On Saying "No" To Unfounded Faith

Recently, a friend of mine referred to me an article from the "Wall street Journal"  (Sept. 23, 2021) attacking atheism. The author,  Michael Guillen,  is a former athiest and regrets having been one.  And like so many of his kind, his justifications for abandoning non-belief  are completely wrongheaded. Here's what  he has to say:

Why Atheists Need Faith

"Atheism's central conceit is that it is a worldview grounded in logic and scientific evidence. That is has nothing to do with faith, which it associates with weakness.  In reality, faith is central to atheism, logic, and even science. 

"I became an atheist early in life and long believed that my fellow nonbelievers were an enlightened bunch. I relished citing studies appearing to show that atheists have higher IQs than believers. But when I was studying for my doctorate in physics, math and astronomy, I began questioning my secular worldview.

""Like one of Hermann Hesse’s tormented intellectuals, I set off to explore alternatives—beginning with Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism. This turned into a decades-long intellectual-spiritual journey. Ultimately I became a Christian, but along the way I discovered fascinating differences and similarities among humanity’s many religions and philosophies. I learned that all views of the world differ in three essential ways.

First, foundation. All worldviews are built on core beliefs that cannot be proved. Axioms from which everything else about a person’s perception of reality is derived. They must be accepted on faith.

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"Even reason itself—the vaunted foundation of atheism—depends on faith. Every logical argument begins with premises that are assumed to be true. Euclid’s geometry, the epitome of logical reasoning, is based on no fewer than 33 axiomatic, unprovable articles of faith.

"Second, size. Every worldview—that is, every person’s bubble of reality—has a certain diameter. That of atheism is relatively small, because it encompasses only physical reality. It has no room for other realities. Even humanity’s unique spirituality and creativity—all our emotions, including love—are reduced to mere chemistry.

"Third, deity. Without exception, every worldview is ruled over by a god or gods. It’s the who or what that occupies its center stage. Everything in a person’s life revolves around this.

When I was an atheist, a scientific monk sleeping three hours a day and spending the rest of my time immersed in studying the universe, my worldview rested on the core axiom that seeing is believing. When I learned that 95% of the cosmos is invisible, consisting of “dark matter” and “dark energy,” names for things we don’t understand, that core assumption became untenable. As a scientist, I had to believe in a universe I mostly could not see. My core axiom became “believing is seeing.” Because what we hold to be true dictates how we understand everything—ourselves, others and our mostly invisible universe, including its origin. Faith precedes knowledge, not the other way around.

"Atheism demands a small cosmos, so that is all secularist-materialists see. They bend over backward to interpret every pixel of evidence solely in terms of space, time, matter and energy. For them, that’s all there is. It’s a religious conviction they cannot prove but take on faith.

"Atheists commonly believe that science will ultimately demystify everything. But science’s worldview is becoming more mystical, not less. Witness supernatural-like concepts such as virtual particles, imaginary time and quantum entanglement. Even atheist Sam Harris admits: “I don’t know if our universe is, as JBS Haldane said, ‘not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.’ But I am sure that it is stranger than we, as ‘atheists,’ tend to represent while advocating atheism.”

"The overwhelming evidence, I’ve discovered, makes it crystal clear: Faith is the foundation of the entire human experience—the basis of both science and religion. Our faith in physical reality drives us to seek treatments for deadly diseases like Covid-19, to explore the depths of the sea, to invent the perfect source of energy. Our faith in spiritual reality drives us to create breathtaking works of art, music, and architecture; to see life as a divine creation, not an accident of nature; to be curious about things that are not of this world.

"For all those reasons and more, I’ve come to learn that atheists are greatly mistaken: Faith is anything but a weakness. It is the mightiest power in the universe." 

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Guillen is so off the  mark on so many levels, I hardly know where to start refuting him. For one thing, in the matter of faith, there's spiritual faith , e.g. religious beliefs, the contents for which there is no evidence, such as certainty of the existence of a supreme being)on one hand, and  rational faith on the other, as propose by social psychologist Erich Fromm.  An example of the latter is in the form of inductive reasoning, e.g., as per Fromm, inasmuch as  the sun has risen and set everyday for millions of years, all things being equal I have faith it will rise again tomorrow morning. Or to put this another way,  there's no basis to think that that Earth will not complete another rotation in its usual 24 hours cycle, just as it's done for eons. And this belief is supported by our knowledge of astronomy. 

 

The physical universe as an infinite entity includes everything that exists in nature, and accordingly,  as an atheist I very much appreciate its magnificence.  And if that appreciation, along with other emotions such as the deep love that I feel for my wife can in fact be reduced to chemistry,  well so what? It doesn't make them any less genuine. 

Or take Guillen's assertion: "... my worldview rested on the core axiom that seeing is believing. When I learned that 95% of the cosmos is invisible, consisting of “dark matter” and “dark energy,” names for things we don’t understand, that core assumption became untenable". That is spoken like a true god-believer which at heart he must have been all along . Atheists don't  need to see something to believe that it exists. Take the wind for example.  Who has ever seen it? But it can be felt and above  all measured. And just because cosmologists  can't at present fully explain dark matter and dark energy, that doesn't mean that they necessarily never will. Discoveries of that nature don't happen overnight. Considering what has been learned about the universe in, say, the last 50 years, imagine what knowledge the next fifty will bring.  

Finally, are atheists invincible and invulnerable when it comes to  erroneous and superstitious beliefs? Of course not.  Nor should we claim to be. The following post from the blog site "Atheist Revolution" well confirms that fact.

"New Age Beliefs Among Atheists: Religion Is Just One Of the Hydra's Heads"

It's just that of all foolish beliefs and misplaced faith that some individual atheists may harbor, god-belief—which is probably the biggest delusion in the history of humankind—is not one of them.

What The F--k Is the Matter With These People?

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the minds of many  Americans who've never even had the disease i.e. in terms of their reaction to the virus' mere existence which many of them refuse to even acknowledge. And in light of their hostility to compliance with  simple life saving measures including  wearing face masks and refusing vaccinations against the disease, I'm  very glad that my wife and I are living abroad.  As such we have been able to observe this phenomenon of lunacy from afar and in safety from the violence that many of these crazies have committed against mask wearers and vaccine advocates. Moreover,I'm also concerned  about the outrageous attacks in the U.S. against Asian-Americans, who have been scapegoated as sources of the the coronavirus, especially inasmuch as my wife is a Filipina and so would be at risk if we were still living in the States. 

Things were bad enough before the pandemic when the anti-vaxxers were mainly irresponsible parents who were jeopardizing the safety and lives of their children by refusing to have them inoculated against childhood diseases. But now this twisted mentality of resistance has mutated  into opposition to coronavirus vaccinations  as well and has affected the thinking of  many others,including  elected officials at various levels, mainly Republicans (imagine that).  It's  as though it were an epidemic itself, and one for which there is no cure. Just how out of control the situation has become in America is well documented in the following two articles which  happened appear online on the same day. 

"Doctor sounds alarm on low vaccination rates: 'It’s not a debate. It’s science.'"

"We’ve plummeted from dumb to dumber — to proud and unapologetically ignorant | Opinion"

In the end, I suppose  what it boils down to is that Americans who want to get vaccinated will do so. And those don't, won't. Will this leave the latter to eventually infect and kill off each other? If so, they will they have no one to blame but themselves.

Can America Really Recover from the Trump Era?

As a result of four years of Trumpism culminating in an attempt  by President Trump and his followers to viciously  overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,  American democracy has been grievously wounded. Considering the following two articles I wonder whether even a new and Democratic administration can repair the damage that  Trump did to the country--or whether the millions of  Americans--who after all  elected him in 2016 in the first place embody a national character  flaw that's too deeply rooted to be cured and will continue to drag down the U.S. 

Most Americans reject the attack on the Capitol — but millions empathize with the mob

Police departments across the U.S. open probes into whether their own members took part in the Capitol riot

But what's particularly disturbing is that the deadly violence against the American people, government property, and the political system  which Trump and his  domestic terrorists followers have committed may not be over. Some say that  impeachment efforts against Trump will only fan the flames of violence by these people. I disagree. I think that they will go forward with their plans of destruction either way.

As Inauguration Nears, Concern Of More Violence Grows

These are grim times, and they are complicated by the COVID pandemic which continues to infect and kill Americans in record number daily, in relation to which, the national  deployment of vaccines is going more slowly than planned.

So, Biden's intended efforts to rebuild the country notwithstanding, I believe that the difficult era the U.S. is experiencing will likely be upon us for a long time to come. And the plague of diehard Trump  loyalists amongst real Americans is surely not going to make recovery any easier.