Okay, perhaps I’m not being charitable (i.e. putting forth the strongest argument possible). But perhaps this is characterisitc of a certain kind of atheism (i.e. atheism as protest), perhaps the more popular kind of atheism.
I’m on Facebook now. I’m going to use Facebook for the random, the silly, and the miscellaneous. So, if you’re inclined, “friend up”.
Things will be a bit more academic (but not boring) over here as I develop arguments and figure how to write like I teach. My AOS (area of specialization) is philosophy of religion. So, if you’re interested in atheism (and its many forms) and religion (and its many forms), I hope you will find what I write here worth your time, and insightful.
Of course, it won’t all be religion and atheism: Logic & critical thinking (I’m writing a critical thinking primer), men and women, the nature of philosophy, language, D. Z. Phillips (and my continued transcription of his debates and courses – including audio), David Hume, St. Augustine, St. Thmoas Aquinas, and G. K. Chesterton. In other words, anywhere my arrogance leads me to think I can say something.
So, what’s the solution? Don’t look at yourself. . . .The first step is to try to forget about yourself altogether. Your real self, your new self, will not come as long as you’re looking for it. It will come only when you’re looking for HIM.
Does that sound strange?
It shouldn’t be.
The same principle holds for more everyday matters – even in social life. You can never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you’re making. Even in literature and art. No one who bothers about originality can ever be original. Whereas if simply try to tell the truth, without caring two-pence how often it has been told before, you will, nine times out of ten, become original, without ever having noticed it.
This principle runs through all of life from top to bottom.
Give up yourself and you’ll find your real self. Lose yourself and you’ll save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions, your favorite wishes everyday, and the death of your whole body in the end. Submit with every fiber of your being and you’ll find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died can ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself and you’ll find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. Look for Christ and you’ll find HIM and with HIM everything else thrown in. Or as the most practical man who ever lived once said, this is my candidate for the most practical sentenced ever uttered in the history of the world, “what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and loses his own self.”
Do you know anyone who believes in a conspiracy theory? Here are six insights into the conspiratorial mind. Conspiratorial thinking is a kind of muddled thinking. This is not to say there can’t be a conspiracy. There is a difference between there being a conspiracy and conspiratorial thinking.
Atheism. Is it a philosophical thesis? A belief? A lack of belief? Sharper minds have recently taken up the question. But there is a strain of atheism (and perhaps it is common to all forms of atheism) which is a protest. To be this kind of atheist is to live a certain kind of life, namely, a life of rebellion; rebellion against authority.
I have in mind an atheist like Christopher Hitchens who likens God to a celestial dictator, who likens heaven to a celestial North Korea. A God whose gaze never wanders, and whose eye is ever watchful. A God who see’s in secret and see’s all secrets.
What is striking about Hitchens’ rants is that they are rants. There is no argument there. There is anger, repulsion, and defiance.
Much more should be said here, but I am reminded of something Prager said a few months back, on July 22nd to be exact:
Think about every area of life, outside of government interestingly. . . .But every area of life authority has broken down. The authority of parents, the authority of teachers, the authority of God, the authority of religion, the authority of text – all of them have been attacked and undermined.
When I think about the ability of a child to curse a teacher – I hear that in a sort of disbelief. There are kids who get up and curse teachers? . . .Teachers’ called by their first name?
There is a huge conflict between authority and equality. Because someone who is equal to you cannot have authority over you. So the rampant egalitarianism of our society has removed any concept of authority.
. . .The age of stupidity ushered in by my baby boomer generation
If you were a 5-year-old boy standing in the London streets in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee parade and marveling as the hussars and lancers of the mightiest empire the world had ever known passed before your eyes, it would have seemed inconceivable that you’d be celebrating your 80th birthday in a decrepit ramshackle broken-down strike-bound basket case of a state.
Permanence is the illusion of every age. And, if you’re interested in a “dignified retirement,” you might want to give some thought to the shape of the world the day after tomorrow.
