In my morning newsfeeds I was sent to this article:
Dean G. Stroud: Faith colors the world for those who believe
which is Dean Stroud’s analysis or review of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book, which apparently didn’t have a catchy-enough title for Stroud to mention it. Whatever.
For atheists, then, intelligent conversation with believers is
possible — up to a point. But faith in God is the proverbial straw
on the camel’s back. Here the theist goes one step too far
and steps out of reality into fantasy. For the atheist, this is
akin to thinking someone
intelligent until you learn that the person believes in the
Easter bunny.
MacIntyre explains that theists view the disagreement
differently. It is not about one additional thing along with other
things, but it is “a disagreement about everything, about what it
is to find anything whatsoever intelligible rather than
unintelligible.”
An example may be taken from the early days of television. When
I was growing up, we had to turn on the color or else watch the
show in black and white. Once we turned the right knob, everything
on the screen was flooded with color. Instantly the world changed
from colorless to one with reds, blues and greens. Faith is like
turning the color on. It is not one more thing more among the many
— it colors everything.
How does one go from seeing faith as one (unnecessary) addition
to the inventory of facts to experiencing a faith-filled world?
Such change seldom comes from rational arguments, although
apologetics can help.
A couple of things struck me. First, the implication that atheism creates a world in shades of gray, while faith in an invisible, impossible being suddenly turns on a world of brilliant and amazing color.
As one man said who turned from atheism to Catholicism, “I
started meeting people who were not just ‘good’, they were holy. A
sort of transcendence that was striking to me marked their lives
and personalities. I could see their prayerful closeness to God in
the way they did everything.”
We have to ask what kind of atheist is being referred to here. That is, because atheism is the default position for most of us, until indoctrinated one way or another, the native-born atheist simply has no thought whatsoever toward the supernatural or to this or that deity. And then there is the conscious atheist who actually has thought it through and come to the rational conclusion that there is no god to believe in.
As I see it, the native-born atheist, without a thought one way or another, may very well be presented with a religious concept and may find some sort of fulfillment and added meaning and depth to his or her life. And this may come from organized religion, generic “spirituality”, or some other perspective. But I find it difficult (though not impossible) to imagine that someone who has actually thought it through and realized there is no god to be swayed by a some apologetic into believing otherwise. The article admits such changes seldom come from rational arguments.
I, too, remember the early days of color television. It didn’t always work right. You might get green skies and blue grass and orange people. At one point they even had cling-on filters to lay over the screen to simulate color. One of the biggest comlaints of the early days of color television was that the colors were not true to reality. My mother often said she would not buy a color television until the colors were true.
The article puts up a false dichotomy: atheism is shades of gray; theism/faith turns on full color.
But there is no guarantee that the world colored by faith is accurate and true to reality.
The author goes on to illustrate this “color” by holding up examples of people who were thought to be “holy”, as if recognizing the supposed goodness in others as a measure of faith is part of this “coloring the world”. But, sadly, he holds up Mother Teresa, who is known to have been neither holy nor particularly good in the final analysis. She hurt thousands upon thousands of people with her regimented, cold, calculating application of religion, forcing those in her care to suffer needlessly when she had access to food and medicine to actually help them. To her, suffering was a good thing, and she apparently had no problem making sure others suffered as much as possible.
And I recognize there is a time for “making do with what’s available”, and life can be harsh and cold. But what Mother Teresa did was unconscionably cruel — while begging for money and raking in millions of dollars, it was withheld from those for whom it was intended to help. I have no idea if she ever gave a full accounting of where all the money, drugs, food, and other resources actually went. Viewing her as “good” or “holy” requires viewing her through a faulty cling-on filter that does not offer accurate color of reality.
I have a problem with the notion that irrational faith and theism are the ways to “color” the world, or to recognize and appreciate the goodness of others. There truly are many genuinely good people in the world; in fact, I believe most people pretty much want to be good to themselves and to others, and there are also some exceptionally good people. We do not need to believe in a god in order to open our eyes and have our world filled with the brilliant colors of human endeavor and charity.
Many times, both in my own life and in the lives of other non-theists, people have said, “You are such a good Christian.” This is an example of inaccurate color. People are not good because they are Christian (or Jew or Buddhist or whatever). People are good because they are good, and we need to be able to separate the fact that they are good from the fantasy that there is some deity involved in the process.
My world is filled with the brilliant colors and nuances of humanity — just pure plain humans being human. I don’t have to slap on a cling-on filter and pretend some supernatural force is behind their goodness. Without filters, without special tuning knobs, without superstition, my world is far from shades of gray.
What say you?