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012 - What is Atheism · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: What is atheism? Between atheism and theism, there is no
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  Speaker 1: logical halting place, but there are unfortunately many illogical ones.
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  Speaker 1: Few possess the capacity for pushing their ideas to a
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  Speaker 1: logical conclusion, and some position is finally discovered which has
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  Speaker 1: the weakness of both extremes, with the strength of neither
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  Speaker 1: with many. There is a vague talk of a power
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  Speaker 1: manifested in the universe, and by giving this the dignity
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  Speaker 1: of capital letters, it is evidently hoped that ether people
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  Speaker 1: will recognize it as an equivalent for God. But power,
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  Speaker 1: with or without capitals, is not God. It is not
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  Speaker 1: the existence of a power that forms the kernel of
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  Speaker 1: the dispute between the theist and the atheist, but what
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  Speaker 1: that power is like. The issue arises on the point
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  Speaker 1: of whether it is personal or not. That it is
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  Speaker 1: is what the religious man believes, As mister Balfour says,
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  Speaker 1: when the plain man speaks of God, he means a
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  Speaker 1: God whom men can love, to whom men can pray,
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  Speaker 1: who take sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose attributes,
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  Speaker 1: however conceived, leaves the possibility of a personal relation between
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  Speaker 1: himself and those whom he has created Theism and Humanism,
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  Speaker 1: page twenty one. What the genuine believer has in view
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  Speaker 1: is not the worthless abstraction of a rationalized metaphysic, but
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  Speaker 1: the personal being of historic theology. It is now my
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  Speaker 1: purpose to take a few of these substitutes for atheism,
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  Speaker 1: by the aid of which some persons seek to mark
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  Speaker 1: themselves off from a declared and reasoned unbelief. As outstanding
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  Speaker 1: examples of this one may take two men of no
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  Speaker 1: less eminence than Herbert Spencer and Professor Huxley. Both of
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  Speaker 1: these men have rendered great service to advanced thoughts, but
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  Speaker 1: both have only succeeded in repudiating atheism by misstating and
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  Speaker 1: misrepresenting it. In addition to the service that Spencer unwittingly
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  Speaker 1: rendered the current religion by his use of the unknowable
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  Speaker 1: with which we deal fully later, a further help was
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  Speaker 1: given by his destruction of an atheism that had no existence.
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  Speaker 1: This remarkable performance will be found in the first part
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  Speaker 1: of his First Principles. Respecting the Origin of the Universe,
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  Speaker 1: he tells us there are three intelligible propositions, although neither
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  Speaker 1: of these, on his own showing, is intelligible. We may
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  Speaker 1: assert that it is self existent, that it is self created,
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  Speaker 1: or that it is created by an external agency. All
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  Speaker 1: three propositions he proceeds to show are equally inconceivable. The
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  Speaker 1: noticeable thing about the performance is that atheism is identified
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  Speaker 1: with the proposition that the universe is self existent. A
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  Speaker 1: very slight acquaintance with the writings of representitive atheists would
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  Speaker 1: have shown mister Spencer that the origin of the universe
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  Speaker 1: is one of those questions on which atheism has wisely
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  Speaker 1: been silent, and it has also insisted that all attempts
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  Speaker 1: to deal with such a question can only result in
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  Speaker 1: a meaningless string of words. To the atheist, the universe
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  Speaker 1: the sum of existence, is a fact that no amount
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  Speaker 1: of reasoning can get behind or beyond. To think of
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  Speaker 1: the universe as a whole is an impossibility, while to
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  Speaker 1: talk of its origin is to assume first that it
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  Speaker 1: did originate, and second that we have some means by
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  Speaker 1: which we can transcend all the known limits of the
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  Speaker 1: human mind. The atheist can say, and has said with
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  Speaker 1: mister Spencer himself, whose final statement of agnosticism differs in
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  Speaker 1: no material respect from atheism, that in discussing the origin
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  Speaker 1: of the universe, we can only succeed in multiplying impossibilities
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  Speaker 1: of thought by every attempt we make to explain its existence.
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  Speaker 1: No one has pointed out more clearly than mister Spencer
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  Speaker 1: that infinity is not a conception, but the negation of one.
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  Speaker 1: The pity is that he did not realize that in
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  Speaker 1: taking up this position, he was on exactly the same
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  Speaker 1: level of criticism that atheists have pursued. For them, the
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  Speaker 1: universe is an ultimate fact. All that we can do
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  Speaker 1: is to mark the ceaseless changes always going on around us,
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  Speaker 1: and to develop our capacity for modifying their action in
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  Speaker 1: the interests of human welfare. Farther than this, our knowledge
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  Speaker 1: does not and cannot go. And it may be added
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  Speaker 1: that even though our knowledge could go beyond the world
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  Speaker 1: of phenomena, such knowledge would not be of the slightest
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  Speaker 1: possible value. It may also be pointed out that just
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  Speaker 1: as it is not true that atheism attempts to explain
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  Speaker 1: the origin of the universe, so it is unfair to
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  Speaker 1: tie the atheist down to any particular theory of cosmic evolution.
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  Speaker 1: As a mental attitude, atheism is quite independent of any
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  Speaker 1: theory of cosmic working, so long as that theory does
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  Speaker 1: not involve an appeal to deity. As we shall see,
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  Speaker 1: atheism from the point of view both of history and
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  Speaker 1: in etymology, stands for the negation of theism, and its
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  Speaker 1: final justification must be found in the untenability of the
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  Speaker 1: theistic position. Rightly enough, it may be argued that the
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  Speaker 1: acceptance of atheism implies a certain general mental attitude towards
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  Speaker 1: both cosmic and social questions. But the atheist as such
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  Speaker 1: is no more committed to a special scientific theory than
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  Speaker 1: he is committed to a special theory of government. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: it is convenient for the theist to first of all,
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  Speaker 1: saddle his opponent with a set of social or scientific beliefs,
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  Speaker 1: and then to assume that in attacking those beliefs he
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  Speaker 1: is demolishing atheism, But it is nonetheless fighting on a
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  Speaker 1: false issue. All that atheism necessary barely involves is that
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  Speaker 1: all forms of theism are logically untenable, and consequently, the
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  Speaker 1: only effective method of destroying atheism is to establish its opposite.
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  Speaker 1: Professor Huxley's treatment of atheism proceeds on similar lines to
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  Speaker 1: that already dealt with, but is more elaborate in character.
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  Speaker 1: Discussing the nature of his own opinions, he repudiates all
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  Speaker 1: sympathy with atheism, because the problem of the ultimate cause
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  Speaker 1: of existence is one which seems to me to be
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  Speaker 1: hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all
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  Speaker 1: the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read,
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  Speaker 1: the demonstrations of those philosophers who undertake to tell us
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  Speaker 1: about the nature of God would be the worst if
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  Speaker 1: they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of
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  Speaker 1: the philosophers who try to prove there is no God
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  Speaker 1: on the hypothesis the animals are automata. And on another occasion,
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  Speaker 1: replying to a correspondent, he expresses the opinion that atheism
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  Speaker 1: is on philosophical growth, untenable. That there is no evidence
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  Speaker 1: of the God of the theologians is true enough, but
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  Speaker 1: strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. When we
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  Speaker 1: know nothing, we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety
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  Speaker 1: Life and Letters, page one sixty two. Here again we
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  Speaker 1: have the common error that atheism seeks in some way
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  Speaker 1: to explain the ultimate cause of existence, and this in
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  Speaker 1: spite of continuous disclaimers that all search for a first
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  Speaker 1: cause or for a cause of existence is midsummer madness.
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  Speaker 1: The fault here, we suspect is that both writers took
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  Speaker 1: their statement of atheism not from atheistic writers, but from
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  Speaker 1: their opponents. But it is nonetheless surprising that it was
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  Speaker 1: not recognized that both a first cause and an ultimate
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  Speaker 1: cause of existence are strictly speaking, theistic questions. I do
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  Speaker 1: not mean that these questions may not suggest themselves to
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  Speaker 1: non theists, but that, when they are raised clearly and definitely,
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  Speaker 1: they are seen to belong to a class of questions
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  Speaker 1: to which no rational answer is possible. To the theist, however,
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  Speaker 1: the questions arise from his primary assumptions. His theory is
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  Speaker 1: one of final causes, his deity is postulated as the
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  Speaker 1: cause of existence, and he cannot give up the questions
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  Speaker 1: as hopeless without admitting his position to be indefensible. It
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  Speaker 1: is quite usual for the theist to propound problems which
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  Speaker 1: only arise on his own assumptions, and then call upon
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  Speaker 1: his opponents for answers to them. But there is no
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  Speaker 1: justification whatever for non theists playing the same game. Atheism
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with final causes, and therefore is
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  Speaker 1: not concerned with defending its illogicalities. Theism is a doctrine
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  Speaker 1: of final causes, and in arguing that it is absurd
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  Speaker 1: to express an opinion upon the subject, Professor Huxley was
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  Speaker 1: adding a good reason in support of the position, leaved
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  Speaker 1: himself to be destroying. Huxley's other objection to atheism is
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  Speaker 1: that it perpetuates the absurdity of trying to prove there
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  Speaker 1: is no God. How far is that true or in
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  Speaker 1: what sense is it true? The danger in all discussion
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  Speaker 1: on this point lies in our taking it for granted
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  Speaker 1: that God conveys a definite and identical meaning to all people.
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  Speaker 1: But this is very far from being the case. What
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  Speaker 1: anyone means by God it is impossible to say until
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  Speaker 1: some further description has been given. When this has been done,
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  Speaker 1: and not until then, God may become the subject of
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  Speaker 1: affirmation or denial. Until then we are playing with empty words.
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  Speaker 1: By itself, God means nothing. It offers the possibility of
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  Speaker 1: neither negation nor affirmation. Now, Professor Huxley would have readily
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  Speaker 1: admitted that the truth of a proposition may be denied
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  Speaker 1: whenever its terms involve a contradiction, and the ground of
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  Speaker 1: this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms together
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  Speaker 1: in thought that a circle may be square, or that
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  Speaker 1: parallel lines may enclose a space, or propositions the truth
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  Speaker 1: of which may be denied offhand. The ground of this
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  Speaker 1: is that the conception of squareness and circularity, of straight
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  Speaker 1: lines and an enclosed space are mutually destructive. They cancel
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  Speaker 1: each other, And so far as atheism may be said
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  Speaker 1: to involve the denial of particular gods, that denial is
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  Speaker 1: based upon precisely similar grounds. When defined, it is seen
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  Speaker 1: that the attributes of this defined god cancel each other
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  Speaker 1: as effectually as squareness rules out the idea of a circle.
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  Speaker 1: Either this or they are simply unthinkable. You cannot have
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  Speaker 1: an infinite personality any more than you can have a
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  Speaker 1: six sided octagon, nor can you posit an infinite personality
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  Speaker 1: without divesting the terms of all meaning. It may also
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  Speaker 1: be noted in passing that both the theist and the
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  Speaker 1: agnostic actually do deny the existence of particular gods without
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  Speaker 1: the least hesitation. No rational agnostic would hesitate to deny
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  Speaker 1: the existence of Jupiter, Java, Allah, or Brahma. No Christian
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  Speaker 1: would hesitate to deny the existence of the gods of
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  Speaker 1: a tribe of savages. Even believers in the current theology
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  Speaker 1: have evolved beyond the stage of the primitive Christians, who
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  Speaker 1: accepted the existence of the pagan deities with the proviso
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  Speaker 1: that they were demons. And it is a mere verbal
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  Speaker 1: quibble to say that these people merely deny each other's
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  Speaker 1: conception of deity. Each man's conception of God is his God,
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  Speaker 1: and to say that no being answering to that conception
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  Speaker 1: exists is to say that his God does not exist.
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  Speaker 1: And in relation to the God denied, the denier is
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  Speaker 1: in exactly the position in which he places the atheist.
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  Speaker 1: So far, then the atheism of each is just a
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  Speaker 1: question of degree or a relation. So far as atheism
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  Speaker 1: involves the denial of deity, the follower of one religion
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  Speaker 1: is an atheist in relation to the followers of every
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  Speaker 1: other religion. Each religion among civilized people is atheistic from
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  Speaker 1: the standpoint of the followers of other gods. The affirmation
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  Speaker 1: of one god involves the denial of other gods. This
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  Speaker 1: would really seem to be the historical significance of the term.
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  Speaker 1: The early Christians were called atheists by the Pagans, and
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  Speaker 1: some of them accepted it without demur. At a later date, Spinoza, Voltaire,
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  Speaker 1: Pain and others were called atheists. And the epithet has
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  Speaker 1: lost its force today only because the evolution of thought
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  Speaker 1: has broken down many religious barriers and is rapidly dividing
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  Speaker 1: people into two groups, those who believe in some God
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  Speaker 1: and who believe in none at all. Now, all that atheism,
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  Speaker 1: conscious and reflective atheism does is to carry a step
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  Speaker 1: further the restricted denial of the order religionists. The Christian
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  Speaker 1: theist denies every God but his own. The atheist, seeing
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  Speaker 1: no more evidence for the existence of the Christian Deity
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  Speaker 1: than for the existence of any of the deities, discarded
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  Speaker 1: by the Christian, seeing further that there are exactly the
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  Speaker 1: same contradictions involved in assuming the existence of any one
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  Speaker 1: of the world's deities, places the Christian Deity on the
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  Speaker 1: list as among those gods in whose existence he does
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  Speaker 1: not believe, and whose existence, so far as it is defined,
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  Speaker 1: may be logically denied. The really distinguishing feature of philosophic
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  Speaker 1: atheism is its comprehensiveness. The ranking of all known deities
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  Speaker 1: big and little, ancient and modern, savage and civilized, gross
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  Speaker 1: and subtle, upon the same level. Historically, we see them
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  Speaker 1: all originating in the same conditions, passing through substantially the
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  Speaker 1: same phases of development, finally to meet with the same
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  Speaker 1: fate as civilization develops. In this respect, atheism has to
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  Speaker 1: be considered in its historic developments. It begins, as we
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  Speaker 1: have seen, in the rejection of a particular God in
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  Speaker 1: favor of some other deity. It is only at a
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  Speaker 1: very much later stage that the whole idea of God
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  Speaker 1: is subjected to examination and analysis in such a way
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  Speaker 1: as to lead to the rejection of the conception of
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  Speaker 1: God as a whole. But with that aspect of the
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  Speaker 1: subject we shall be concerned later. But does atheism deny
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  Speaker 1: the existence of any possible God? This question might admit
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  Speaker 1: of a simple answer, if one only knew precisely what
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  Speaker 1: it meant. It is easy enough to understand what is
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  Speaker 1: meant by God, so long as we keep to any
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  Speaker 1: or all of the gods of the world's religions. But
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  Speaker 1: what is meant by God standing alone and undefined? Historically,
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  Speaker 1: God means a deity believed in by some people somewhere
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  Speaker 1: at some time, and if we put on one side
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  Speaker 1: these particular sgular gods, we have nothing left that can
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  Speaker 1: be either affirmed or denied. God in the abstract is
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  Speaker 1: not a real existence any more than tree in the
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  Speaker 1: abstract is a real existence. There is a pine tree,
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  Speaker 1: a pear tree, an apple tree, et cetera. But there
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  Speaker 1: is and can be no tree apart from some particular tree.
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  Speaker 1: So with God, there are particular gods. But if we
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  Speaker 1: do away with these, we have no God left as
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  Speaker 1: a separate existence. God then becomes a mere word, conveying
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  Speaker 1: no meaning whatever. Atheism does not deny the existence of
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  Speaker 1: a God for the same reason that it does not
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  Speaker 1: deny the existence of abracadabra. Both terms mean as much
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  Speaker 1: or as little, and it is more than absurd for
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  Speaker 1: people who have rejected theism to continue using the word
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  Speaker 1: God as though it had a quite definite meaning apart
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  Speaker 1: from the gods of the various theologies. We have Professor
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  Speaker 1: Huxley admitting that there is no evidence of the existence
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  Speaker 1: of the God of the Theologians, and we imagine that
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  Speaker 1: he would have met the affirmation of their existence with
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  Speaker 1: a flat contradiction. At any rate, he would have been
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  Speaker 1: quite justified in doing so. But when he asserts, with
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  Speaker 1: a show of logical precision, but in reality with great looseness,
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  Speaker 1: that it is preposterous to assert that there is no
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  Speaker 1: God because he cannot be such as we think him
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  Speaker 1: to be, he is using language for which no precise
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  Speaker 1: meaning can be found to be intelligible. The sentence implies
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  Speaker 1: that we have some conception answering to the terms used,
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  Speaker 1: and this, as we have pointed out with almost wearisome insistence,
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  Speaker 1: is not the case. It is not a case of
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  Speaker 1: saying to the theist, I fully understand your hypothesis, but
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  Speaker 1: as at present I do not see enough evidence to
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  Speaker 1: convince me of its truth or to demonstrate its error.
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  Speaker 1: I must suspend judgment. We do not understand it, and
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  Speaker 1: when we seek to, we discover that that the terms
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  Speaker 1: of the proposition we are asked to accept refuse to
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  Speaker 1: be brought together within the compass of a single conception.
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  Speaker 1: Suspended judgment with the subject under discussion is understandable, is
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  Speaker 1: right and proper, but it is quite out of place,
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  Speaker 1: and indeed cannot exist where the proposition before us is
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  Speaker 1: void of meaning. In such circumstances, suspended judgment is absurd,
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  Speaker 1: and it may be added that the affirmation or negation
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  Speaker 1: of such a proposition is absurd. Likewise, only one other
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  Speaker 1: word need be said on this point. It may be
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  Speaker 1: urged that educated believers mean by God not the anthropomorphic
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  Speaker 1: deity of the theologies, but a personal intelligence controlling things.
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  Speaker 1: But this is really not less anthropomorphic than the form
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  Speaker 1: in which the God idea meets us in the popular theologies.
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  Speaker 1: Its anthropomorphism is only to unobservant minds less apparent. The
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  Speaker 1: conception of an intelligent personal being controlling nature is not
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  Speaker 1: fundamentally less objectionable than the frankly manlike being of the
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  Speaker 1: early theologies. Intelligence as we know it, and to talk
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  Speaker 1: of an intelligence that is unlike the intelligence we know
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  Speaker 1: is absurd, is as much a characteristic of human or
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  Speaker 1: animal organization as arms and legs are. Mind, after all,
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  Speaker 1: is only known to us as a function of an organism.
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  Speaker 1: That it is more than this or other than this
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  Speaker 1: is a pure assumption, and to divest God of all
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  Speaker 1: physical parts while retaining his functions is sheer nonsense. There
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  Speaker 1: is the personal intelligence of Smith, or Brown or Robinson,
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  Speaker 1: but it is absurd to wipe out all the particular
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  Speaker 1: Smith's and Brown's and Robinson's, and then talk as though
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  Speaker 1: their qualities continue in existence. So with God, if we
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  Speaker 1: reject all the gods of the theologies one after another,
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  Speaker 1: what God have we left to talk? All we have
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  Speaker 1: left is the memory of a delusion. It is equally
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  Speaker 1: fallacious to talk of God as an equivalent of force
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  Speaker 1: in the abstract, or as the equivalent of some non
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  Speaker 1: intelligent force. This is not what people ever meant or
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  Speaker 1: mean by God. What religious folk believe in, what they
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  Speaker 1: pray to, is a person who can hear them and
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  Speaker 1: who can do things. A God only dimly apprehended may
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  Speaker 1: be tolerated, But for how long will faith continue to
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  Speaker 1: worship an existence that can neither do, nor hear nor sympathize.
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  Speaker 1: There is a limit to even religious folly, and even
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  Speaker 1: a savage only worships sticks and stones after he endows
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  Speaker 1: them with life and intelligence. Finally, if there is one
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  Speaker 1: thing clear to the modern mind, it is that science
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  Speaker 1: has no room in its theory of things for an
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  Speaker 1: overruling intelligence. Sir Oliver lodge Well sums up the attitude
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  Speaker 1: of science in the following sense sentences. Orthodox science shows
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  Speaker 1: us a self contained and self sufficient universe, not in
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  Speaker 1: touch with anything above or beyond itself. The general trend
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  Speaker 1: and outline of it known, nothing supernatural or miraculous. No
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  Speaker 1: intervention of beings other than ourselves being conceived possible, Man
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  Speaker 1: and the Universe, page fourteen, Popular Edition. Personally, we question
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  Speaker 1: whether there are any scientists of repute who really believe
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  Speaker 1: in the existence of a personal intelligence above or beyond nature.
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  Speaker 1: Some may make professions to the contrary, but it will
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  Speaker 1: usually be found that the qualifications introduced rob their professions
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  Speaker 1: of all value. Certainly, their teaching is destitute of any
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  Speaker 1: such conception. Modern scientific thought leaves no room for the
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  Speaker 1: operations of deity. The miraculous is generally discarded. Response to
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  Speaker 1: prayer is whittled down to a species of self delusion,
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  Speaker 1: to be valued on account of its subjective influence. Only.
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  Speaker 1: The scientific theory of things, incomplete as it may be
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: in many of its details, leaves no room for the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: operations of a god. Not alone does it leave no
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: room for a god. But if the scientific conception of
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the world is to stand, then it would be necessary
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to repeat Acunian's moe, and to say, if there were
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a god, it would be necessary to destroy him. You
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: simply cannot have at one and the same time a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: universe in which all that occurs is the consequence of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: calculable and indestructible forces, the operations of which can be
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: foreseen and relied upon, and a universe controlled by a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: self determining deity capable of modifying the action of these
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: same forces. You may have one or the other, but
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it is sheer lunacy to imagine that you can have both,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: either uniformity with invariable causation, or a world in which
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: every scientific calculation must be prefaced with the d v
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of a prayer meeting. And the atheist who accepts the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: principles of modern science says not merely that he is
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: without a belief in God, but that he fails to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: see any necessity for his existence, or anything for him
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to do if he did exist. He passes the gods
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of the world in review and categorically dismisses each one
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: as a myth. In doing this, he has the concurrence
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of all theists. In discarding every god save one his own.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: The atheist simply applies the same rule to each and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: meets out the same judgment to all. End of Chapter eleven,