Why Do Smart Atheists Believe Dumb Things?

Last updated on: October 14, 2015 at 11:03 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Why Do Smart Atheists Believe Dumb Things? 2015-10-14T23:03:00-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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At any point when I engage with village atheists (not professional philosophers) my students will often respond: what is wrong with these people? A simple way to get philosophy students who are religious to relax about “all powerful” atheists is to have them attempt dialogue with Internet (or village) atheists.

It goes about as well as if philosophically acute atheists tried to go to a fringe church and talk to laypeople. Students if they are not careful will dismiss atheism out of hand.

The usual strategy in dealing with “smart people” who believe dumb things (or things I think are dumb) is to explain away their “dumb” beliefs in a variety of ways. I am sure that some of these are even true of some people sometimes. Atheism or anti-religious views are popular in certain fields and there is peer pressure to accept them. Traditional religious belief is unpopular in fields where people know little about philosophy, but a great deal of science. I have personally known people who rejected religious truths, because they conflicted with certain desires and then looked for intellectual reasons to justify those immoral decisions.

I don’t think that covers most thoughtful atheists.

Internet atheists, most of them anyway, remain atheists even though their arguments are mostly ad hominem mixed with tu toque, almost total ignorance of philosophy of religion, and Richard Dawkins’ talking points, because atheism is fundamentally plausible. Christians should never dismiss atheism, even the most popular sort, or other religious traditions by assuming they are obviously wrong.

They are not. When large numbers of smart people believe a thing, the obviousness of the error should be questioned. Assuming some sociological answer to “why my smart neighbor doesn’t see the world they way I do” is insulting and intellectually lazy. Let’s be plain: atheism is an old (Lucretius!) and important intellectual tradition. It might be the way to go. I don’t think so, but this is not so self-evident intellectually that all opponents are obviously stupid or lazy or controlled by immorality or smart in one area and not in another.

When something that seems obvious to me isn’t to a person who seems to care about truth, charity commands me to take them at their word. They don’t agree with me: that doesn’t mean they are stupid, deceived, immoral, groomed, or even wrong. I must always consider the idea I might be wrong.

We can see why we should do this when “outsiders” make the same uncharitable and foolish mistake in talking to us. They assume they know what we believe better than we do!

Nothing is more frustrating than when the opponents of Christianity will insist on defining our terms for us in ways that are unrecognizable. For example, I meet atheists all the time that think for a Christian, “faith” is believing something against the evidence or despite the evidence. Now since one can simply look up the Catechism of the Catholic Church (I am not Catholic, but most of the world’s Christians are), or the writings of John Calvin or an Orthodox discussion of faith and reason and see this wrong, it is odd this isn’t done. Shouldn’t one at least take the definitions of Saint John Paul II in a document on faith and reason as a starting point?

Instead, one will get someone with no Biblical training using a Bible verse to define what he thinks we think faith is. If that seems foolish, it is. Let’s not do the same. Should we then move from this epic fail to our own wrong idea about atheism? By no means! One could just assume the atheist is a dullard, hiding something, or deceived. I think not. I think they are getting intellectual strength from the best reasons for atheism (the problem of pain and an all perfect God, the hiddenness of God, and other issues). People are atheists because atheism might be true, just as I think so many people are Muslims because it is plausible.

I think both Islam and atheism false, but am not arrogant enough (or should not be) to say they are obviously false or smart people who are atheist or Muslim are in denial. Thinking a person wrong, even seriously wrong, is not the same as knowing their views are foolish and mine are not. When I am sure that all my opponents, even the nice ones, are naïve, arrogant, or fools, then I am almost surely naïve, arrogant, or a fool.

Instead, we recognize the limits of argument. As far as it goes, a man can be rational and be an atheist. A man can be rational and be a Muslim. I have yet to meet a rational man that is “flat earth” so this is not saying every view meets this standard! Some religious views merit and have received serious philosophic defense . . . Santa . . . not so much. Some secular views have active and noble defenders. . . . Lucretius . . . not so much.

So what should a Christian assume? A Christian should assume that their neighbor with another view is wrong and dialogue with him or her. We should not assume they are always immoral, perverse, stupid, or deceiving themselves. We are all wrong about something. Instead, charity demands we look first to ourselves (where are we cocksure?) and then to our neighbor?

One good way of looking at Biblical faith is: my belief, based on evidence of experience, revelation, and reason, of things not yet seen. I believe that something I cannot know for certain is probable enough to base my life on it. This gives an opening for reasonable people to read the evidence (and their own experience) differently. I must accept this and pray God to reveal Himself to those people. We can dialogue and argue in good faith.

Usually at this point, my secular (or more liberal religious friends) will say that this is all well and good, but I assert their mistake will damn them. If I did assert a sincere intellectual mistake would damn them, this would be bad. I do not assert this. Since God is just and loving, I assume that every person will have the truth made plain to them, at the very least at the moment of death, and that this truth will be accepted or denied. Nobody will be damned for a calculative error or a sincere mistake in epistemology.

We must be born again and Jesus is the only way to Paradise, but any individual is complicated and I have no way to judge the state of their soul, what will happen to them at the moment of death, and what they have or have not heard. My own soul is enough work for me!

And so I reject any foolish Christian belief that those who are not Christians are just smart people believing stupid things. That isn’t just stupid, it is un-Christian. The just will live by faith . . . not Cartesian certainty and so we must allow that all of us make mistakes . . . and that the one making the mistake may be me and not my neighbor!

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