I get atheism. I really do.

I even have respect for atheism as it makes sense. It’s not hard to connect the dots and arrive at the conclusion that there is no “supernatural” reality and that all of the religions practiced in all of the cultures throughout human history are just different manifestations of fantasies.

I mean look at all of the evidence!

Pick a belief system and make it hold together. Make there be consistency between theory and practice. Make it stand alone on the merits against all of the arguments to the contrary.

It’s really, really hard.

I would have no problem standing on a stage and debating the theist from any of the faith systems that have ever existed. I could spend hours taking pot shots at the holes in their theories. I should know.

It’s agnosticism that I have trouble with. I’m not speaking of the agnostic who is trying to know. I’m speaking of the agnostic who doesn’t care to know. We’ll get to that later.

Atheism is different. Atheism is a faith because, of course, you can’t prove a negative. You can’t prove there is no God, no more than you can prove there is a God.

What got me going on this is the coincidental two conversations I had at different ends of the day a couple of weeks ago about Joel Osteen, he of the Prosperity Gospel. Both conversations started with people wondering why he didn’t open his megachurch in Houston to the dispossessed from Hurricane Harvey. He is one of the most famous self-avowed Christians in America. I guess, under pressure eventually, he relented and opened up his huge former home of the Houston Rockets to the needy. I was not surprised in the least that he needed to have his arm twisted.

His example and the example of those like him is one reason I can have respect for atheists.

I used to attend church with Diane on very rare occasions, sitting in the pew listening to the sermon with a posture that probably would have frozen boiling water. I readily jumped on every snippet that I found objectionable, comparing the message being preached with the real world as I knew it and easily finding the message akin to snake oil. And I was being nice.

I mean I knew the pastor meant well and I knew the attendees were good people for the most part and I knew the causes they supported (such as helping the poor) were often (not always) noble. But, think of all of the gaps in their thinking! Think of all the gaps between what they believed and what the actual reality of things was!

Let’s be objective about this. I mean from that vantage point, you have this guy, Jesus. He may or may not have actually lived. That’s debatable, depending upon what you pick as source material. You have some other guys who at some point begin to say things about him to convince other people that he’s something special. And, in a way what they say may have some veracity. Over time, groups of men get together to try to hammer out what is true or not and they come up with a bunch of creeds. What? Did they vote? Is the truth that persists through the ages the result of a bunch of guys casting ballots? Let’s hit the pause button on that.

Adding fuel to the fire, you have this big compendium of poems, lists, stories, letters, predictions, histories, rules, dreams and so forth … all put together and sold as the Word of God. Which some people say must be taken literally (as translated through multiple languages over thousands of years) and other people say you can pick and choose what to actually believe.

And you factor in more disputes and schisms and wars and terror and strife and the question of evil and all of the variations … and that’s just in Christianity, the religion of love, grace and peace. We haven’t even got to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Animism, Zoroastrianism, Druidism and the mythologies of the Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Incas, Aztecs and every other culture throughout history.

This is why I get atheism. And, Joel Osteen could almost make me an atheist. In fact people like him are a principal reason why I battled so hard for so long. How could the God I heard in March 2005 come out of the mouths of people like him and so many others be anything close to a real God?

Not that I’m judgmental, of course. 🙂

Of course, I know a lot of people who self-describe as “Believers.” This is a term that was largely unfamiliar to me before I became a member of that tribe. Loosely, it refers to the group who accept Jesus as the incarnated true God and pretty much buy into the meaning of his life, teaching, death and resurrection. While individual members of this large tribe may dispute this or that particular belief regarding this or that particular thing (say issues regarding sex, interpreting the Bible, political and economic philosophies, etc…) they largely agree on several foundational values. Of course, what might be relatively unknown to people not in this group is the fact that all people in this group have doubts. They have questions and concerns. In other words, while they accept the fact of “the rock on which I stand,” they/we sometimes feel on shaky ground. All is not perfect as we are human.

I don’t know a lot of atheists. I do know a few as they’ve admitted that and I take them at their word. Of course, I read about atheism and have read quite a few atheist teachings. I’m aware that, although they still constitute a relatively small percentage of our American population, they are growing in numbers and influence. For many of them, they sense the tide beginning to turn away from a Christian-centric worldview in our culture and this is giving them traction. For them, Reason and Science are King. I have written before that we all need a fundamental set of values by which we can organize our lives, whether we recognize those or not. We all worship at some alter and for some that is the alter of our own selves. The committed atheist has concluded the evidence for a God is completely insufficient in light of all of the data. They become “believers” of a different stripe. For them, life is organized around the precept that there is no God and that is the rock upon which they stand. I have to say, they have many very good points and their arguments are worth considering.

For the purposes of this reflection, I’m basically looking at the culture in which you and I live. In other words, early 21^st century America. Maybe I’ll expand this in a future post but that will take a lot longer. An organization entitled the Pew Research Center is widely recognized as the most authoritative body that gathers and publishes data on religious practice. Its most recent data on American religious affiliation showed approximately 70% identifying as Christian (In descending order of membership: Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Mainline Protestant and Historical Black Protestant). That total Christian figure also includes Mormons at 1.6% and Jehovah’s Witnesses at .8%. (Most mainstream Christians have a hard time linking either of these two groups to Christianity, despite their claims. Regardless, they are very small in number, relatively speaking.) Aside from that 70%, only 5.9% adhere to other religions. Of those, 1.9% are Jewish, .9% are Muslims, .7% are Buddhists, .7% are Hindus and .3% adhere to other identifiable religions (Unitarians, Humanists, Deists, Pagan or Wiccan, Native American as examples). That leaves just under 23% who say they are “Unaffiliated,” otherwise referred to as “Nones.” Of those, 3.1% of the total population identify as Atheist, 4.0% as Agnostic and 15.8% as “Nothing in Particular” which is itself broken down into the 8.8% who claim religion is not important and 6.9% who claim it is. Whew!!

In other words, while Belief and, in particular, Christian Belief constitutes the large majority, there are a significant number of people who don’t identify with a particular belief. Of that significant majority, I have to say that Atheists should be separated because they are actually Believers. They are different from Agnostics (“A” as a negative and “gnosis” meaning knowledge) in that Atheists have committed to the Faith that there is no God, making them actually very religious!

While I disagree with them for all sorts of perfectly rational and scientific reasons, I like their commitment to finding the truth. They take the time to sort things out after examining a whole lot of evidence. No offense to the Agnostics or Nothing in Particulars, but, in my experience, it’s often because getting to the bottom of things is not a priority.

Interestingly, this latter group is the fastest growing group in America and I’m fascinated by it. They are much more significant in numbers than Atheists, who increasingly have a voice and platform far exceeding their numbers. Having been a Nothing in Particular for so long, I’m in a pretty good position to consider their dilemma. In fact, a good slice of these reflections are written with them in mind.

So, while Atheism can be seen as the antithesis of Christian Belief, we share some strong similarities, among them very established sets of foundational principles and values that can be logically supported. (Of course each side will identify fatal flaws in the logic of the other side!) Both sides need to be distinguished from the many others who can not identify foundational principles and values, especially their source. It’s not hard to see that in an era of increasing moral relativism where the guiding principle is how “I feel,” it becomes difficult to take a stand and easy to see why “Nothing in Particular” is an attractive alternative.

I could go on much longer but it’s time to get back to Joel Osteen and wrap this up. To me, buying into his message that belief in Jesus will bring us material prosperity, is a corruption of the Gospel in a way that is obvious to the doubters and seductive to so many others. Such slick purveyors of snake oil have always been with us (Jesus and Paul both spent a bunch of time talking about them) and (while not obvious to their adherents) can be easily exposed like the Wizard behind the curtain of Oz. That they get a lot of attention because of their telegenic qualities and soothing messages is a key turnoff to those who expect foundational principles of a much deeper variety.

As fellow believers, atheists and Christians should consider the nature of their conversation and engage in it humbly with open hearts and ears. As both camps seek to influence that large minority who are either seeking truth or not interested, the conversation is slightly different but the principles of humility and listening don’t change.

In conclusion, while I get Atheism, my hope is that they spend as much time questioning their faith as I do mine. Self-righteousness is never a healthy place for any Believer.

So, what do you believe and why?