The Troubles Behind Atheism

Mark Shea has been writing a bit about atheism in his columns for National Catholic Register, including his most recent (May 13-19), titled "Interior Life of Atheism":

Consider: The French novelist Emile Zola said he just wanted to see one person dip a cut finger in the waters of Lourdes and be healed. He got more than he bargained for. Zola met a woman dying of tuberculosis, whose face had been half eaten away with the disease and who was spitting up blood from her infected lungs. She washed at Lourdes and was presented to Zola immediately afterward, her face already covered in new, dry skin and her tuberculosis in dramatic retreat. “Ah no!” said Zola, “I do not want to look at her. She is still too ugly.” He left declaring, “Were I to see all the sick at Lourdes cured, I would not believe in a miracle.”

Whatever that is, it is not the voice of reason. Rather, it is proof that the artillery of the intellect is subject to the will. That artillery can be ranged to defend against truth just as much as to defend truth. For atheism is often, though not always, driven by anger, pain or disappointment. Atheists (especially former believers) are quite often people who feel betrayed by God and who react by trying to punish him for the abusive relationship they were in or the treacherous way their pastor dealt with them or God’s failure to live up to their childhood expectations. Often they have very deep wounds. And often those wounds are caused by us believers. Not a few atheists are what they are because a Christian has behaved very badly. Zola himself may be an example of this. He was one of the few defenders of a Jewish officer named Dreyfus, who was wrongly convicted of treason and persecuted largely by French Catholics.

Indeed, atheism is a very diverse phenomenon. Many atheists are, theologically, fundamentalists under the skin, often having the most childish and literalistic notions of what Scripture says (Richard Dawkins is an especially egregious example here). Some atheists are simply confirmed in cold hard pride. Some are honest people who just can’t, for the life of them, see what theists are talking about when they speak of their belief in and experience of the supernatural. And that just scratches the surface of the various causes of atheism.

I touched on this same point about the many types of atheism (and, thus, different reasons behind an embrace of an atheistic position) in this recent post, but it deserves to be heard many times over. Also, if you've not read it, see Fr. James Schall's IgnatiusInsight.com essay, "Atheism and Purely 'Human' Ethic".

Comments

[Celestial SeraphiMan]

For atheism is often, though not always, driven by anger, pain or disappointment. Atheists (especially former believers) are quite often people who feel betrayed by God and who react by trying to punish him for the abusive relationship they were in or the treacherous way their pastor dealt with them or God’s failure to live up to their childhood expectations. Often they have very deep wounds. And often those wounds are caused by us believers. Not a few atheists are what they are because a Christian has behaved very badly. Zola himself may be an example of this. He was one of the few defenders of a Jewish officer named Dreyfus, who was wrongly convicted of treason and persecuted largely by French Catholics.

Thank you for posting those words and please thank the original author on my behalf. I sense that the abuses of Christians, both in history and in the present, have provoked anger. I'll grant that Hitler may have had the extermination of Christianity as his ultimate agenda, but didn't he make pro-family and pro-Christian quotes? Didn't Franco accept aid from Hitler and Mussolini as well as being a dictator in his own right? Hasn't the Ku Klux Klan committed crimes and preached exclusion in the name of God and Nature? Weren't there abuses by Christian authorities in the Middle Ages? Aren't there still professed Christians people like Fred Phelps or David Duke who preach malice and psuedo-intellectual exclusion? Who know how many of the left's allegations are actually true? Really, that's a major part of my reservation with so many people in public who boast of being orthodox Christians. By God's grace, I will continue to trust the Mother Church.

[Dan]

Any nut can call himself a Christian but that's not a reason to condemn Christianity.

The French Army persecuted Dreyfus and the Church had nothing to do with it. No doubt many in the French Army were Catholics but that is hardly a reason to blame Catholicism for their actions. It's akin to blaming Judaism for the actions of Julius Rosenberg.

[Ed Peters]

I agree Dan. MS' post was thoughtful, but the French Catholics thing was off. Heck, Dreyfus was persected by French wine-drinkers. I don't that compels one to teetotleism.

[Matt]

I think that the surest proof of Original Sin--that we are not living with natural Grace--is that someone can murder dozens, hundreds, millions of people and then say they were acting out of love for God.

"I say unto you that there are two Commandments only: that ye love God with all thy heart, all they mind, and all thy soul and that ye love thy neighbor as thyself."

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied . . . Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy . . . Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Talk about having the Mystery spelled out in great big capital letters.

[kentuckyliz]

someone can murder dozens, hundreds, millions of people and then say they were acting out of love for God

Atheism doesn't rescue mankind from this dilemma;

someone can murder dozens, hundreds, millions of people and then say they were acting out of love for man

...like the murderous atheist regimes of the 20th century that were supposed to liberate everyone?!