Why They're Leaving (Pt. II)

Yesterday's post addressed the fact that Christian congregations are both aging and shrinking as more young people opt out, and we talked about some of the reasons for their disenchantment or disillusionment with the church.

Some of these "church refugees" still hold onto their faith or try other religions, but many abandon belief in God altogether. The question I'd like to explore today is, if these former Christians embrace atheism what does that move entail?

I'm of the opinion that atheists should actually want Christianity to be true since it fits our experience and self- understanding better than does atheism, but be that as it may, bear in mind that according to atheism, or naturalism, as it's sometimes called, we are completely material beings, atoms and molecules, whose bodies and brains are subject to the laws of physics.

If that's so, however, it would seem that some pretty depressing consequences follow. Here are a few:

• There's probably no free-will
• There's no enduring self or soul
• There's no human dignity or human rights
• There's no basis for hope for anything beyond physical death
• Following the previous point there's no ultimate justice
• There's no ultimate meaning or significance to our lives.

Consider what some notable atheists have said about this point about meaning:

"You were born for no purpose. Your life has no meaning. When you die you are extinguished.” Ingmar Bergman

“Life as a whole had no meaning. Life began, as the best available theories tell us, a chance combination of molecules; it then evolved through random mutations and natural selection. All this just happened; it did not happen for any purpose.” Peter Singer

“No inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life.” William Provine

“Man must at last awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering and his crimes.” Jaques Monod

“We’re going to die, and our loved ones are going to die, and it wouldbe very nice to believe that that was not the end and that we would live beyond the grave and meet those we love again. Living without God is not that easy. And I feel the appeal of religion in that sense.” Stephen Weinberg

• Finally, there are no objective moral values or duties. Moral obligations are subjective and arbitrary.

Again, here are a few quotes from atheistic thinkers who acknowledge this perplexing difficulty:

"What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler was right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question." Richard Dawkins

"What’s moral is what you feel good after and what’s immoral is what you feel bad after." Ernst Hemingway

"For the man of knowledge, there are no duties." Friedrich Nietzsche

On atheism there's no such thing as objective morality. What's moral for you may not be moral for others…Morality is an invention of human beings….it's a convention human beings have adopted to live together. Massimo Pigliucci (paraphrase)

This leads logically to nihilism but most atheists don't like the nihilistic implications of atheism so they actually live their lives more or less as if God exists even as they deny that He does. For example, every time they say that something is morally wrong or that we have a duty to help the poor they’re making judgments that only a theist can make.

It's as if they freeload on a theistic worldview until they think it no longer suits them then they jump off for a while. Or as someone once said they “sit in the lap of God so that they can slap Him in the face.”

At any rate, those folks who say they're abandoning the church and forswearing Christianity would do well to consider the implications of the alternatives before they do.