Are Atheists Afraid of God?

Well, are they? Did Hitchens really reconsider atheism? Is the response to the book by atheists uncalled for?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-atheists-afraid-of-god-1464907324

Are Atheists Afraid of God?
Christopher Hitchens’s fans are incensed by a book that dares to say he took faith seriously.
Writer Christopher Hitchens in Washington, D.C., in 2010. ENLARGE
Writer Christopher Hitchens in Washington, D.C., in 2010. PHOTO: THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
By ERIC METAXAS
June 2, 2016 6:42 p.m. ET
976 COMMENTS
The question might seem silly, because atheists claim not to believe in God at all. But claims don’t always match behavior, as the reaction to a recent book illustrates.

That book is “The Faith of Christopher Hitchens,” by Christian apologist Larry Alex Taunton, who tells the story of his remarkable friendship with Hitchens, the writer and ardent atheist who died in 2011. The book focuses on two long road trips during which they actually studied the Gospel of John together. (Mr. Taunton drove while Hitch, who had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010, read aloud and drank Scotch.) But the idea that, contrary to his blunderbuss public attitude toward Christianity, Hitchens was not just friendly with Christians but also open to the idea of faith, has many atheists apoplectic.

Avenging anti-God hordes have crashed the book’s Amazon page, fulminating with one-star reviews that the book is “tripe!” and “dishonest” and “morally reprehensible,” and accusing Mr. Taunton of riding the beloved Hitch’s coattails “to make a fast buck.” It is pretty obvious that none of these Amazon “reviewers” has actually read the book. But why haven’t they, and why are they so outraged?

Do they fear that Mr. Taunton is some Bible-believing Svengali whose nefarious power over their ailing colleague was sheerest opportunism? And are they afraid that actually engaging with Mr. Taunton and his ideas would put them in the same danger as the man they so admired?

How can people so vocal about the importance of “evidence” and “reason” behave like this? Yet there they are, posting their angry one-star reviews, “liking” all other one-star reviews on the page to try to discourage book buyers, and then indignantly clicking away.


But one must wonder: Could it be that, in the friendship between the two men, they detect the possible existence of something they deny but secretly fear might be real? Is God a subject too scary to seriously consider with facts and reason?

The idea that Hitchens was curious about faith and engaged with it intellectually apparently would amount to an intolerable betrayal in the minds of some atheists, so they simply pretend that it never happened, despite the clear evidence to the contrary.

After all, wasn’t Hitchens’s friendship with Mr. Taunton itself evidence that Hitchens actually valued Mr. Taunton and his views?

Consider a recent BBC “Newsnight” interview with Mr. Taunton. Flirting with “Saturday Night Live” parody, the smug host, James O’Brien, ensconced in a gleaming black-and-purple set with his interviewees on remote video, treated his Christian guest with imperious disdain. Failing to fluster Mr. Taunton by insinuating that the author was claiming a Hitchens conversion to Christianity—that’s not Mr. Taunton’s point—the host then turned to atheist activist Lawrence Krauss, who said that Hitchens was not Mr. Taunton’s friend at all, but was only in his company because Hitchens had been paid to debate him. Unmentioned: those two long, voluntary road trips, and the fact that Hitchens had even spent the night at his friend’s house. Of course to know this, one must have read the book.

I have some history with Mr. Krauss. In an op-ed in 2014 for this newspaper called “Is Science Increasingly Leading Us to God?” I discussed the implications of a fine-tuned universe—and stirred up swirling dust-devils of atheist outrage. Mr. Krauss attacked the op-ed in the New Yorker magazine with an essay called “No, Astrobiology Has Not Made the Case for God,” dismissing the idea of a divinely ordered universe as sheer nonsense.

How awkward. None other than Christopher Hitchens himself had taken the fine-tuned-universe argument seriously. In the 2009 documentary “Collision,” about his encounters with evangelical theologian Douglas Wilson, Hitchens says: “At some point, certainly, we [atheists] are all asked which is the best argument you come up against from the other side. I think every one of us picks the fine-tuning one as the most intriguing,” adding that “you have to spend time thinking about it, working on it. It’s not . . . trivial.”

If atheist activists want to be taken seriously, they must be willing to engage the facts. The fact is that Mr. Taunton has simply said that Hitchens late in life was “not certain” of his atheism. Unable to tolerate this crack in the atheist facade, Mr. Taunton’s critics reacted hysterically. The response lent credence to what many of us suspect—that atheists really do fear some facts, and, more than that, fear where those facts might lead.

Mr. Metaxas is the author of “If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty,” out June 14 from Viking.

 

Of course they are because they don't want to consider the chance they might be wrong. This is why they are so militant to Christians.

A true atheist would not care what others believe but most of them make it a goal to convince people how wrong Christians are.

 

Why? If this being created me then he created a skeptic who really can't see sound evidence for its existance and will understand.

And I'm militant to counter the ravages of faith which is fundamentally destructive since its a poor path to knowledge, reason through science is tested and demonstrated its superiority.

 

we fear believers, not their deities. it's the humans (obviously, since the gods are all MIA) who cause us trouble.

 

Oh yes, we're very afraid!

We're exactly as afraid of Yahweh as Christians are afraid of Odin and Zeus. If you're a Christian yourself, you'll understand then, just how deep our terror runs.

 

A real atheist wouldn't even bother with the religion forum. Those who do have some fascination with trying to convince Christians they are wrong or just to spew hate.

 

i dont fear the non-existent God.

but I do fear many of the folks that claim to follow "it".

 

Millions don't but obviously you don't know about them and so don't count them when you think of "atheists". You probably think all Muslims are terrorists and all blacks are criminals too.

 

Really?

What do you fear about my belief exactly?

 

Call me a fake atheist then, if it bolsters you in some way.

Meantime, I'll continue to hammer any dogma which visits negatives upon society. And have lots of fun doing it

 

Seriously? Theists can be cool people (and, shocker, people can be friendly with those who disagree with them) and theism is intellectually engaging, as an idea which has dominated human perception for hundreds, even thousands of years and continues to influence many people and societies hugely. And the FTA probably is the best argument - the best of a dreadful bunch, but still. How does this demonstrate in any way that an atheist is unsure about their atheism or secretly a theist?

 

It doesn't. It's just a popular theist manoeuvre - used to convince themselves that their god is real. If you can convince yourself that even your enemies secretly love you, then you must surely be super awesome, etc. Or, if Mom & Dad set a place at dinner for your imaginary friend (even though they say they can't see him and say he isn't real) then he must be real.

 

Pretty much.

What theists will resort to never ceases to amaze me.

 

And what negatives are those?

 

Why would I be afraid of nothing? That would be akin to fearing a Unicorn invasion taking my Billion dollar space station.

 

how much time do you have?

 

Start with one.

 

I am an atheist.

I am no more afraid of "God" than I am afraid of leprechauns or unicorns.

Why would I 'be afraid' of something I don't believe exists?

 

burning 'witches'
only allowing Christians to enter politics

two for the price of one!

 

You have to go back to the 1800's lol.

And where cant a Christian enter politics in the US?

 

It is because you see god as a distant man sitting on his throne at the end of the universe, waiting for ppl to find him. God can be seen in a much more ethereal way than this, which doesn't imply that you can find him, much less talk to him. The mistery is much deeper than you thought...

 

Perhaps. Perhaps not. There are several reasons non-theists criticize theists and the religious dogma they promote. Many have to do with theist attempts to impose their beliefs upon others, of which there are numerous examples which date back over 1,000 years through the present. Other reasons include a desire to influence politics, to help direct mememics and to promote rational thinking over emotionalism and faith-based choices.

Says you.

 

The list is not too long. Then they repeat it.

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You talk with this god of yours?

 

Some knocked on my door last week and told me I'll be tortured if I don't join their cult immediately. I had kids in the house while they were saying this. Last week was 2016. Last year (2015), a believer screamed 'you're a demon' at me, after I asked for evidence of the god they were trying to sell me. I could go on alllll day.

Apparently, it's virtually impossible to get ahead in politics in America as an atheist. Apparently, atheists are the least trusted people in America. Apparently.

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yet you have it sorted, right?

BTW, it's 'mystery'.

 

Are you implying there is something wrong with Christians trying to use politics to promote their values?

Isn't that why as a nation we vote?