Why Atheism May Be the Best Way to Understand God

By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet. Posted December 19, 2008.

But they don't. They all say, "This is it. The revealed truth. The one and only. You can kill me, and I won't give that up. If you want to fight about it, I'll kill you."

OK, not all of them. But enough to make this conversation a matter of life and death.

Is there a way to pick the right truth? To determine which truth is The Truth?

Each tradition has produced millions of words that prove that theirs is the one that came direct from God and got it right. Such arguments are very convincing to people who already believe what's being argued for.

But imagine a panel of judges, made up of a Protestant, a Catholic, a Mormon and a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh and a Buddhist, too. Could anyone make a presentation of his or her Truth as the One and Only Truth that could convince them all? Or even get a majority of such a court?

Even within religions -- everyone swearing by the same text -- there are disagreements, divisions and schisms. These, too -- Protestant versus Catholic, Shiite versus Sunni -- are volatile enough to lead to violence.

Believers like to argue that the word of God is absolute and unchanging. But in practice, that's absolutely not true.

The rule for marriage in the Old Testament -- based on examples and God's occasional command -- seems to have been, "One man and however many women suit the situation." The New Testament did not explicitly change that. Both St. Augustine and Martin Luther said there was no scriptural prohibition on polygamy. Yet today things have somehow morphed so that the Catholic Church and most Protestants will insist that it is God's law that "marriage is a union between one man and one woman."

Similar changes have taken place over slavery, divorce and the death penalty for adultery. God's law, as expressed by religious leaders, evolves quite as much as man's law.

If we start from the Missionary Position -- the position of faith -- that God exists, these are the kinds of question we need to ask to go forward: 

• Why doesn't God make himself clear?
• Why does God give different rules to different people?
• Why is it that the culture someone is born into is, far and away, the most important determinant of which revelation they believe in?
• Is there a way to sort out The Truth?
• If a new prophet arrives tomorrow -- and they do arrive with great regularity -- how can we say that the new revelation is not the true revelation? 

Atheism

Here are the questions we have to ask from the atheist position. 

• If God doesn't exist, why do so many people believe in him?
• If God doesn't exist, why are spiritual practices and religion among the human universals, things that exist in all human societies? 

The exception is the Communist experiment, with state-ordered atheism. That can be regarded as an attempt to alter humanity's basic inclinations, like the various attempts to ban alcohol. It achieved some success, but at great expense. It required violence, a minority always resisted and the practice bounced back, in varying degrees, as soon as the ban was lifted.

Here's the great paradox, and the most interesting question: If God doesn't exist, belief is delusional. Delusion is, by definition, dysfunctional.

Clearsighted atheists should routinely be happier, healthier and wealthier than delusional believers. But they're not. According to most surveys, they don't even have a better sex life.

There have been atheist societies. During the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe, China and the Communist countries of Southeast Asia, almost a third of the world, were officially atheist. They did not generally out perform the United States, the countries of Western Europe, and many of the Asian countries allied with the West, all of which had freedom of religion, and some of which had state-supported churches as well.

If atheism is the The Truth, why isn't accepting the truth more helpful? If belief is a Lie, why isn't the lie more harmful?

Agnosticism

Agnosticism sounds very reasonable, rational and even scientific.

The social sciences -- psychology, sociology, anthropology and the rest -- officially take the stance that the existence or nonexistence of God, the process of revelation, and what is known through revelation, are all outside the realm of science.

But how can you study the psychology of religious belief in a meaningful way unless you first determine if people are believing in something real or false? It's the difference between someone trying to climb a tree that's there and trying to climb one that's imaginary.

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Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. His latest book is Salvation Boulevard. Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net.

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