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Is an Atheistic Defence of God Possible?
This article argues that both the arguments--that "God exists" and that "God does not exist"--fall within the realm of belief, and hence, religion; for the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. It stresses that atheism is not a belief in the non-existence of God but an inability to believe in the existence of God. Finally, the essay sets out to examine if there can be an atheistic defence of the concept (not existence, which cannot be proved) of God, and concludes by arguing that it is the only kind of defence of God that is rationally possible.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I am not sure if the actions of believers of the religious sort—regardless of whether they want to insist on Jesus being the son of God, on the Quran being the word of Allah, or on Ganesha being the product of “Vedic” plastic surgery—have actually had an equal reaction, but they definitely have had an opposite, if vastly unequal, reaction. The “New Atheists” (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens et al) are more or less what this unequal but opposite reaction boils down to. Obviously, doubters can never match the vehemence of believers, and hence it would be folly to expect atheists to match the actions of staunch believers in God—historically and also concurrently, in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, which do not seem to agree on anything except the gory fate of doubters. After all, what do staunch believers have to lose but their heads, when the only thing an atheist has to lose is his, or her, head!
New Atheism as Religion
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