’. Hitchens is a self-professed anti-theist, not simply an atheist, so his mission is essentially to wipe religion from the world’s collective existence and memory. He, exceedingly arrogantly, concludes that religion is something only for the foolish people of yesteryear and that great minds such as himself are above such things. The general attitude from he and his peers such as Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University is that religion is unnecessary, foolish and a detriment to society. They would prefer a world in which reason, logic and science were the governing influences on people’s minds, not the supposedly irrelevant, fabricated, violent, illogical and irrational un-truths of religion.



The argument to be made here is of course that religion (or at least the Reformed Evangelical Christianity to which I subscribe) would argue that belief is actually something that is both rational and logical, as well as being supported by clear evidence. I, personally, wouldn’t say that you can ‘prove’ God exists, but equally nor can you ‘prove’ that He doesn’t exist. Despite the claims of the New Atheists to have done the impossible and disproven God’s existence, what they have really done is presented evidence as to why He may not exist, and if He does, why they don’t really like the version of God that they’ve created in their minds. What they deal with, for the most part, is not the God of the Bible. I can’t speak for those of other faiths, but I certainly don’t think the God that Dawkins, Hitchens and the like argue against is who we see in the Bible.



On this topic, whilst I wouldn’t pretend that I could somehow ‘defeat’ the academics and intellectuals that make up the New Atheist movement, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage in empirical, rational, logical and respectful debate or discussion. What we’re undertaking isn’t a matter of shouting down the opposing attitudes; it’s one of mature, respectful, thought out, fundamentally intellectual process of examining what evidence we have and critically analysing the arguments presented by both sides. If the intention of the New Atheists is to get people to use their books, speeches and other literature as evidence against religion, well then it seems only fair that we address each of their claims on the basis of their reliability and accuracy as well. Just because a book is written by an atheist doesn’t therefore make it beyond textual analysis. In fact, if they project themselves as the bearers of truth and salvation from the drudgery and idiocy of religion, then surely they are deserving of greater criticism and investigation.



One good thing that I feel has come out of the attacks launched by the New Atheists in regards to the Christian church and worldview is that it has encouraged internal reassessment and examination of what is going on in the particular system. For instance, the attacks upon the historical reliability of the Gospels and of Jesus have meant that more work is being done in regard to these (I would hold) historical truths. If people want to take a better look at Jesus and his teachings, then I’m all in favour of it. Even if their conclusions are that what Jesus said wasn’t true, wasn’t for them or what have you, at least they’ve then actually considered the arguments that are being presented before them, not simply writing them off because some crazy, right-wing bloke from the deep south of America was quoted on the news saying that ‘God hates fags’ (Westboro Baptist Church) or other such inflammatory and frankly un-Biblical attitudes. I’ve previously written here at the UnCritical Thinker about the benefits of generous reading of texts, and I think a similar principle can be applied to the Bible. Christians are unfortunately what the Bible will be judged by. We aren’t perfect. Some people might seem to claim that they are, but well, they’re wrong. If something seems a bit odd (in a good or bad way) then check it out. That applies as much to Christians as it does to anyone else. Don’t let preachers get complacent. Read the Bible yourselves. We’ve been given the great gift since the Reformation in the 16th Century that we can read the Bible in our own language and try and grapple with its truths, so just do it. Challenge people on what they think, why they think it, and where it can be found in the Bible.



Even though many people won’t judge Christianity off the Bible or from what Jesus said about himself, I think this is the best way in which to get an understanding of what it is that Christians belief and stand for. Likewise, I fully intend to read through the works of New Atheists, and be challenged by what they have to say, but with the intention to understand what it is that they are arguing for and against. From this basis I can then present a more informed and accurate analysis of what it is that they say and what they stand for. The critics will probably get a lot of things right, and probably get a lot of things wrong, but I am confident that they have not in the slightest bit ‘proven’ that God is not real and that he is not relevant today. With this is mind, I thought I might address some of the different claims that Hitchens makes as I read through his book and share my thoughts with you here on the UnCritical Thinker. I’m looking forward to it, so keep tuned for progress reports.