Still don’t get the concept of evangelical atheism. If one did define exactly what was wrong with religion(as opposed to nearly every other strongly held ideal in the world), then it might make sense to argue to fix that problem. Ex: Religion tends to not teach critical thinking skills. True enough, even if I’m not sure why that would be a religious/church obligation in the first place… but it is clear that schools aren’t, so I suppose someone has to.
So, if all churches started teaching such classes, wouldn’t that fix the problem? Why then, don’t atheists seem to support that idea? If atheism truly is ‘a non-acceptance of the unproven concept of God’, what would be the motivation to convince anyone else to adopt that view?
Evangelical atheist: I believe in doubt in the idea of a creator who probably doesn’t exist even if I can’t state absolutely that that’s true. And you should be uncertain too, because there isn’t necessarily an afterlife and you and everyone you know will probably die in an uncaring, meaningless nothingness.
Me: Gosh, it sounds so appealing.
It’s not simply taking refuge in fantasy(granted, I do that a lot in ways that have nothing to do with religion), as I do see evidence for the existence of God. I can’t prove it, but neither can one prove it false. The fact that it is a more pleasant, appealing idea is telling of human nature- but why would I not want to embrace my nature? That it’s appealing does not imply that it’s not true.
Old atheists seemed to take a more stoic, depressing view of the essential purposelessness of existence, and value man’s ability to embrace hope even in the face of inevitable, eternal death(in other words, just as much fun to be around as most professional philosophers). But it’s hard to see why anyone would see that as a message to be spread, rather than a dispassionate acceptance of fate and a lack of belief- And that’s fine. It’s just not necessary. There’s nothing inherent in nature, to the best of my knowledge, that denies the existence of God(nothing that obviously proves it either). If there was, I’m sure we would have heard far more about it by now. Various metaphysical theories are put forth to explain the Big Bang, and none of them seem to make any more sense, or explain anything more, or are currently more “provable” than the idea that ‘there is one universe, created by God.’ It’s hardly more logical or advantageous to assume that that explanation is automatically false.
But I dunno, maybe I should give up arguing for Lent.
