Why Atheists Are Illogical Too

If you ask someone today how the universe was created, and were able to really press them with questions, somehow defying the odds and avoiding a fist fight, and forced them to answer I believe you would get one of two responses: "God" (or another word referring to the same concept, some all powerful creative force or entity, perhaps multiple gods etc), or "I don't know". Except maybe from the Buddhists who would dodge the question and tell you your personal liberation is what you should be thinking about. Some will respond that the Big Bang created the universe and might tell you as much as they know about that theory, but you, the whip snap learned person you are, would ask them what created the high density, high temperature state which precipitated the Big Bang, and at a certain point in the conversation they would not be able to give any further explanation as to how the universe was created.

Of course, the question itself might be bullshit. It's possible that the universe was never created and has simply always just existed. But you could then try the same line of questioning on “Why does the universe exist?” and get the same two answers.

Modern scientific knowledge has not fully explained the universe creation question yet, though it has proposed many ideas from brilliant to terrible. So we remain with just those two answers about what created the universe: "God" and "I don't know", and the latter isn't even an answer, it's a capitulation. And it is from here that I think atheists often display ignorance. They do not with certainty know the origins of the universe and yet they explicitly deny the possible existence of God even though God is actually the best explanation humanity has come up with so far regarding the creation of the universe. Atheists believe it just because. They believe it, presumably due to a lack of faith, which is not any better of a reason than faith itself to believe anything.

If atheists want to criticize organized religion, sure, there is plenty to criticize. If they want to point out all the things which were formerly attributed to God but have now been explained by science, by all means. But the answer to who or what created the universe? Atheism, at this point, isn't any more logical than any theistic explanation. And for a group who often take pride in their superior grasp of logic, I find this hypocritical.

In the 1997 film Contact (thanks, Carl Sagan!) Jodie Foster's character invokes Occam's Razor, the basic scientific principle which says all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one, as a defense of atheism saying given the complexities of God it's much more likely, because it's simpler, that humanity in fact just made him up. But I could say the same thing about the creation of the universe. Given all the complexities and scientific theories about it, it is simpler to just say that God, in His unlimited power, just made it up. Isn't it?

Now, none of this is to say that atheists need to start worshiping the nearest deity they can find. They are free to believe or disbelieve whatever they like. I do, however, think they should be a bit more forgiving of those who do believe in a god because when it comes to how logical their main argument is they are really in the same camp. Both are possible, neither is certain.

I would, however, like to suggest a compromise of sorts. In my years I've heard multiple theists, from differing religions mind you, say thing like “I want to get to know God better” or “I want a deeper understanding of the higher power”. Conversely, my friends in the science and logic camp are curious about the mysteries of the universe, black holes, time travel, explanations to things we don't know.

So here's my suggestion: What if we called everything that is not currently understood by humanity “God”? In this sense, God would represent unattained knowledge, all the stuff that is currently a mystery beyond our grasp. I think that is quite beautiful really. It's not actually any different to the way the ancient Greeks, for example, attributed everything they didn't understand about the seas to Poseidon. They were aware that knowledge and forces existed which they didn't understand, so they simply gave it a name.

Basically you could create a diagram which has a largish circle which you could label "All of the knowledge of the universe" and inside that circle would be a (surprisingly) smallish circle labeled "Human knowledge". And the space inside the big circle but outside the small circle would be “God”. Actually, it's easier if I just make the damn diagram. Here:

 So over time that small circle will start to expand and take up a greater percentage of the larger circle (assuming the big circle doesn't change size), and accordingly, the area labeled "God" will diminish in size and God will be less relevant as we explain more things we didn't previously understand and were attributed to God. Here is a sample portrayal of this effect over three points in human history:

This compromise would better align the interests of theists' and atheists' opposing viewpoints. It works if the atheists agree to call unknown things “God” which should appease the theist crowd, but in turn, the theists will need to concede that there are such things as facts and knowledge and that both of those things are increasing over time and it's not a bad thing even if it makes God seem a little less mysterious or important. I mean, after all, if it's OK to celebrate a grilled cheese sandwich which resembles the Virgin Mary as evidence of God, why isn't it also OK to study similarities and changes in God's creatures over time which might prove evolution and genetics to be real phenomenon. Aren't those things also evidence of God? Or does God only work through really simple means like sandwiches, and sometimes potatoes, and everything else is a man-made conspiracy? 

I say let's not be so defensive and insecure in our beliefs that we can't make some day-to-day compromises to make things more harmonious. And then I won't have to spend all this time pointing out how atheism is illogical.

The Virgin Mary, apparently. (Image stolen from http://liasynthis.blogspot.com, but it looks like she stole it from another site which no longer exists.)