In Praise of Atheists

Here is yet another digression in my series on the Phoenix Affirmations. It'll be a short one because I need to get back to working on regular stuff for Easter.

I've had a number of atheists and agnostic friends over the years. One thing that I've discovered is that conversations with them have been very helpful to my spiritual growth. There are things that talking to them can give you that you usually can't get talking to a believer. Don't get me wrong, I love talking to other Christians, but they tend to be too polite to me and respectful to ask the tough questions.

"It says in Matthew that Jesus died on Friday, but in John he dies on Thursday. How do you deal with that kind of contradiction in the Bible?"

"I just saw that a famous preacher named (fill in the name) was caught (fill in the scandal). How do you deal with that kind of hypocrisy in the church?"

"I was reading the Bible and ran across a passage where God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide. How do you deal with that?"

Those are questions that need to be dealt with, and struggling with them has done a lot to shape and deepen my faith. They are the kind of questions an honest outsider will ask. Sometime the asking comes in the form of polite inquiry (I like that), other times it comes as angry accusation (not so much fun) but either way it raises important questions.

My sense has been that most atheists and agnostics are very honest in their questioning. There are a few who are just out to start a fight, or take a cheap shot, but they're a minority. You only ask questions about something if that thing is, on some level, important to you. Some are fascinated by the idea of faith; some are repelled by the fact that so many people allow 'irrational superstition' to guide their lives. Most take the questions they ask very seriously.

I do get frustrated when one of these conversations turns one-sided. Some of the atheists I've talked to seem to have very little interest in my responses to their questions, or their accusations. Some seem less interested in learning what my position actually is than they are in telling me it's wrong. I'm afraid I've let myself get short tempered a few times. That's been a mistake. Even when the tone is strident, the questions they raise still deserve serious consideration.

I've learned something interesting in these conversations. There are a lot of things they say that I agree with. When they tell me why they don't believe in God, they usually give me reasons that it's easy to respect.

"I can't believe in a God who would sanction genocide."

"I can't believe in a God who would condemn people to everlasting punishment for belonging to another religion, or for having no religion."

"I can't believe in a God who would sanction the bombing of an abortion clinic, or the shooting of an abortion doctor.

"I can't believe in a God whose followers are more interested in covering up a scandal than in caring for suffering people."

As it happens, I can't believe any of those things either.

The sad truth is that many Christians carry around false ideas of God. Those ideas are based on notions that the preacher is infallible, or the church hierarchy is infallible, or the church doctrines are infallible, or even that the Bible is infallible. They imagine that finding a flaw in any of those things is the same as finding a flaw in God so they shut their eyes to the flaws.

But God is greater than the preacher, or the doctrine, or the theology, or the hierarchy, or even the Bible. All of those things are tools to help us understand God. They can be wonderful tools but, when we forget that's all they are and start acting as if they are interchangeable with God we've made a terrible mistake. We've created a false idea of God and put it in the place of the real God.

It's these false ideas that atheists and agnostics are so good at identifying and criticizing, and they do believers an invaluable service. Honest questions are never the enemy of the true God; they are an important part of any healthy faith.

(That was not a short digression, was it? I'll work on it.)