Being a ‘Bright’ Darkens the Intellect

Here is my column for today’s EveryJoe THE WRIGHT PERSPECTIVE, which I post herein hope of readers may make visiting the column a regular habit.

Atheism Causes Brain Damage

There are two kinds of atheist: a rational atheist, whose disbelief in God is grounded on some rational reason he can articulate, and an irrational atheist, who hates a God in which he allegedly does not believe, grounded on various unseemly appetites emotions and passions (anything from an infatuation with sin to a hunger for fads to a hatred of moral reality) passing with furious clamor through echoing emptiness of his brain. A rational atheist is one with whom one can have a rational discussion, and be a dispassionate as a judge in a courtroom. An irrational atheist has something wrong with his brain, and he belongs on a psychiatric couch.

I have noticed of late the rational atheists are disappearing and the irrational atheists blooming, and fear I know the cause.

In my youth, one could find from time to time an honest and thoughtful man who, not believing in God, could give a rational and honest reason for his disbelief.

He could say it was a logical contradiction to say an omnipotent and benevolent creator could permit evil a place in his creation, since a creator lacking the ability to forestall evil is not omnipotent, or, lacking the motive, not benevolent.

Or the rational atheist could say an omniscient being possessing or bestowing free will was paradoxical, since only the acts of an unfree will can be foreknown.

The rational atheist could say that natural causes were sufficient to explain the cosmos and man’s role in it, ergo so no inquiry into supernatural causes is needed.

Or a rational atheist could say that Christian theology was essentially the same as pagan mythology, and since even Christians admit such myths are manmade falsehoods, there is no rational way to defend one myth as true while condemning all others as false.

Finally, a rational atheist could point out various inconsistencies in the Bible or in Church tradition, or enormities committed by followers of Christ, to lend weight to any doubts one might entertain in taking the Bible or the Church as a trustworthy authority or trustworthy witness. This final argument is not meant to prove atheism is true, merely that it is a sound position.

I regret to report that, so far in my career as a Christian, not one of these rational atheist arguments has been encountered by me.

Not one.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.