The Logical Atheist

Do the Hebrew Bible and New Testament provide grounds not only for abstaining from believing in God but, further, for affirmatively believing that God does not exist? I think so. The list of moral outrages detailed in the sacred texts is so long that it ought to prompt believers to engage in the intellectual process that Auburn University philosopher Roderick T. Long (adapting John Rawls's phrase) calls "reflective equilibration." This is the procedure (used by Socrates) in which a person who encounters a logical disturbance in his web of belief undertakes to adjust at least one of the constituent beliefs in order to restore equilibrium to the web. Equilibrium, which will likely be temporary because new evidence in empirical matters can always arise, consists in the constituent ideas not conflicting with one another; they need not affirmatively support one another, but they must not conflict. This is "negative coherence," and it seems to be the best way to acq...

Well, as one who believes that the one and only reality necessarily is natural and godless, I can't actually resent God. But I can object to teaching vulnerable children and adults who are capable of knowing better that they must worship and adore the God described in the various holy books. Must worship ... or else. We know what "or else" means -- depending on the religious variant, it means death on the spot, eventual annihilation, or eternal spinning on the divine rotisserie. Some loving and merciful God, that. You don't have to read much of those books to be thankful that such a thing doesn't and couldn't exist. (Of course it's all fiction -- the greatest horror story ever told -- but the authors had reasons for telling those stories.) Tens of thousands were killed in God-commanded genocidal biblical wars; individuals, their families, and/or groups were burned to cinders or swallowed up by the earth merely for impudent thoughts and "murmurings,...

Contrary to what many people think, the intellectuals known as the New Atheists pull their punches in their case against theism. Indeed, because they promote a philosophically watered-down version of atheism, they are way too easy on religious believers. While engaged in a worthwhile cause, they go about it in a weak and self-subverting way. How so? By giving undeserved credit to their religious opponents. They could pull the rug right out from under them, but they don’t do it. Too bad. Here’s a typical example: in an interview with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Ron Reagan said this about his lack of belief in God: “You show me evidence, I’ll reconsider, but in the absence of evidence I do not believe.” You can find similar statements from the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty,* Aron Ra,** and many others, all of whom I respect. Dawkins, a biologist, for example, writes, in The God Delusion , “The existence of God is a sc...