This guest post was submitted by Johnny from The Fire Sermon. In it he echoes my own puzzlement at the suspicion with which atheists are viewed. I would also encourage everyone who took the Philosophy Quiz to check out Johnny’s reflections on Paul Tillich, the existential Christian theologian.
Next week Elaine Frei will grace us with a guest post on Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.
Atheists have always gotten a bad rap. This deeply held prejudice has not even been exempted from many famous intellectuals in Western history. For example in John Locke���s John Locke’s Essay Concerning Toleration. concludes that that all groups are worthy of toleration except atheists. He says,
those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist.
Suspicion has often given way to disdain and being an atheist in our culture is the equivalent of having religious leprosy. One of my friends has noted that this isn’t really surprising since most people interpret atheism as the claim, ‘I disagree with everything you hold dear.’
Of course such an idea is false, but it may lead us to a deep divergence in values between the minority of theists and the rest of our culture.
I think this disagreement hinges on the value (or lack of value) of ‘faith.’ It seems most people believe ‘faith’ to be a sacrifice of the intellect in order to reach God. This sacrificium intellectus is a primary mode of life for many (though not all) contemporary theists.
Most of the atheists I know are strongly opposed to the sacrificium intellectus, and hold to a principled fidelitas intellectus (fidelity to the intellect). I also think that most atheists believe fidelitas intellectus to be a universal value or even an obligation. I take this value to often be at the heart of many atheists commitment to atheism.
I find it odd that such principled people are treated with such suspicion. Many people are probably not away of the difficulty of consistently adhering to fidelitas intellectus. Such a discipline requires one to be willing to reject any idea or principle that ultimately conflicts with a rigorous intellectual analysis. It also requires that a theist, who embraces fidelitas intellectus, must be at least open to the possibility of atheism.
Taking this possibility seriously means to be to some degree atheistic. It means walking at least a few feet in an atheist���s shoes. That is why I would distinguish atheism from being atheistic. Being atheistic is something that any believer who adopts fidelitas intellectus experiences, if only momentarily.
Such a person could never express John Locke’s lack of toleration. Such persons may not all be atheists, but all would have been, at one time or another, atheistic. As someone who embraces fidelitas intellectus, I cannot think of a better consequence.
