Yesterday I posted about the first of two conversations on the topic of the virgin birth. The conversation in yesterday’s post was with a Christian friend who didn’t believe in the virgin birth and didn’t think it really mattered anyway. Today’s post is about a conversation with an atheist friend. My friend, unlike many of those who are often referred to as the “New Atheists,” who are very judgmental, hostile, and vindictive in their tone and manner (unfortunately, reminding me of a few Christians I’ve known through the years), is generally quiet about his beliefs. He does not see that atheism is a belief system that itself requires faith in something. He sees atheism more as a believe system grounded on the absence of faith in anything. Perhaps one day I’ll have the chance to visit with him about the logical fallacy of that thought process, but that’s for another day.
It seems my friend views the world in a black and white manner, in which science is the sole arbiter of what is real and what is not. During our conversation I learned in his view the virgin birth is just one of many stories from the Bible which are counter to our understanding of how this world works and which therefore must not be true. He said that given the Bible is “full of these untruths,” then the religions that use the Bible or any part of it as their “holy book” simply cannot be true. Likewise, in his view, the concept of a god cannot be proven by scientific means, and until it is, he’s not going to accept that there is a god.
In the previous paragraph I have summarized my understanding of my friend’s beliefs, and by doing so succinctly like this, I have stated them far more forcibly and bluntly than he ever would. He’s a nice guy who is not looking to pick a fight about religion and generally keeps his beliefs to himself and probably wishes others would too.
In the conversation I told my friend science was always my favorite subject in school, and I still enjoy studying and learning in certain scientific fields, particularly astronomy and physics, but I didn’t see science as the end all of what is real and what is not. I asked him why he did view things that way. He told me he felt a person can only reliably determine truth when something can be proven scientifically. He said he believes we have a tendency to make up “truths” for the things we cannot understand or do not want to accept. Therefore he has a general distrust of things that cannot be proven because he fears such things may be false concoctions of man. He also said he believes god was made up over time to serve as anything from a father figure to a villain to help us deal with the hard parts of life by running to god for shelter or by blaming god; thus relieving ourselves from responsibility when things go wrong. I asked him if he had read the writings of Freud and Marx where they expressed similar viewpoints on mankind’s need for a god. He told me he was a little familiar with them, but had never really studied them, which surprised and to some degree disappointed me.
I then asked him if he knew who discovered radioactivity. After a few second he recalled it was Madame Curie. I followed up asking him when radioactivity came to exist. He shook his head slowly and said he didn’t know. I could see the troubled look on his face when I pointed out that using his standard for what did and did not exist, that radioactivity didn’t exist until she discovered it. His response was that I was twisting his words a bit about his view of science as the determiner of what is and is not. I asked him to help me correct my understanding of his view on that, and he struggled in thought for a little bit and eventually, instead of responding to my request, he said something like “Well that doesn’t in anyway prove there is a god or that the virgin birth or other unbelievable stories in the Bible really happened.” I told him I agreed that it didn’t prove any of it. I was not trying to prove any of those things; I was trying to understand his view of science as the filter of determining what is real.
From here, we discussed what science is and that it is limited by what we can observe directly or find a way to measure. He agreed and pointed out in the case of Madame Curie, as soon as we developed the technology to be able to measure the existence of radioactivity we did so. I told him that may be true, but that radioactivity existed before it could be measured, which illustrates a limitation of science as a sole means of determining truth. I explained to him my viewpoint that science is the means by which we discover how things that exist work and sometimes how they came to be. I told him I believe God placed in mankind a desire to understand the universe in which we live, a trait that makes us different from the rest of life on Earth, and that I believe over time God reveals to us through common reason, occasionally through the minds of geniuses, and at times through technological advances an ever expanding view of the mechanics of this universe – from the sub-atomic level to the cosmological extremes. I also described how I believe science is our primary way for discovering how things work, but it is not, and I believe never will be, of great value in determining why those things exists or why they work the way they work.
He seemed receptive and interested, so I continued by asking him how he viewed the relationship between faith and reason. He said he views faith and reason as contradictory with each other…as opposites. He believes Christians are generally people going through the motions and emotions of faith and who have chosen not to think about why they believe what they believe and have rejected reason. Unfortunately, in many cases, I believe he has a point here. He said that either something is real, and can be established through reason, or it is not real and can only be accepted by blind faith. I agreed with him that many people share his view of faith versus reason, but I told him I see things differently.
To me, faith is not just belief in something we can’t prove true, and it certainly is not believing in something known to be false. Rather faith is dedicating oneself to an idea, a concept, or a viewpoint to the degree that it impacts who you are, how you make decisions, and how you respond to things. I told him that based on our conversation I thought he had a strong faith in science, with which he agreed. I said to me faith takes the resulting “hows” of reason and enables us to explore the “whys” behind them, and faith at times even enables us to postulate new “hows” that become the hypothesis science uses to advance. I see a false dichotomy between faith and reason, which seems to have only arisen in recent history. Through much of history, at least western history, many of our scientific discoveries and advances came from the endeavors of the clergy and others within the church. Admittedly, at times the church to its detriment resisted the discoveries of science, but such resistance was short-lived. I also pointed out that many of the universities and hospitals of today were established by faith-based institutions and have been the birthplaces of much scientific discovery and application.
I had hoped to explore with him various arguments for the existence of God, but I sensed it was time to draw this conversation to a close as it had already lasted quite a while and covered a lot of ground. So I acknowledged the time and in closing asked him if he was familiar with any such arguments. He wasn’t. I explained that of course these arguments do not prove the existence of God or necessarily even address God’s nature, but they do build a reasonable, logically sound case for a creator. I picked up a Post-it note and wrote the names of three of these arguments that have been impactful on my thinking, and I wrote the names of two books I asked him consider reading. The Post-it note read:
Cosmological - R.C. Sproul “Not a Chance”
Moral – C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity
Teleological – Design in nature = Designer
I hope this conversation helps my friend and pray God guides him and all of us who seek truth.
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As I wrote yesterday, I will write again today. I tell this story, not to toot my own horn, but to share with whoever reads this certain things God has been teaching me. In fact, many of the thoughts I shared here are things I’ve learned in recent years, so the only horn I’m tooting is God’s. I toot God’s horn to thank Him for opening my eyes to certain things (even if only in small glimpses) and for allowing me the chance at times to be a vehicle through which He opens others’ eyes. Whatever words I speak that help open others’ eyes are words given me by God. All too often, in looking back I see opportunities for conversations like these two that I have missed. Thankfully, that is not always the case.
Now, I think it’s time for Christmas dinner!
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