Seven Questions for Atheists, answered

I saw this over on Bruce Gerencser's Blog, and thought it might be worth composing my own answers -- since, as the original article notes, no two atheists are identical. The article is titled "Some Honest Questions For Atheists", and it's a column posted by a Dr. Michael Brown. Since I know almost nothing about Dr. Brown, I'm going to take him at his word and assume that he is A) sincere, and B) not trying to, I don't know, entrap anybody as if this were some sort of debate. (I am so, so very tired of people who want to debate.)

If the questions are indeed offered out of genuine curiosity and an honest desire to understand, well... I do my best to answer those. Why not? It seems a worthwhile effort. So, without further ado:

First, would you say that you are (or, were) an atheist based primarily on intellectual study or based on experience? Or did you never believe in God at all?

I mean... both? I've written a bit about growing up as what a Christian might call an immature believer, and why that stopped working for me. I am probably closer to never having believed in God at all than most of the ex-Christians who get accused of "never having been a (real) Christian", but I was raised to believe and by rights I probably should have gone on believing. You can follow those links for more detail, but the short answer is that I was raised as a Christian in a Christian environment, and I stopped believing for a number of reasons, some intellectual and some experiential. 

Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is that at some point Christianity just... stopped making sense for me. It doesn't seem to accurately describe the world I see around me; as a lens for understanding human nature I find it extremely flawed, and as a revelation of the supernatural it doesn't match with my own experiences (such as they are). It doesn't make sense to me, and I cannot "choose" to believe in something that makes no sense to me.

Second, would you say that even as an atheist you still have a sense of purpose and destiny in your life, a feeling that you were put here for a reason and that you have a mission to accomplish? Or is it primarily people of faith who feel like this, since we are simply the products of an unguided, random evolutionary process?

Ummmm...? I mean yes, I feel like my life has meaning and purpose, but I'm not sure I mean that in quite the same way that you do. I don't feel like I was "put here for a reason" and I have no sense of being "put here" by anything with any sort of awareness or volition. I don't feel like there was a plan for me. But on the other hand, the human experience of life is full of opportunities to find meaning and give yourself purpose, and I did. I certainly don't waste time feeling like nothing I do matters (except occasionally at work -- and that's an issue of Capitalism, not religious belief).

Third, would you say that you are 100% sure there is no such being as God—meaning, an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing being? Or would you say that, for all practical purposes, you have concluded that this God does not exist, although it is impossible to prove such a negative with absolute certainty?

I don't believe that God exists -- not as defined and described in either the Christian or the Judaic traditions, and not in any other tradition that I've ever encountered. I do not, on the other hand, affirmatively believe that something that might be described as God does not exist. (The simplest explanation here being the universally-applicable human principle of "but I could be wrong.") 

I will say that if an eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful being exists, then its nature and character seem unlikely to resemble anything described by Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. 

Fourth, do you believe that science can provide answers for many of the remaining mysteries of the universe, including how the universe began (including where matter came from and where the Big Bang derived its energy), the origin of life, and DNA coding?

This question is complicated by the current state of the world,  in that I'm not sure at this point that science will be around long enough to do any of that. And while the question absolutely reeks of God of the Gaps nonsense, I'm going to assume that it's offered in good faith and just try to answer: I think it potentially could. Given enough time and enough information to work with, I think we could have answers for any and all of those things. 

However, I will also note that science does not present Absolute Truth. At its best, it presents our best understanding (and in some cases, our best guesses) as to how things work. It is not subjective, but it's not truly objective either; science, on the whole, is a direct application of intersubjectivity. All scientific answers are subject to further research.

On top of that, there's a point at which... I don't really care. We have the world we have. We live the way we live. If we somehow discovered that our Universe was actually created by, say, the ineffable super-cosmic equivalent of a high school freshman for a class project on algorithmic patterns derived from string harmonics... so what? On a day to day basis, what difference does it make? The things that give my life meaning still give my life meaning, and the things that are huge, harmful problems for us are still huge, harmful problems for us.

Fifth, have you had any experiences in life that caused you to question your atheism? Has something happened to you that seemed genuinely supernatural or otherworldly? Or have you been confronted with some information that shook your atheistic foundations, such as a scientific argument for intelligent design? If so, how have you dealt with such doubts to your atheism?

So... I'm not entirely sure how to answer this one.  This is partly because it conflates atheism and materialism, which... aren't always the same. (There atheistic religions, for example. I could believe in ghosts but not gods, and still be an atheist -- and that's kind of comparable to my actual position.) Yes, I've had things happen that felt supernatural or otherworldly. (Again, see the links above -- or read about how I got back together with the woman who became my wife.)  

But I haven't really "dealt with such doubts" because atheism isn't a position I'm particularly trying to hold onto. It's the conclusion I've reached based on the best information I have. In the case of how I re-met my wife, well... it's basically a statistical outlier, a one-off: an extraordinarily unlikely event that might just be coincidence or might indicate that something else is going on, but without a pattern of other similar events -- which we don't have, because of the whole "extraordinarily unlikely" bit -- it's impossible to guess which might be the case. In the case of the Sense of Presence I mentioned in the Bit of Both link above, I think that's more likely my brain doing things on its own that I hadn't expected, rather than anything genuinely supernatural. 

So overall, no: while I have had some odd experiences, I really haven't had anything that would lead me to "question" my atheism. And honestly, my atheism doesn't really have "foundations" as such, except maybe for the fact that the idea of powerful supernatural intelligences capable of interacting with our world just... doesn't fit with the world I see around me.

Sixth, are you completely materialistic in your mindset, meaning human beings are entirely physical, human consciousness is an illusion, and there is no spiritual realm of any kind? Or are you superstitious, reading horoscopes or engaging in new age practices or the like?

I would describe myself as an experiential materialist. The best way that I can think to explain this is that I firmly believe that pain is a physiological reaction which relies on electrochemical stimuli in the body, but also holy poot stubbing your toe on the end table still hurts. Human consciousness is an experience, not an illusion; but I still think it's rooted firmly in the physical world, because if our consciousness was a separate spirit driving our physical bodies, it shouldn't be possible for people to get drunk.

Seventh, if you were convinced that God truly existed—meaning the God of the Bible, who is perfect in every way, full of justice and mercy, our Creator and our Redeemer—would that be good news or bad news? And would you be willing to follow Him and honor Him if He were truly God?

Speaking of differences in perspective, this one sounds like a you-concern, not a me-concern. If it turns out that I'm wrong and that some version of the God of the Bible exists -- and I will note that there are multiple versions, just as their are multiple denominations within Christianity, not to mention Judaism and Islam -- then I'd have a lot of things to rethink. By the same token, I would also have a lot of questions, which more or less boil down to, "Okay, but in that case what the hell have You been doing this whole time???"

Good news or bad news? Eh, depends. Would I be willing to follow? He's all-knowing and all-powerful, so following Him and honoring Him would most likely be the only sensible course of action. Still, I've got a number of questions I'd like to have answers to before I commit to anything here.

...So there you go. Comments are open; ask me anything. (If you can't comment, try changing browsers -- some of them seem to have issues with the way Blogger uses cookies.)