Thursday, July 23, 2015

Freedom of the Atheist vs. Freedom of the Christian

The idea of freedom is easily the greatest appeal of atheism. Intellectual freedom. Philosophical freedom. Freedom of lifestyle. Freedom from the guilt and restrictions provided by religion. If you don't want to use your money for charity, you don't have to. Marriage? Sure, if you want. Or you can have a great life of sex. There's no reason why you shouldn't. We're here to procreate; it's instinctual. And if you don't want a child or can't handle one, there's no reason why you can't get an abortion. This is about self-preservation. Again, it's necessary to rely on our biology. It knows us better than ourselves. So long as we aren't hurting anyone, nothing is wrong with holding an atheistic worldview. Society would run more smoothly if we allowed ourselves the freedom of naturalism.

Except that it wouldn't. The natural world can be a brutal place. Watch the Discovery Channel and you'll see it pretty quickly. When you realize that these animals are acting on instinct, things come into focus. Naturalism is able to explain how life works. In simplistic terms, organisms are what they are because of chemical reactions to stimuli. Everything is dictated by this. And that terrifies me.

An atheist, a true atheist, must subscribe to this view. Even Secular Humanism, which claims that humanity can be moral without spirituality, must concede to this fact. Atheism rejects God and the supernatural in favor of empiricism. The natural world is tangible and it can be tested and have proof. Because science is the study of nature and provides knowledge for these things, it becomes the highest form of truth.

However, in accepting naturalism there comes the necessity to yield what atheism values most: freedom. Choice no longer exists or, rather, it never did. Everything you are, everything you do, feel, and think is nothing more than chemical reactions to stimuli. Nothing is "wrong" or "right" because it's just things doing what they do. You're nothing more than a machine that's part of a machine and so on and so on. Nothing has value and, therefore, you have no value.

It's for this reason, first and foremost, that I'm not an atheist. A clockwork existence is a sad and pointless one. Critics of Christianity like to point at how we "suppress" rights and halt progress without realizing that we believe in an actual, non-illusory freedom.

I believe in the processes of how things work. It's undeniable. What differentiates me from the atheist is that I believe in transcendent ideas. I believe that actions and thoughts, sadness, hope, morality, love, and creativity are more than just chemicals. I believe that they are what God put in us. It's what separates us from all other life. It reveals our value and our individuality. It reveals God's love in creating us. And any true atheist that's intellectually honest with himself will recognize that he cannot believe in these things without a God in existence.

-L. Travis Hoffman
7/23/2015

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.