The Faith of Atheism

Some people believe that the debate between spiritual traditions and atheism is an exploration into the differences between faith and reason. I believe such an understanding is problematic.

At the heart of any species of atheism is an abiding faith in the capacity of reason, logic, and/or science to determine -- eventually -- that the issue of origins can be established without requiring any reference to God or supernatural causes. In fact, according to atheists, not only are such allusions unnecessary, but atheists have a deep abiding faith that the concepts of 'god' and 'supernatural' are empty categories -- except in the alleged delusional mind-set of spiritually inclined individuals.

I say 'faith' in the foregoing paragraph because atheists cannot -- any more than the spiritually inclined are able to -- produce the sort of demonstration or proof that would be acceptable to any 'reasonable' person and which would be capable of showing conclusively that the sort of faith being espoused by atheists -- or the spiritually inclined -- is warranted. Atheists do not know: where consciousness came from, or how logic came to be, or what makes creativity possible, or what the origins of language are, or how the universe came into being, and, yet, these very processes permeate their every statement and claim.

Atheists rely on assumptions about the origins of things. If one accepts their assumptions about how the universe works, then, one comes to understand something of their world view, and one can follow the structural character of their arguments. However, if one rejects the assumptions in which atheists have faith, then one is not required to accept the nature of their worldview and/or arguments even as one understands how such a belief system is constructed.

The debate between atheists and people who are spiritually inclined is a discussion between two different kinds of faith systems. For the atheist, the soul of a human being gives expression to rational, intellectual, creative and moral capabilities that have evolved over time according to random events that have advantageous ramifications. For people of spirituality, the soul of a human being gives expression to modalities of knowing that transcend -- but complement -- the rational, intellectual, creative and moral capabilities that have been bequeathed by God to humanity according to individual capacities.

However, given the foregoing, one cannot proceed to maintain that atheism is rooted in rationality, whereas spirituality is not so rooted. Atheists, like their spiritual cousins, generate a set of assumptions, in which they have faith, and proceed to think about the logic of those assumptions in certain, organized ways.

In both systems, faith takes precedence and priority over reason. In both systems, reason is used in the service of the respective processes of faith.

Science has made incredible contributions to human understanding about many things. However, science is not even remotely close to solving any of the issues surrounding origins -- whether one is talking about: logic, intellect, language, consciousness, the universe, creativity, morality, or life ... in fact, at this point in time, science doesn't even know how to reconcile the alleged four basic forces of the material universe ... gravity being the problem child -- although, who knows, perhaps the giant hadron collider which has just come on line will point the way to the Higgs boson. This would only leave one with the problem(s) of determining how the four forces generate: consciousness, thought, logic, reason, creativity, morality, language, life and the universe.

Anyone who supposes that atheists have the inside track on any of the foregoing issues may be interested in some derivatives which I have to sell. Keep the faith, baby.