2011 Books – The Making of an Atheist

Being a Christian and someone who also loves science and logic makes for an interesting combination but it does help me to look at things from a different point of view – and on top of that, I didn’t become a Christian until I was 31. So when someone tries to prove God’s existence by quoting the Bible, I get a little irritated. If they don’t believe in God’s existence, they’re not going to take the Bible as the inerrant truth and think “wow, yeah, I totally agree!”

Oh, I’m sure it happens, God does work in mysterious ways, but I think it makes more sense to approach an atheist or agnostic from a their own viewpoint – use their own beliefs to question their lack of belief. The book The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief by James S. Spiegel does just that. Sort of.

See, this isn’t a book about how to convert atheists to Christianity, it’s a book about how people become atheists, agnostics, and/or naturalists. Spiegel’s theory: atheism’s root cause is moral rebellion and that it is irrational.

After stating his theory, he defines what he means by “atheist,” “agnostic,” and “naturalist” so that the reader is clear on the terms used, he then restates that his intention is to explain why some people don’t believe in God.

The first hurdle: evil. If God is good, why is there evil in the world? He doesn’t go into great detail (though I could recommend a book or two) but hits the mark quickly: “Evil… could never count as grounds for atheism… it only undermines certain beliefs about the nature of God. It does not – nor could any argument – disprove the existence of a world creator and designer” (pages 26, 27 emphasis mine).

He goes on to say that, “At most, evil should prompt us to reconsider what kind of God exists, not whether God exists.”

Then he tackles it from the naturalist’s standpoint. Naturalists believe only in physical facts. Since evil and good are values, not physical attributes, the naturalist can’t judge anything, therefore evil doesn’t exist.

Naturalists believe that God or other supernatural concepts aren’t needed for a complete worldview. Naturalists and positivists believe that all knowledge must be verified by science. This is a belief. Beliefs cannot be verified scientifically. Therefore the naturalist and positivists’ positions are unknowable. Values and morals are not part of the physical world so how can they be scientifically proven and knowable?

Chapter two starts out talking about the conversion from atheism to Christianity of one of the most significant atheists of the last century, British philosopher Antony Flew. For five decades he said that atheism is the “proper default position for the thinking person” (page 42). Then in 2004, at the age of 81, he changed his opinion. His three main reasons are used by Spiegel to further his theory.

The laws of nature. Regularities in nature are found everywhere, and as Spiegel questions, why are these laws constant? Scientists use the “necessitarian” position: they are constant because it’s inherently necessary.

So if they have to be constant, what makes them so? Page 43-44, “We observe nature working in a consistent way, but we can’t see ‘behind the scenes’ to know why or how.”

What about the Big Bang theory? Spiegel brings up questions that scientists can’t explain. Why did the matter explode? Why was there matter in the first place if nothing existed? Where did the matter come from? If something exists, it has to have a beginning. If there was just one itsy bitsy little piece of matter that went BOOM… where did that come from? Nothing existed. What (or Who) caused that itsy bitsy piece of matter to appear?

Spiegel then talks about the fine tuning of the universe. Turns out that there is an extremely narrow range of cosmic constants in which life is possible. Emphasis is on “possible” – this isn’t a guarantee.

Here you go:

The Big Bang expansion rate had to be accurate to within one part in 10 to the 55th power. Any slower – collapse. Faster, no stars or planets. No life possible.

Gravity had to be accurate to within one part in 10 to the 40th power. If not, stars couldn’t form. No stars = no life.

The universe’s mass density had to be accurate to within one part in 10 to the 60th power. Again, not accurate = no stars = no life.

And so on and so forth – and this is only for the possibility of life.

Then there’s the research of two scientists, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe done in the early 1980s. They calculated that the odds of life emerging from non-living matter is one in 10 to the 40,000th power. This would be comparable to a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard assembling a Boeing 747 from the materials therein (stats from pages 46-48).

After going through all of that and tossing Darwin out of the room, he heads into the realm of causes for atheism. First he talks about the psychological side of fatherlessness and how it (or having an abusive or weak father) can cause one to question whether or not there is a God.

From there he talks about the moral depravity of “intellectual heroes” whose influence to this day are felt in society. From Rousseau to Marx to Hemingway and Freud, he points out that they don’t live up to the “moral visionary” status. He even suggests that their depravity should lead us to wonder if their ideas should even be considered legitimate. Their works were “often calculated to justify or minimize the shame of their own debauchery” (page 72).

He begins to show how moral depravity leads to a blindness towards the truth which fuels even more moral depravity which leads to more blindness… in a never-ending circle.

Spiegel wraps things up by covering the obstinacy of atheism, how scientific paradigms are formed (and imperfect), why they’re often replaced and thus unreliable, how atheists and theists live in “different worlds,” truth or consequences, and finally, self-deception. On page 113, he says, “The descent into atheism is caused by a complex of moral-psychological factors, not a perceived lack of evidence for God’s existence.”

The last chapter of the book gives us a look into the benefits and blessings of theism in general and Christianity in particular.

I like how he takes the atheistic and naturalist views and turn them on their heads. He makes you think about what many people consider “truth” in science. I also like that at the end of each chapter, he shows how theism, especially Christianity, is more logical. It provides a great compare and contrast.

For Christians, this is a great resource to help with questions your non-believing friends have. For atheists, agnostics and naturalists, it’ll make you think.