Essays by Atheists

A friend recently sent me two essays, saying she thought I might be interested. As far as I know, she believes in God, though not being particularly devout or belonging to any specific denomination. I believe she has a relative who is an Atheist, or who at least is hostile towards organized religion. It may be that this relative has sent her these essays, or perhaps another friend, as they don’t seem like the type of thing she would normally seek out. In any case, she knows I am religious and also that I have a tendency to be contentious, and I supposed she was interested in what my reaction would be.

The first was a rather jumbled, poorly written post in the forum section of a newspaper by a poster who couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to attack the idea of this country being founded on Judeo-Christian principles or the Texas Board of Education for enacting some revisions intended to correct what they saw as a Liberal slant in the State’s curriculum.

He tried to tie the two subjects together by claiming that “Christian conservative members” (he didn’t say how many) of the TBE had pushed for a “revision of our history” by downplaying Jefferson’s influence in the founding of our nation. Which is of course, a distortion of what actually happened.** Jefferson’s name was actually removed from one piece of the curriculum, a list of political philosophers from whose works the founding fathers formed their ideas. (It was later replaced.) His name was replaced with those of 3 other philosophers. The fact that the only person whose name occurs more frequently than Jefferson’s in the curriculum standards is Washington gives the lie to the idea that the Board was trying to “downplay” Jefferson’s influence. But, who cares about facts, right?


Regarding the founding of this nation, the poster claimed (as best I could follow his intent) that since Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, America was founded as a completely secular nation as opposed to being founded upon Judeo-Christian principles. (For the sake of argument, I'll pass over the fact that Jefferson was not a monarch, but only one of many men who participated in this country's founding.) He provided a quote wherein Jefferson essentially asserted that ultra-Christian sects had misrepresented Jesus as divine (Jefferson saw him as a benevolent moralist) as proof of his claim that Jefferson was not a Christian. Of course, Jefferson identified himself as a Christian more than once, further clarifying that he was a “disciple of the doctrines of Jesus,”* but those quotes somehow didn’t make it into his post. Jefferson apparently did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but then there are people today who call themselves Christians but do not believe Jesus was divine, but a great philosopher and moralist.

Whether or not you believe someone can be a Christian without believing in the divinity of Jesus is immaterial when it comes to Jefferson as a founding father of this nation. The fact is, Jefferson believed in the Christian principles taught by Jesus, and brought that set of beliefs with him while he did his part in the founding of this nation.

The men who formed this nation were educated men, and the education of that era was steeped in religiously influenced writings, ideas, philosophies, histories and literature. They had been inculcated with these Judeo-Christian principles to an extent that we today must find it difficult to comprehend.

It is nonsensical to suggest that this country was not founded upon Judeo-Christian principles when the very Declaration of Independence itself refers to God, The Creator, and The Supreme Judge and to the basic rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as being rights endowed upon us by God, not government.


The poster seemed to understand this, and so set up a straw man to knock down, asserting that the “Religious Rightists” believe this country was founded as a Christian nation (quite a different concept from that of being founded upon Judeo-Christian principles) and that they were trying to revise history in order to “celebrate this country’s founding as a “Christian event rather than the secular event it always has been.” Of course, the poster provides no information regarding who these “Religious Rightists” are, how many of them exist, or what basis he has for his assertion as to their beliefs. It’s so much easier to discredit an anonymous bogie than address facts.

I think the poster even recognized the weakness of his own argument that Jefferson was a Deist, not a Christian, because he came back to it at the end, tacking on the caveat, “by today’s definition” to the word “Christian.” Again, he provides no such definition, for which I was sorry because I would have loved to read it. However, by Jefferson’s own definition, he was a Christian, and I’ll take his word for it over that of an anonymous poster.

Just to pick a nit, this poster gave his effort the title, “The irrefutable Thomas Jefferson” but never made clear about what he was irrefutable. One was left to wonder, and that annoyed me.

The second article was by a scientist of renown, a better writer than the first, but who still seemed to miss something very basic. His point (in a nutshell) seems to be that while many famous scientists have been religious, they are only so when it comes to the things they don’t understand…that the boundaries of their rational thought are defined by the limits of their knowledge, and once their knowledge fails them, they invoke God as an explanation.

He seems to assert that this tendency to explain the (as yet) inexplicable as a wonder of God is a bad thing, in that it impedes our drive or desire to find those elusive explanations, which is why teaching Intelligent Design is a bad thing. We are meant to understand that if children are taught that there is intelligent design behind the Universe they will stop trying to understand it.

This is a particularly nonsensical assertion given the author’s own admission that a great many of the most brilliant scientific minds throughout history have been those of human beings who believed in God and that God created the Universe. Despite this belief, they studied, tested, discovered and added immensely to our body of scientific knowledge.

Again, I suspect that the author sensed the weakness of his own logic, because he went off on a bit of a tangent at one point, outlining various aspects of the human body that could have been more efficient or practical, presumably to suggest that if there was an Intelligent Designer, it would have designed these aspects better. He refers to these flaws as “Stupid Design.” Of course, his criticisms of human design are based on his belief that the Intelligence behind the design couldn’t possibly have reasons he doesn’t understand for including the “flaws” in the first place.

In winding up, the author makes the statement, “Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.” Having made this declaration, he then goes on to suggest that since there have been those scientists who believed in God, we should probably be inclusive enough to teach Intelligent design somewhere in our “academic landscape” and suggests the history of religion, philosophy or psychology. Why would he suggest we teach what he believes is a philosophy of ignorance anywhere? Isn’t that just a bit hypocritical? Or is it simply that by shoving it into the categories he suggests, he assumes it would be taught only as some quaint, dismissible bit of dogmatic humbug?

The basic point I think this writer misses regards Faith. Perhaps as he has none himself, it isn’t possible for him to understand that a person who attributes all creation to God doesn’t automatically shut his mind off. In fact, wonder at the magnificence of God’s Creation can spur a believer on to an intense desire to understand that Creation. By searching, studying, learning about that Creation, Faith is strengthened. Awe is increased as scientific knowledge lays ever more bare just how complex and simple, how strong and delicate, how amazing and banal every bit of Creation is.

(Just for the record, I don’t have a bone in the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design fight. If a kid has a good, solid background in his religion I don’t think teaching the Theory of Evolution in school is going to turn him apostate. I also don’t think that teaching the Theory of Intelligent Design in school is going to turn budding scientists into crazed, bible thumping, corner preaching lunatics. School is for learning. Learning implies the absorption of information and ideas.)

* http://www.eadshome.com/Jefferson.htm

** http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/mar/23/bill-white/white-says-state-board-education-led-perry-appoint/

Original articles:

http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/153657.html

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance