Response to H. J. McCloskeys On Being an Atheist - Essay Example

? Response to H. J. McCloskey’s “On Being an Atheist” Although most people in this world are theists, some like H.J. McCloskey have stood up boldly for their atheistic beliefs. The result is therefore a clash of beliefs. Nevertheless, as long as one uses a different basis for his belief, then he can never possibly argue against someone who is arguing from a different context. The theists argue from one point of view while the atheists argue from a different one. Nevertheless, if one disregards the supernatural and if one uses as his basis only what man knows and what he can possibly know, then most of McCloskey’s arguments that there is no God are logically sound and true. At the beginning of his essay, McCloskey dismantles the three established and scholarly proofs of God’s existence. Although some people may wonder why McCloskey disproves these arguments first and would even accuse him of practicality for having done so instead of attacking God’s existence itself, one should remember that the basis of Christian faith rests upon these three arguments of God’s existence, which have been established by the greatest of Christian scholars in early history. McCloskey begins with the cosmological proof of God’s existence and disproves its validity. According to McCloskey, “The mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in the existence of [an all-powerful first cause or uncaused cause]” (McCloskey 63). This is logical. It would be perfectly all right to think that the existence of a computer necessitates the existence of a maker, because one knows that that is true. Nevertheless, the existence of the world is different from the existence of the computer, for the computer is man-made. Any man-made object is made by man, but since the world is not man-made, then it is definitely not made by man, OR perhaps nothing or no one really made it. The belief of theists is that anything that exists must have been made or created at some point. Nevertheless, no one can simply state this claim a priori; otherwise, it will be an assumption. Thus, McCloskey refutes the cosmological proof of the existence of God simply because he was speaking from what he knows and from the limits of his knowledge, which are simply and practically the same as the limits of any sane person’s knowledge. McCloskey is innocent in making his atheistic claims for it is true that he cannot see or perceive that the existence of the world necessitates the existence of a maker. Besides, anyone who can see such an existence must only be claiming to be able to do so perhaps on the basis of personal faith, an imagined vision, or a physical proof to which he subjectively assigns meaning. In short, a theist believes that God exists because he has won the lottery that he was praying for, his sick child got better, the pastor said so, or just because he could “feel” it. Nevertheless, the point is that, in any case, no theist has seen the “connection” between God and the world. Moreover, since there is no way that a maker is seen as necessary, it also follows that it does not matter whether this maker is all-powerful or not. Aside from the cosmological argument, McCloskey refutes the argument from design and the teleological argument, because, according to him, in order to prove that this argument is true, “…genuine indisputable examples of design or purpose are needed” (64). This is also logical. What is “design” anyway? Perhaps, the theists have sought to define design as the series of events or an elaborate interconnection of things and events that somehow either makes some sense to them or emotionally appeals to them. Perhaps, what the theists see that makes them believe in a design is a pattern or a cycle, like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or the harmonious revolution of the planets around the sun. This is so dramatic and it feels so good to bask at these wonders of nature. Nevertheless, although it is possible that a pattern is demonstrated by these wonders of nature, it does not necessarily mean that there is also a God who made them or who caused the pattern. If there is order, why does the theist assume that there is someone who caused or who maintains the order? Perhaps, it is because theists are used to the fact that their mothers arrange the dining table for them and cook them their meals every morning. People are simply used to the order of things and activities that tradition has brought us – going to school, being in love, getting married, having children, seeing them grow, and dying in old age. This tradition is what has instilled the idea of order in most people. Besides, this orderly and well-organized life is possible only because there are parents, there is a government, and there are institutions that maintain this order. Therefore, most people – and most people are theists – believe that since they see order in nature, they begin to think that there is a God. McCloskey should have addressed this and should not have judged God, or even the idea of God, as simply “malevolent” (64). After criticizing the arguments for God’s existence, McCloskey then proceeds to attack the validity of “faith,” upon which almost all theists rest their convictions of the existence of God. According to the Australian atheist and philosopher, faith should be based on the past goodness, but that “there is not the past knowledge of a good and perfect being” (65). Perhaps, God has been good to a particular individual theist and that is why he chose to believe that God was a good God. Perhaps, the life of one theist was spared from the war or from possible death and so he praised God and believed in His existence, despite the fact that all 10,000 people around him died. Is this not a little selfish for this particular theist to use as a basis for God’s existence and his faith in Him? Any sane man would rather think that just because God, if there is any, spared him now does not mean that he will be spared tomorrow. The point that McCloskey is driving at is clear and logical but he failed to emphasize one important truth – that theists believe in the existence of God simply because they did not experience (yet) something that would make them believe otherwise like death or extreme pain, or that their faith is blind and stubborn, which means that it proudly wants to believe what it wants to believe regardless of their circumstances. The equivalent analogy is this: atheists are simply people who say, “I burned my finger because the fire was hot”; while theists may be people who say, “Although I burned my finger, I firmly believe with my whole life, that the fire was cold.” It is true – give a theist a thousand acts of God that would destroy his life and family and property and he would still stubbornly tell you that God existed. Perhaps, it is because his imagined and strange “faith” is indeed real, or that he is just insane. These are the same people who hit their children and say they do it because they love them, and these are the same children who grow up and beat their wives and say they do it just because they love them. The point is hubris – nobody wants to admit he is wrong regardless of circumstances, and many theists mistake this sinful hubris as faith. However, ultimately, the very point which McCloskey failed to mention is that faith can never be used as a basis for the necessary existence of God. Just because I have a strong faith that it will rain tomorrow although the sun is shining hot today does not necessarily mean that it will. In the same way, just because 1,000,000 people have faith in God does not mean God exists – in the same way that 1,000,000 people who believe that divorce is good does not make it necessarily right. Although McCloskey has not adequately proven the lack of validity of faith as a basis for the existence of God, he has somehow logically proven that God does not exist by saying that “it is because evil exists that we believe God does not exist” (65). McCloskey’s defense of atheism in the context of the existence of evil is that no perfect being could have ever conceived the creation of a world in which there is suffering or one where his creations are free to commit morally evil acts. In fact, no one can blame McCloskey for being as simple as any other ordinary human being who believes that God must be good and that good must not be evil, so God cannot be evil. Although theists, especially those who have a good philosophy or theology background, would contend that God is more than the good and evil and is above both, this theory, no matter how logical it may seem, cannot simply have practical religious value. True religion is not a religion of mind and knowledge but one of practice. No one can ever teach his or her child that God is both good and evil, and that God can do both good and evil things. Besides, the sheer illogic of any supposition that God and evil may coexist is that either God is not powerful enough to destroy evil or that it is malevolent for it allows evil to exist, or there could still be another reason. Nevertheless, regardless of such reasons, it would be illogical to think that God is good for it allows evil; or that God is perfect because it allows evil, which is the cause of His imperfection; or that God exists because evil is always there to counter or even cancel out God’s existence. Nevertheless, with reference to the inherent stubbornness of some theists, at the point where they feel they would lose to the atheist’s argument, they would simply rather say that God is powerful enough to allow evil to coexist with him and to command evil to do as God wishes. God then is one who is truly malevolent. Perhaps, some would even say that God is both good and evil and that He can be like this simply because He is God and He can do anything like assume two different forms, yet little do these theists know that as long as they say that evil coexists with God, they imply that either God is too weak or that He works in cahoots with evil. Moreover, as anyone would equate evil with pain, and that pain and God are simply not synonymous, some theists then say that “pain is God’s way of reminding men of his existence” (66). There is no question then about God’s omnipotence here because God can use anything to His advantage then, including pain. Nevertheless, there is a question of kindness and goodness. If God is indeed all-powerful and all-good, then can He simply not use a method for reminding men of his existence without using pain but with the same results? Nevertheless, the point is that since pain exists, then there must be no God that exists to control it, or perhaps there is a God that exists but a rather malevolent one. Moreover, McCloskey emphasized the nonexistence of God through the futility of religion, and this is very logical. Religion seems to have actually only manufactured the idea of a loving God that theists can use when they need comfort for their sufferings in life. The suffering theists run to church and seek refuge in religion whenever they encounter difficulties in their lives, without realizing one thing: that “God must be held ultimately responsible for these too” (67). What then is the use of praying to a God who has already known beforehand by virtue of His omniscience that one’s daughter would die of an accident? Nevertheless, stubborn as some theists are, they would rather justify the suffering of their loved ones as God’s way to remind the world of His existence and greatness, instead of simply just admitting that either there is no God, or that there is a God but a malevolent one. Moreover, just because there is religion does not mean that the object of worship also exists. McCloskey’s arguments on atheism are sound and logical for they are based only on what the human mind can possibly know. McCloskey does not commit the mistakes of theists – to assume the existence of something based only on faith and not on logic. Based on what man knows and can know, there are no necessary connections between the existence of the world and the existence of God. There is also no clear concept of design that some people use to prove God’s existence. Moreover, the existence of faith and religion does not suppose that their object of worship also exists. The existence of evil and pain also possibly negate the existence of God or that of a good God. The point of McCloskey’s argument is therefore that theists cannot possibly or concretely prove the existence of God through logic and through means that an ordinary human being can comprehend. Therefore, if one considers only what the ordinary man knows or can know, then McCloskey is logical and reasonable in his stance that God does not exist. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited McCloskey, H. J. “On Being an Atheist.” Print. Read More