By Roshan Shah, New Age Islam
07 May 2018
Name of the Book: The Delusion of Atheism
Author: Sebastian Athappilly
Published by: Dharmaram Publications, Bangalore
Year: 2017
Pages: 88
Price: Rs. 90
ISBN: 978-93-84964-68-9
This book, by an
Indian Catholic theologian, is one of the best critiques of atheism I’ve
come across—not just for its many cogent arguments, but also for its
engaging, down-to-earth style that makes it easily understandable even
to a ‘lay’ readership, beyond the narrow confines of theologians and
professional philosophers. Athappilly puts together a host of convincing
arguments debunking atheist claims and in support the theistic
position. Thus, among other things we learn that:
· Apart from
attacking theistic arguments for the existence of God, atheism hasn’t
proven that God doesn’t exist. It has no evidence to prove its dogma
that everything exists by ‘chance’. No atheist has come to hold that
there is no God after having conclusively proven this claim or after
having shown that everything owes its existence to sheer chance, as
atheists insist.
· That theists
cannot rationally prove God’s existence doesn’t mean there is no God.
The basic epistemological question here is that all things are not
provable in the same way. It is improper to apply the methodology of
proving a material reality to seek to prove God and then, when that test
fails, to claim that God doesn’t exist. God is not a being among other
beings, but, rather, the Being or the Ground of all being. God cannot
be proven in the same way as material things can, but God has left
enough signs in the universe for us to have faith that God exists.
· The atheist
conception of God as some material being among many others that should
subject to human observation if God is said to exist is absurd. The
atheist belief that the only realities that exist are material beings
and objects and that, non-material things are, by definition,
non-existent is deeply flawed. In the case of the supernatural, atheists
seek to measure non-material realities by material norms. By a priori
denying any transcendental realities, atheism blocks itself from truth.
· The atheist’s
belief that everything came about by chance (and not by God) makes him
also a believer (even if he may not admit to being so). The atheist
demands convincing proofs for God from the believer in God but fails to
provide similar proofs of his belief in the dogma that everything came
about through chance.
· The atheist’s
belief that non-intelligent or mindless matter produced living beings
that can reproduce and that this came about by chance is absurd, with no
evidence to support it. Without recourse to an Intelligent Designer
(i.e. God), it isn’t possible to convincingly account for the variety of
life forms in the world and the remarkable design in the universe and
in our own bodies.
· Atheists don’t
have any convincing answer to the fact that the discovery that the
universe is not eternal but had a definite beginning points to proof of a
Creator (God). Nor can atheists prove that high intelligence that is
behind the astounding order and fine-tuning for life in the universe
came about by chance. They cannot prove their irrational claim that mere
chance or matter produced the laws of nature or the whole universe
· The claim of
some atheists that the universe or life came out of nothing is absurd,
for nothing cannot produce something. If it was nothing, it would remain
so forever. Another claim—that living beings evolved out of dead
matter—is equally absurd, because no convincing explanation can be
provided of how this might have been possible.
· One reason
why some people choose to be atheists (or agnostics) is because if they
accept the existence of God, they feel they can no longer be and do just
as they please, such as leading a selfish and hedonistic life, with no
care of being accountable to God and with no fear of punishment for sin.
· Atheist
critiques of God on the grounds of the existence of suffering and evil
in the world, which they say an all-powerful and all-loving God should
not have tolerated, can easily be rebutted. If God intervened every time
to stop evil, human beings would no longer have free will, and that is
not something that God wants. Further, the atheist critique ignores the
issue of the afterlife and reward and punishment in that realm, in the
context of which sufferings in this world can make sense.
· The atheist
criticism that faith in God is a kind of wish-fulfilment in the face of
the sufferings in this world can equally be applied to atheism, for it
wishes no Divine sanction against the evil that one might want to
commit. Atheism can thus serve as a wish-fulfilment for a system that
gives license to any evil deed provided it is undetected by others.
· It is not
likely that human dignity would be respected in an atheistic society
because there is no basis for such dignity in atheism since atheism
considers humans as mere products of blind evolution by mere chance and
thus of no worth more than that conferred on them by a society that’s
based on work or capital. In the materialist atheism, humans are only a
means to an end, while in theism they are an end in themselves.
· Atheism
contains no inherent potential for any selfless engagement with this
world. It provides no binding internal reason as to why people should be
fair and just towards others. In an atheist system, there is no
ideological conflict involved in committing offences against human
dignity precisely because there is no internal basis for such dignity in
this system.
· It is
ultimately impossible to be ethical without a transcendental reference
going beyond the mundane realm. Merely appealing to human kindness is
naive optimism. Without motivation based on faith in a love of God,
goodness, mercy and justice, no sustainable ethics is possible. Atheism
and other anti-transcendental ideologies cannot motivate people to offer
their lives selflessly.
· By denying God as Judge and the life hereafter, atheism encourages people to do evil.
· Atheism’s
claim that there’s no God who brought us into being leads to a life of
despair. In the face of death, atheism offers no hope or consolation but
only the belief that this is the ultimate end.
· Atheism’s
depressing worldview is in contrast to that of the theistic
understanding where death is linked to the hope of being welcomed by a
loving God and the possibility of a life of peace and fulfilment in the
Hereafter. Unlike atheists, theists believe there’s someone to accompany
them in life and death, to pray to and thank for. They also have
something to hope for after death. Their goal goes beyond the limits of
this world, unlike atheists, who are left to themselves, their goal
ending with death. While the futility and ephemeral nature of this world
weighs heavy with the atheist, those who believe in a loving personal
God are able to face this challenge and live in equanimity and
composure.
· By denying
life after death, atheism chokes human beings with a mere this-worldly
ideology of living for values that vanish with death forever, Humans are
thus made into aimless wanderers without any absolute goal and future,
with no destiny other than decay and decomposition.
This little book is
packed with an immense amount of wisdom. As a Christian, the author uses
specifically Christian references on occasion, but most of the book’s
arguments can easily resonate with other theists too.
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