The Importance of Atheism
How important is ‘atheism’? How important is it if you, as a human being, deny your belief in the existence of God?
So, a few years ago I was having this discussion, and in the middle of it my interlocutor said…
Atheism is the absence of a belief in a deity. It has no other implications, it is not a philosophy, you correctly pointed out already when you expressed your disbelief in Santa.
Sorry, I lost the link to the discussion
To which I replied:
What??!! Stop the presses…!!!
I would be the last person on Earth to say anything of the sort. I would wash my mouth out if I even dreamt of saying something like that!!
Let me tell you a story. (Note: Fiction)
One day the CEO of HEB called his chief assistants together. “Hey, guys,” he said, “The board and I were talking and we have decided to make a small change in our operations. Don’t worry, it is just one change, it has no other implications.”
His underlings nodded. After all, they made small changes all the time: a different style of advertisement, slight differences in pay schedules…
“We’re going to stop selling food,” he said.
Shocked looks. One or two giggles, quickly cut off when they realised he wasn’t kidding. HEB? Stop selling food?? They are a grocery store!!
That would not be a small change with no implications. The implications would literally be endless. A change like that would affect every part of HEB from top to bottom. Even the non-food departments of HEB would be catastrophically affected by the lack of food customers.
In the post where I talked about Santa I was making literally the exact opposite point: that it was good that atheists at least defined themselves around their lack of belief in God: since that lack of belief was in the most important thing in the universe. I was literally saying how incredibly important that lack of belief was. How utterly significant a part of their philosophy, how incredibly life and society changing.
I compared it to my lack of belief in Santa Clause in order to contrast them. To say that of course I didn’t call myself an ‘Anti-Santa-Claus-ist’ because of how unimportant and trivial the belief in Santa Claus was!
Atheism may not be one specific philosophy. But it is a philosophical belief! It is one of the most important parts of any philosophy it is part of.
And that lack of belief means that the gulf between an atheist and a Christian is incompressible vast, light years in distance. Let us take one example:
The Westminster Catechism states that the purpose of man is to, “Glorify God and enjoy him forever.” That purpose can obviously NOT be part of an atheists vocabulary. So one of the ‘implications’ of the difference between atheism and Christianity is the very purpose of man.
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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
The atheist would like to believe that his rejection of God has no more implication than his taste for chocolate or vanilla. It would free him from consequences, which afterall is the point of the exercise. It is an old effort beginning in the Garden and succinctly expressed by the Jews before Pilate: "We will not have this man rule over us."
The mistake with atheists is that they believe that belief in God is a matter of faith when in reality it's a matter of reason. When someone tells me that he is an atheist, he might as well tell me that the earth is flat.