Atheism vs Atheism

Bill Maher and S.E. Cupp, two atheists, in opposition.

Atheism Campaign in UK

Apparently there's an atheism campaign (instigated by Richard Dawkins) running in the UK. These are some of their ads... What d'ya think?

The fifth (copout) worldview

In the previous post on worldviews I listed the four fundamental worldviews, namely theism, deism, pantheism and atheism.

I also mentioned that we have no definite proof for which one is true – although there are some very good reasons to assume one over the other.

Following from this, there is a fifth worldview position, namely Agnosticism, i.e. the belief that one cannot know whether God exists or not, or the belief that one cannot be certain what to believe.

Unfortunately the agnostic copout is not a sustainable position to take for at least two reasons.

Firstly the agnostic standpoint is self-refuting. When one believes that everything is unknowable, that is in itself a certainty. It is knowable that everything is unknowable; thus self-refuting.

Secondly, all our actions (and reactions) stem from one worldview or another. An agnostic can be agnostic in theory, but never in practise.

If you wants to be an active member of society, or an active partaker in your own life, you need to think carefully about the worldview you choose. And in the end, it is a choice, and every choice has consequences. For instance, your worldview will influence your morality, vocation, etc.

Worldviews

There are basically four worldviews – ideas of how everything came about and function.
These worldviews are pre-religion, pre-science. In fact, religion and science build of off these worldviews.

Theism is the idea that a Creator created everything. The Creator is not Itself part of creation, but is actively involved in it. Some theistic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam.



Deism is very much like Theism, but unlike Theism the Creator is not actively involved in creation. Usually the Creator is also not actively “conscious”. Some of the indigenous African religions are Deistic.



Pantheism is the idea that God is in everything and everything is God. The Creator is the creation – creation is the Creator. Pantheistic examples are Hinduism and the New Age movement.



Atheism is the idea that there is no God. Everything that came about (creation) came about spontaneously. Modern science is often atheistic. (Thus, atheism and modern science is build on the assumption that "things" can spontaneously just exist. Atheism and modern science is therefore also a belief-system, since it, like all other religions, are build on an initial assumption.)


For all practical reasons it is impossible for us to know which of the four is true. However, the moment we start any discussion on reality, religion, science, morality, justice, etc. we are assuming one of these four views. We assume one of them as a priori.

In the [science] but not of the [science]...

For about a year I was part of a creativity project called Tracking Creative Creatures. The purpose of the project was to collect data on the creative process. I was invited to contribute as an artist, which entailed the creation of artworks inspired by predetermined stimuli. My contribution also had to include a log of the creative process as I experienced it.

As a scholar, I was also invited to make an academic contribution. An academic journal decided it will focus one full publication to this project. And so I made up my mind to write an article for this publication, on my own creative process while involved in the project. Being an academic journal a mere subjective vomiting of ideas would not be accepted. I therefore need a scientific model to give structure and credence to the article.

My instinctive thought was to use Semiotics – the study of signs. But after some thought the study of Memetics stood out as an excellent model to explore the creative process. Memetics basically study the propagation of ideas, known as memes, from mind to mind (in the same way as genes propagate from organism to organism) and their evolution. This models fits ideally with the Tracking Creative Creatures project.

The projects started with the imaginary creatures of a young boy who described them to his artist father who in turn made sketches of the creatures. These sketches were given to artists from different disciplines and asked to use the sketches as inspiration to create own artworks. The original memes, developed in the mind of a five year old boy, propagated through his father’s sketches to different artists, where they mutated and evolved. The memes competed for survival. The “strongest” ones were chosen by the artist and ended up as artworks. The “weaker” means went extinct.

As you can see, Memetics provides an excellent metaphor for studying the distribution and evolution of ideas as it occurs in the creative process.

And here is my dilemma. Memetics, inspired by Darwinism, is fundamentally an atheistic science, developed by two outspoken atheists (Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet), and used to promulgate Darwinian ideas, specifically for anti-religious means.

And here I am, a theist, sceptical of the supposedly infallible Theory of Evolution, wanting to use an evolutionary theory to explain my own study. Aren’t I being a hypocrite? I undeniably disagree with what Memetics stands for, specifically as it is used within evolutionary biology. Yet I wish to exploit it as a metaphor to discuss my own work.

We know that the Apostle Paul used the literature and philosophy of the day to appeal to his audience. But to what effect? Afterwards he complained that he will henceforth preach Jesus and the Cross only. I’m not sure if using the Apostle Paul as a case study is applicable to my dilemma. Paul was concerned with preaching the gospel. I’m trying to write a non-religious article concerning creativity and the transfer and development of ideas.

Jesus prayed that Christians should be in the world but not of the world. How am I to be in the science, but not of the science?

Agreeing with an atheist

I’m reading the book “The God Delusion” (2006) by famous (and somewhat self-acclaimed “aggressive”) atheist Richard Dawkins, known for his activism against religions.

I’m halfway through the book and must say that I am enjoying it. He makes some good arguments – but is yet to convert me. However, I am finding, as I have found in the past that I am agreeing with an awful lot of his atheistic standpoints. I have always said that if I had to believe in the kind of God that most atheists understand God to be, then I too would be an atheist.

Take for instance the following list of religious (Christian) beliefs Dawkins list (and by default disagree with) and with how little I agree with (or rather with how much I agree with Dawkins). My comments are in square-brackets.

• You will survive your own death. [If, by this, Dawkins means the innate immortality of the soul, I also disagree with the statement.]

• If you die a martyr, you will go to an especially wonderful part of paradise where you will enjoy seventy-two virgins (spare a thought for the unfortunate virgins). [Okay, not a Christian doctrine, but of Abrahamic religious origin. I do not believe in this. Whether God has pleasantries installed for martyrs I don’t know, but I disagree with the idea that militant “holy war”-martyrs is looked upon favourably by God. I disagree with the statement.]

• Belief in God is a supreme virtue. If you find your belief wavering, work hard at restoring it, and beg God to help your unbelief. [Belief, Hope and Love are listed as priority virtues. So I do agree with this statement. However, Dawkins’ understanding of “belief” and mine differ as we will see with the next point. But for the sake of arbitrariness let’s say agree fully with this statement.]

• Faith (belief without evidence) is a virtue. The more your beliefs defy the evidence, the more virtuous you are. Virtuoso believers who can manage to believe something really weird, unsupported and insupportable, in the teeth of evidence and reason, are especially highly rewarded. [My understanding, from the Bible, of what faith differs greatly from Dawkins understanding of the term. Faith, as I understand it, is “trust” and not blind-faith. I don’t think that God is an adherent supported of blind-faith. So I disagree with the statement.]

• Everybody, even those who do not hold religious beliefs, must respect them with a higher level of automatic and unquestioned respect than that accorded to other kinds of belief. [I think we should allow people their differences in opinion. We do not have to agree, but we can respect such differences and even engage in dialogue. So I only halfway disagree with this statement.

• There are some weird things (such as the Trinity, transubstantiation, incarnation) that we are not meant to understand. Don’t even try to understand one of these, for the attempt might destroy it. Learn how to gain fulfilment in calling it s mystery. [To start with, I do not belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Neither do I think we are barred from contemplating the other two, or similar, “mysteries” mentioned. Our musings over such concepts cannot destroy them, just as little as our musings over the number “0” can destroy this mysterious icon of “nothingness”. I mean, what is “nothing”. It is not something I can mentally grasp, yet mathematics claims it to exist. So, although I believe in the inspired concept of the incarnation, for instance, I disagree with the statement.]

Let’s for a moment remove the statement referring to Islamic-doctrine (the one about the martyrs and the seventy-two virgins), which will leave us with five archetypal Christian doctrines. I disagree with 3½ of the 5 statements. In other words, I agree with 70% of an avid atheist.

Where does that leave me? Clearly a heretic in the eyes of conventional Christendom! The interesting thing is that my reasons for agreeing with the atheist 70% of the time are not because of materialistic, Darwinian reasons, but because of my (Biblical) understanding of God’s character. Isn’t that ironic?!