Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes (22 page)

Science requires an “act of faith”? What is that “faith” based on? Davies draws this stunning conclusion: “So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological world view.”
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In short, every atheist has to adopt a biblical worldview to pursue science at all.
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Christians should confidently reclaim the biblical principles that made science possible in the first place—and that continue to provide its philosophical underpinnings today.

An Atheist Decries Humanism

To track down additional cases of free-loading, we can eavesdrop on atheists’ in-house debates. For example, John Gray regularly castigates his fellow atheists and materialists for their habit of free-loading. Logically, he points out, materialism leads to reductionism—the conclusion that humans are nothing but animals. But most materialists do not want to accept that bleak conclusion. They want to grant humanity a higher status and dignity; they want to believe that humans have “consciousness, selfhood, and free will,” Gray writes. That high view of humanity he labels
humanism
—and he denounces it as a prime example of free-loading.

“Humanists never tire of preaching” the gospel of human freedom, Gray complains. But “Darwin has shown us that we are animals,” and therefore “the idea of free will does not come from science.” Instead “its origins are in religion—not just any religion, but the Christian faith against which humanists rail so obsessively.” Thus humanism “is only a secular version” of Christian principles.
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We could say that humanists do not want to live within the confines of their own materialist box. So they smuggle in ladders from a Christian worldview to climb out of the box.

Nagel: Darwin “Almost Certainly False”

Now let’s eavesdrop on the other side of the debate—the people Gray calls humanists, who do not want to accept the inhumane consequences of reductionism. Thomas Nagel is the author of
Mind and Cosmos
, which bears the provocative subtitle
Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False
. He argues that Darwinist theory “is almost certainly false” precisely because it leads to reductionism. And reductionist theories fail to explain what we know about the world.

Consider the lowly pocket calculator. Tap in “5 + 3 =” and the number “8” appears in the screen. The figure-eight pattern of pixels may be explainable in purely physical terms, as the pulse of electrons traveling through microchip gates. But, Nagel argues, there is no reductionist explanation of how the calculator was programmed to produce the “8” in the first place.
That
requires “the intention of the designer.”

Nagel is an atheist, so he is not alluding to a divine designer. He is arguing that Darwinist theory cannot explain even human designers: “Something more is needed to explain how there can be conscious, thinking creatures.”
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Humans exhibit a difference in kind, not merely in degree.

Something more is also needed to explain moral and scientific knowledge. Nagel argues that an evolutionary concept of the mind undercuts “our confidence in the objective truth of our moral beliefs,” as well as “the objective truth of our mathematical or scientific reasoning.” (To remind yourself why evolutionary epistemology undercuts human knowledge, turn back to Principle #4.) Yet, Nagal says, we cannot just give up our knowledge in these areas. Why not? Because that knowledge is “based ultimately on common sense and on what is plainly undeniable.”
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Do you recognize the telltale phrases that indicate general revelation? Neo-Darwinism contradicts what is “based on common sense” and “what is plainly undeniable.”

Nagel is trapped in cognitive dissonance. On one hand, he does not want to accept reductionism, which he criticizes as a “triumph of ideological theory over common sense.” He praises critics of Darwinism, including Intelligent Design theorists—an act for which he has been viciously attacked.
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Nagel even grants that a theistic worldview would solve his problems—that the existence of God would explain the very things that Darwinism cannot explain, like mind and morality. Nevertheless, he rejects the theistic answer. Why? The reason is not so much intellectual as emotional: “I want atheism to be true … I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” He admits that his underlying motive is a “fear of religion itself,” rooted ultimately in a “cosmic authority problem.”
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Having rejected God, however, what alternative does Nagel propose? Nothing at all. “My aim is to present the problem rather than to propose a solution.”
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Nagel is an eye-opening example of an atheist who is desperately trying to maintain both sides of a severe cognitive dissonance. On one hand, he maintains his atheism. On the other hand, he refuses to give up the “undeniable” facts of “common sense” that theism alone can explain.

Nagel is trying to retain the
benefits
of a Christian worldview while he rejects their basis in Christianity. He is free-loading.

Problems of a “Proud Atheist”

Another humanist suffering from severe cognitive dissonance is Raymond Tallis, a medical doctor and the author of
Aping Mankind
. Tallis boasts that he is “a proud atheist” and evolutionist. At the same time, he argues that “something rather important about us is left unexplained by evolutionary theory.” Indeed, he lists several important things left unexplained:

• “Isn’t there a problem in explaining how the blind forces of physics brought about (cognitively) sighted humans who are able to see, and identify, and comment on, the ‘blind’ forces of physics?” How did the forces of physics create beings who transcend those forces?
  
• Isn’t there a problem in explaining how natural forces created humans who are able to turn around and use those forces “to engage with nature as if from the outside”? Why are humans able to rise above the forces that supposedly created them? Can a puppet gain control over the puppeteer?
  
• Isn’t there a problem in explaining how the universe “brought us into being by mindless processes that are entirely without purpose”? How did a mindless process create beings with minds? How did a purposeless process create beings with purposes?
  
• Isn’t there a problem in explaining how an undesigned process could produce “one species that is indeed a designer?
  How did we humans get to be so different?
  ” How is it possible for humans to be “so different” from the forces that supposedly produced them? How can water rise above its source?
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A reductionist would resolve the dilemma simply by decreeing that humans are not so different after all—that what appear to be differences in kind are really only differences in degree. But Tallis rejects reductionism. Indeed, he is passionately concerned that a form of neurobiological reductionism is gaining a beachhead in virtually every field.

In the arts, neuroaesthetics claims that we are drawn to works of art because certain visual patterns stimulate the reward centers of the brain. In literature, neuroliterary critics try to explain why we love literature by scanning people’s brains as they read Shakespeare. In legal theory, neurolaw seeks to establish guilt or innocence using magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs). In philosophy, neuroethics claims that “moral standards, practices, and policies reside in our neurobiology.” Neuroeconomics uses brain imaging methods to determine how consumers’ brains respond to brands and products.
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Neuropolitics hopes to use brain science to guide people in making policy decisions. And neurotheology uses MRIs to find the “God spot,” the part of the brain that supposedly leads people to conceive the idea of God and undergo mystical experiences.

These neurotheories are more faddish than factual, Tallis complains. Consider the attempt to explain Christianity by neurobiology: “What kinds of nerve impulses are capable of transcending their finite, local, transient condition in order to conceive of something that is infinite, ubiquitous, and eternal?” Tallis even invites theists to make “common cause” with atheists like himself against the “common enemy” of “neuro-evolutionary reductionism.”

Yet though he seeks allies among Christians, Tallis emphatically rejects Christianity itself. So what answer does he propose to the reductionism he so passionately opposes? Nothing at all. “The truth is that I don’t know.”
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What do we learn by eavesdropping on atheists? First, many of them recognize the limitations and failures of their own worldview. In fact, a compelling case can be made against atheism
using their own words and arguments
. Second, many atheists find elements of a Christian worldview so appealing that they keep borrowing them. They are free-loaders.

When we realize how extensive free-loading is, we come to a greater appreciation of how attractive a biblical worldview really is. Otherwise, why is everyone trying to co-opt the parts they like best?

No wonder Paul says he is “not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16). Recall that in Scripture, to be put to shame means to be disappointed or let down. Paul is saying that a Christian worldview will not let you down. It fulfills humanity’s highest hopes and ideals. This is the good news that will attract people to the gospel who are jaded by the failure and inhumanity of reductionism.

Gimme That Old-Time Philosophy

Perhaps the most egregious example of free-loading is a movement to hijack the explicitly religious dimensions of Christianity. For example, there’s a new field that uses philosophy to treat psychological problems. Labeled Philosophical Counseling, it is being touted as an alternative to the care provided by therapists, priests, and pastors.

These are atheists who want the psychological comfort of Christianity, while rejecting its content.

A book on the subject, titled
Plato, Not Prozac!
, became an international hit. You can even get certified to be a philosophical counselor. A
Washington Post
article says the counselors are “like intellectual life coaches. Very intellectual. They have in-depth knowledge of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist theories on the nature of life and can recite passages from Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological explorations of the question of being. And they use them to help clients overcome their mother issues.”
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Philosophical Counseling may be a new field, but the concept itself is not novel. Philosophies have never been merely academic enterprises. They begin with a God replacement and develop an entire worldview, exhorting people how to make sense of life and to prepare for death. The difference is that today some atheists are actively seeking to “hijack the religious spirit,” as Terry Eagleton puts it.
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They claim that secularism can nurture spirituality.

An example is Luc Ferry’s
A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
. Ferry offers spirituality for secular people: “If religions can be defined as ‘doctrines of salvation’, the great philosophies can also be defined as doctrines of salvation (but without the help of God).”
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Then there’s Pierre Hadot’s
Philosophy as a Way of Life
. Hadot says accepting a philosophy is like a religious conversion: It involves “a total transformation of one’s vision, life-style, and behavior.” It “turns our entire life upside down.”
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You literally stake your life—and your eternity—on a set of ideas being true.

In the ancient world, when philosophy was still young, its life-transforming power was widely recognized. The philosopher was not regarded as an expert in an academic field but revered as a “spiritual guide,” Hadot says. “He exhorted his charges to conversion, and then directed his new converts … to the paths of wisdom.”
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Hadot is seeking to recover that spiritual role for secular philosophy.

So is philosopher Alain de Botton, author of
Religion for Atheists
. Botton is founder of a school in London where students study philosophy not to earn an academic degree but to ponder “the most serious questions of the soul.” One class, titled Filling the God-Shaped Hole, helps people fill the vacuum in their lives when they abandon traditional religions.
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The common thread running through these examples is that they are all attempts to fill the God-shaped hole with something other than God. One book makes the claim frankly in its title:
The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality
.
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Atheists are even founding their own churches. Britain now has its first atheist church. According to news reports, “Dozens of gatherings dubbed ‘atheist mega-churches’ … are springing up around the U.S.”
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Atheists are free-loading the ceremonies of religious worship. They want to co-opt the rituals of Christianity, while rejecting its reality.

A Mass for Charles Darwin

Not all atheists are aware how much they hijack from Christianity. The most common pattern is to claim that atheism is based strictly on facts and science.

Yet even a commitment to science can function as an idol, an ultimate commitment. When science is treated as the sole source of truth, then it becomes scient
ism
. Philosopher Wilfrid Sellars expressed a commitment to scientism when he said, “Science is the measure of all things.” Bertrand Russell tipped his hand in his remark, “What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.”
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The assumption is that whatever cannot be known by science is not real. But consider: Is that statement itself a fact discovered by science? Clearly not. It goes beyond anything science could possibly establish. It is a metaphysical assumption, an arbitrary definition of what counts as genuine knowledge.

Scientism remains one of today’s most popular idols. Any claim that begins with “scientists now know” is likely to trump all competing claims. As John Gray writes, “Science hasn’t enabled us to dispense with myths. Instead it has become a vehicle for myths—chief among them, the myth of salvation through science. Many of the people who scoff at religion are sublimely confident that, by using science, humanity can march onwards to a better world.”
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