God talk
It takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian
“I’m an atheist. How about you?”
“Afraid not. I don’t have that much faith.”
“What do you mean, faith? I don’t have faith. That’s what being an atheist means.”
“No, it means you have concrete faith in a certain assertion.”
“Yeah, that there’s no such thing as God. You don’t need faith to know that. Anyone with an ounce of critical thinking skills can deduce it very quickly.”
“You don’t know that God doesn’t exist. You just believe it.”
“Of course I do. You can’t prove a negative. You can believe there’s God, or Allah, or Zeus, or whatever, and you can worship him. And I can believe there isn’t.”
“Sure you can, but how can you be so certain there’s no such thing as God?”
“Cause I’m smart. How can you be so certain there is?”
“I can’t be certain.”
“Well then. How can you believe all this shit?”
“I guess I’d say I believe based on the evidence.”
“Evidence?! What evidence? The Bible? That’s a bunch of myths and ancient fairy tales.”
“No it’s not. But it’s not just the Bible. I believe in God for a variety of reasons. You know, people believed in deities long before the Bible was printed.”
“Yeah, and they’ve believed in dragons and sea monsters and the tooth fairy too. Then when science started explaining natural phenomena like volcanoes and thunder and lightning, people knew none of that stuff was caused by angry gods.”
“That’s true, yet it still didn’t kill God. People believed in spite of science, and they still do!”
“Yeah, well, good for them! People believe in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster too, don’t they? They can believe whatever whacky religion or philosophy or idea they want, as long as they leave me alone.”
“I agree. And you’re free to believe there’s no god as long as you leave me alone. I’m just saying, your belief in atheism requires just as much faith as my belief in God. More, in my opinion.”
“Look, Cory, you’re a smart guy and I respect your opinion. I think it’s whack that you believe in an invisible power in the sky, but I don’t hassle you about it.”
“And I’m not hassling you about your belief. You asked me, remember.”
“Yeah, I did. But being an atheist has nothing to do with faith. In fact it’s the opposite of faith. There’s no god to put faith in.”
“Correct. Your faith isn’t in God, it’s in the certainty that there is no god.”
“Yes, I don’t believe God is real.”
“OK. But what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong!”
“How do you know?”
“Because…because. Jeez, we just went over this. You can’t prove a negative!”
“I agree. But I don’t see it that way. The Bible is a positive statement of God’s existence. It’s His revelation to us, like a declaration he exists.”
“It’s a bunch of nonsense.”
“Have you read it?”
“When I was a kid, in Sunday school. And I had a religion course in college. The thing is, I don’t need to read it to decide if there’s a God. If there’s no God, then the Bible isn’t true.”
“Well, I’d sure agree with that. And if there is a God, then the Bible is true.”
“No, not necessarily. If there is a god, he or she might not be like the god in the Bible. That’s the thing. There’s the Christian god, the Muslim God — Allah — and the Mormon god, and all the gods the Buddhists and Hindus believe in. Each religion can’t all be right.”
“No they can’t.”
“So the most logical inference is that none of their ‘gods’ are real, because each religion has different myths and stories about supernatural creators. Nobody knows which ones are true.”
“Exactly!”
“Huh?”
“See, you’ve hit the nail on the head. All these creation stories can’t be true, because they contradict each other and frankly, some are ludicrous. But others, especially the story revealed in the Jewish and Christian bibles, could be true. Nobody knows!”
“You’re right, some of the myths are more plausible than others. But none of them are true.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I can’t prove it by modern scientific standards, if that’s what…”
“Yes it is. You can’t definitively disprove my claim that God exists, and I can’t disprove your claim that he doesn’t. So the only intellectually honest opinion to hold is to be agnostic.”
“No! The intellectually honest opinion is that there’s no such thing as God, never has been, and the burden of proof is on anyone saying there is.”
“Christians would say God has met that burden.”
“How? No he hasn’t. That’s bullshit!”
“OK, that’s your belief.”
“It’s the truth!”
“No it’s not, my friend. It’s truly not.”
“Well, I believe it’s the truth.”
“What you mean is, you have faith it’s the truth.”
“Yeah, faith, belief, whatever you want to call it.”
“Let’s call it faith.”
“OK. Fine!”
“Now can you start to see why I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist?”
