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.