Theism Vs. Atheism: Where the Twain Shall Meet

By David G. Mutchler

The greater part of awareness is a mind open to new ideas.

We live in a world at high risk of widespread catastrophe. The existential threats that engulf us are huge and solutions are slow in coming—in large part because of the ideological disagreements that stand in the way of full-scale international cooperation. High on the list of those divides is the theism/atheism schism, which continues to heat up due to the fact that theism—especially Christianity—is in significant decline while atheism is expanding rapidly. Trends strongly suggest that the number of atheists in the world will steadily approach the number of Christians. And, due to their completely opposite views on the all-important subject of God, the disdain between them will likely become increasingly combustible as each side fights for dominance. The battle between them could seriously dampen any promise of full-blown international teamwork to prevent unimaginable global disaster. Theism Vs. Atheism: Where the Twain Shall Meet is about healing the theism/atheism divide while there is still time. Doing so will bring renewed hope that peace on earth is still a real possibility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982276317

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Copyright © 2021 David G. Mutchler.

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Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7630-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7632-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7631-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021921957

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/11/2022

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE

Foundations

Chapter 1 The Scope

Chapter 2 The Players

Chapter 3 Atheist or Agnostic?

Chapter 4 Theism, Non-Theism, and Science

Chapter 5 Ego’s Place in the Debate

Chapter 6 Truth, Hope, and Belief

Chapter 7 Theism, Atheism, and Death

PART TWO (A)

Christianity from the Christians’ Point of View

Chapter 8 History of the Judea-Christian Religion

Chapter 9 Core Christian Beliefs and Precepts

Chapter 10 Arguments for God’s Existence

Chapter 11 What Christianity Has Done for the World

PART TWO (B)

Christianity from the Non-Theists’ Point of View

Chapter 12 Logical Disputes

Chapter 13 Facts Matter

Chapter 14 Christian Immorality

PART THREE (A)

Atheism from the Atheists’ Point of View

Chapter 15 History of Atheism

Chapter 16 Non-theism and Humanism

Chapter 17 Are You a Humanist?

Chapter 18 Good without God

PART THREE (B)

Atheism from the Christians’ Point of View

Chapter 19 Why Atheism Fails

Chapter 20 The Problem of Verification

Chapter 21 God’s Greater Plan

PART FOUR

Where the Twain Shall Meet

Chapter 22 Dignity and Respect

Chapter 23 The Works

Chapter 24 Metaphysical Maturity

Bibliography

Notes

About The Author

INTRODUCTION

Assume with me for a moment that you were raised in a conservative Christian family in a community with a church seemingly on every corner. Now as an adult you continue to function comfortably in that ideology. You attend church regularly, have many Christian friends, enjoy the social functions of the church, and routinely and solemnly recite your affirmations and creeds. You’re aware there are atheists out there, but you’ve never met one and have no desire to do so. You and the Christians with whom you mingle sweepingly dismiss atheists as immoral, indecent, ignorant, warped, and without question, hell-bound.

Now imagine the same beginning—that you were born and raised in a conservative Christian family, attended church regularly, and so on. However, at some point you find yourself having serious doubts about the authenticity of Christianity. You search the internet for information, read a book or two on atheism, and eventually decide that you no longer believe in the Christian god. You discover instead that you’re an atheist. You share this resolve with your family and friends, but you soon find yourself shunned beyond anything you could have possibly imagined. Individuals you previously considered loved ones turn against you as if you have the metaphysical equivalent of leprosy—do not under any circumstance approach or interact with this lowly beast. Their unmitigated rejection and total absence of respect weigh heavily on you. In your mounting disappointment and bitterness, you come to view Christians as deluded, self-righteous, closed minded, illogical, and incredibly judgmental.

Herein lie the seeds of antagonism that exist between theists and atheists. Each is diametrically opposed to the other. Each is disapproving and disparaging of the other. Meaningful dialogue between the two is uncommon and usually precarious when it occurs. To their advantage, Christians have more support for their views because they outnumber atheists. Yet across the United States and beyond, many self-avowed atheists—doctors, teachers, cooks, laborers, social workers, plumbers, police persons, and so many more— live with a hushed fear that, if discovered, they will be judged as dirtied and unworthy of normal social discourse and human interaction. And as it concerns expressing their views openly on the nature of the universe and how humankind fits into it, in the main they live secretive and lonely lives.

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Because the ideologies on both sides of the theism/atheism quarrel are so deeply entrenched, by all appearance the twain shall never meet. And indeed they will not meet unless measures are taken to heal the divide. Is it important to do so? At the interpersonal level—absolutely yes! Publicly and privately, and with rare exception, each side treats the other with unreserved disdain. Friendships, marriages, families, business relationships—all manner of human connections—are strained if not shattered due to the poison that exists in the interactions between the two conflicting factions. In the larger view, since church attendance in the United States and worldwide is shrinking and atheism is on the rise, the deep-seated and long-standing tensions between them will only intensify as both sides fortify their efforts to defend or advance their beliefs.

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Specific to the United States, a Pew Research Center Survey in 2014 showed that, across race, gender, education, and geographic barriers, the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years (2007—2014). At the same time, the share of those who are not affiliated with a religion has jumped from sixteen percent to nearly twenty-three percent in the same time period. Millennials are growing even less affiliated with religion than they were a decade ago. In 2007, when the Pew Research Center did their last Religious Landscape Survey and millennials were just entering adulthood, twenty-five percent of them did not affiliate with a religion. But this grew to thirty-four percent in the latest survey. All totaled, this means that there are more religiously unaffiliated Americans (twenty-three percent) than Catholics (twenty-one percent) and mainline Protestants (fifteen percent). Of those who are unaffiliated, thirty-one percent describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up six points (from 2007—2014).

Similarly, in October 2012, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report finding that the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans (called nones) under the age of thirty had increased five percentage points in five years. While not all nones were atheists or agnostics, thirty-three million were, or six percent of the U.S. population. And it is not only in the United States; globally atheism is on the rise. According to a 2012 WIN/Gallup poll, a full thirteen percent of the world self-identifies as convinced atheists (approximately one person in seven). Meanwhile, the number of people worldwide who considered themselves religious decreased from seventy-three percent in 2005 to sixty percent.

Each of these polls clearly signal that the number of religiously affiliated individuals in this country and abroad is shrinking and the number of religiously unaffiliated people—atheists included—is on the rise. All evidence to date suggests these trends will likely continue.

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Theism versus atheism is a challenging topic to unravel. The divergent and uncompromising viewpoints on both sides of the argument range from scholarly and knowledgeable differences of opinion to speculation cluttered with false assumptions, gross generalizations, and plenty of misinformation. Sorting it all out is further complicated by the often difficult phraseology and concepts advanced by the erudite, and the confusion and substandard conclusions drawn by the ill-informed.

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To best journey together through the theism/atheism debate, it may be helpful to know that I am first, and most, a teacher. Assuming a teacher has a firm grasp of the subject matter at hand and is able to engage students sufficiently to stimulate some level of interest, the next task—perhaps the most important of all—is to make the topic as simple as possible to understand. As a long-past colleague of mine was fond of saying, It is incumbent on every teacher to simplify the complex, not complify the simplex. Silly perhaps on the surface, but wise at a deeper level, her adage served as a branding iron on my own mind that has since driven my every effort when teaching anything to anyone at any level. Hence, being a teacher first, I have attempted to write this book in a manner as uncomplicated as possible to help readers understand the otherwise complex issues embedded in the debate, and where—if at all—the twain shall meet.

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The predominant religions in our culture are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Many of my comments could apply to each of them. However, since Christianity has such a dominant presence in North America and in the world at large, I will use theism and Christianity as if they were synonyms, knowing, of course, that Christianity is but one group of theists among many, albeit the largest faction.

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Since the advent of the internet, there has been a general lack of trust, especially in the circles of academia, as to the reliability of information quoted from online sources for use in a book. And in many cases, rightfully so, as there is considerable junk out there. But there is also a good deal of valuable and reliable information. Whereas I use citations from the internet often, I do so cautiously, generally trying to find at least one additional source to substantiate the point in question.

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Atheist and atheism are such ugly words to theists that the words themselves tend to impede objective examination of the underlying issues. For this reason, I use non-theist and non-theism interchangeably with atheist and atheism in the hope of making the subject safer to explore for those who are so repulsed. Additionally, I use the word anti-theism to mean something different than atheism, the reason for which will become apparent in due course.

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There may be times that feel to you like I’m taking sides in the theism/atheism debate, particularly when I discuss the pros and cons on each side of the argument. In other words, anything I say that sounds pro-Christian may well come across to atheists that I favor Christianity; and when I write something that appears to be pro-atheist, it could easily sound to Christians that I’m siding with non-theists. I can assure you that neither of these two cases is true. It is not my intent to favor either side, but rather to maintain a position of complete neutrality. That I remain totally impartial is the only way to give each faction its due. My hope is that you will be able to temporarily bracket your own convictions (as have I), that you will do your best to avoid drawing premature conclusions, and that you will read the book in its entirety before deducing anything. Doing this will help you more fully understand both sides of the dispute, regardless of your metaphysical leanings. And this in turn will make it clearer how the two sides may be able to find common ground.

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This book is divided into four parts. Part One is a series of introductory chapters that establish the foundation upon which the remainder of the book stands. Part Two puts Christianity under the microscope, first from the Christian’s point of view (Two A), followed by the atheists’ perspective on the Christian faith (Two B). In reverse order of Part Two, Part Three focuses on the subject of atheism, first as seen by atheists (Three A), followed by the Christians’ view of atheism (Three B). Part Four is my own perspective on how Christianity and atheism can come together and actually help each other resolve their differences. The goal is to cultivate harmony between the two factions and, in doing so, foster more peace between individuals on each side of the divide. In large enough numbers, this most surely would be a huge contribution to finding more peace in the world as well.

PART ONE

Foundations

CHAPTER ONE

The Scope

Theism and atheism are giant topics. Theism by itself encompasses scores of different religions, faith groups, and denominations, each with its own nuances and theological leanings. And atheism is much larger than any single bloc of people because it represents numerous levels of religious dissent. Conflating these many factions into one book, if it was even possible to do so, would result in a colossal finished product that would likely make for tedious and sterile reading. So, in order to construct a narrative that is much less cumbersome, far more manageable, and pragmatically more understandable and instructive, it is necessary that our scope be narrowed. By so doing, we’ll be able to develop a more practical, useful understanding of the subject of theism versus atheism, and to more clearly establish where the twain shall meet.

To thin the options for how to discuss theism, any of several theistic religions would, at least in principle, fill the bill. However, because Christianity is the largest religion in the world and the presumed dominant religion in the United States, we will limit our focus on theism to the Christian faith. Yet doing so is no easy task because Christianity and its many gradations exist on a spectrum—from fundamental/evangelical, to mainstream/mainline, to liberal/progressive. An additional complication is that the spectrum is dynamic, not static, which means that where any Christian faith group falls on the spectrum at any given time can—and often does—change. The reason is because theological perspectives shift on the continuum in one direction or the other as churches endeavor to reinvent themselves, usually to stay relevant in response to declining church memberships. Hence, trying to pinpoint this or that theological perspective on any given faith group is somewhat like shooting at a moving target. In other words, what was the case yesterday or today about any particular Christian creed may not be so tomorrow.

That said, and using a broad stroke, the following groupings represent the Christian spectrum:

• Fundamentalism is the textbook, definitional version of the Christian faith. Though the term itself wasn’t coined until the early part of the twentieth century, its essence has been with us since the advent of Christianity. Fundamentalists are literalists who believe that the Bible is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God, that Jesus Christ is the savior of humankind, and that one is born again and destined for eternal life in heaven when one places his or her faith in Jesus.

• Evangelicalism is a fraternal twin to fundamentalism to the extent that they both grew from the same roots and therefore both identify with the original tenants of biblical truth and holiness: emphasis on salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, as well as the authority of scripture. The line between them is often blurred, though historically speaking, fundamentalists have leaned more toward defending against elements that strayed from, and even attacked, time-honored biblical doctrine, where evangelicals have placed their efforts more on preaching and promoting the Gospels.

• Mainstream (aka mainline) Christians are more moderate than fundamentalists and evangelicals. They believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection, that God exists, Jesus was God in the flesh, and that the Bible is the word of God. In general, they believe the traditional story of Christianity.