Why greater faith is required for one to be an atheist

By David Oginde

As has become the trend in Kenya since the advent of the new Constitution, Harrison Mumia has joined the growing list of those who openly associate themselves with what were hitherto considered taboo subjects and practices.

Whether sincere or not, Harrison came out recently to publicly declare himself an atheist and the president of atheists in Kenya.

This has brought to the fore a critical debate on the veracity of the claims by religious people, and especially Christians, about the existence of God.

Whereas in a democratic society like ours everybody is perfectly free to subscribe to whatever belief or world view they deem appropriate, it is nonetheless important that such beliefs are founded, propagated, and practiced in conformity with their undergirding principles.

My first encounter with a self-confessed atheist was a few years ago when I was invited by the International Commission of Jurists to make a presentation on the place of God and religion in the then proposed new constitution of Kenya.

A counter presentation was by a renowned lawyer who strongly argued for the exclusion of any religious references, and especially God from the document.

My lawyer friend, who is now a judge of the Supreme Court, went ahead to introduce himself as an ardent atheist who could not countenance any form of theism. Though a man of great intellectual ability, I could not help but notice the underlying reactionary arguments that did not seem to be founded on sound engagement with atheistic paradigms.

It is therefore similarly intriguing that Mr Mumia’s atheism is reported to have been triggered by what he considers to be inconsistencies of religious texts, especially the Bible which he says portrays an unfair God who brings pain and suffering to his people. Thus Mumia’s belief system seems to have been triggered by religious frustration rather than sound reasoning.

In its purest form, atheism is the lack of belief in a god and/or the belief that there is no god. Atheists mainly rely on logic, scientific and anti-biblical evidences to denounce God’s existence.  This often poses several dilemmas for the atheist.

Faith and reason

Many atheists consider faith and reason to be mutually exclusive. Dan Barker, an atheist, argues in his book Godless that, “If something is true, we don’t invoke faith. Instead we use reason to prove it. Faith is intellectual bankruptcy.”

Accordingly, one of the problems that atheists have with God is that He does not conform to logical reasoning and does not submit to scientific enquiry. And yet it is this very fact, and this fact alone, that qualifies God to be God! Simple logic should tell us that anything or anyone that can fit into our logical framework, and that can be examined in the human laboratory, must of necessity be within the realm of our control. Such a being cannot at the same time fit the concept of a transcendent being that God is supposed to be.

Thus to try to figure out God in your finite mind or subject Him to some scientific manipulation is to operate in the realm of the absurd! It is like an ant trying to walk around the equator to see whether indeed the earth is round. No ant has ever done it, and no ant will ever do it.

But the fact of the earth’s sphere remains for any ant willing to accept by faith! And for such an ant, it will be wisdom not foolishness; for if one day the ant kingdom discovers a way of going round the earth, they will discover that indeed it was round all along. Likewise, God must simply be accepted or rejected by faith. Neither affects His nature or being.

 

Absolutism and Relativism

The other dilemma that faces the atheist is the absolutism-relativism stance. Atheists argue that there are no absolute truths, and consider any such propositions dogmatic and mere bigotry. The challenge though is that they make such statements with a deep sense of finality and absolutism.

Harrison, for example, describes himself and fellow atheists as free thinkers “who insist the existence of a supernatural being is a figment of the imagination.” In this, Harrison, like other atheists has just taken an absolute stand that there is no God. This negates the very foundation of atheistic framework of logical reasoning.

For if everything is relative and there are no absolutes, then the most logical proposition anyone can make with regard to the existence of God is that there may be no God. And yet to take such a stance would be to allow for the existence of God, the very thing atheists would not want to accept.

It appears to me that greater faith is required to be an atheist — faith to believe that there is no God. Every material reality around us seems to demand the existence of a supernatural source and cause.

To believe that the universe, in all its diversity and order, simply happened; requires more faith than I am personally possessed of. And for being men of such rare faith, I salute Harrison and my judge friend.