“The most dangerous philosophy is one that goes unrecognized.”

I recently observed on my blog:

Atheist critics constantly inform us, humble ignorant Christians, that atheism himself is, alas, not a formula position, but only the absence of a position (belief in God). It’s not a world view, etc. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard this. This is not true, but we to listen that all the time.

Lo and behold, the very next day, an atheist on a leading atheist website that denigrated Christians brought up the same subject and said that “an atheist is one who is not a theist.” But he denied that atheism was “in itself a belief.” No one doubts that this is the literal Meaning of the word. It does not follow, however, that the atheist believes nothing in a positive sense, or that he or she does not have a worldview or belief sets (which is my topic).

They certainly have to do – as practically all sentient human beings do, whether they recognize it or not. Someone wisely said, “The most dangerous philosophy is one that goes unrecognized. In short, almost all atheists are empiricists, positivists, philosophical materialists, methodological naturalists, delighted with science as the supposedly the only valid epistemology – which essentially makes it their religion (“scientism”) – who are all objectively identifiable positions, which can be discussed. and either embraced or rejected.

So it is not so much that we say that there is an “atheistic worldview” in itself. On the contrary, we make the observation (from long personal experience, if one is an apologist like me) that every self-proclaimed “atheist” will tend to have a particular worldview (however they call it or not) which is an amalgamation of many specific things and identifiable which are themselves worldviews, philosophies or ways of life.

Whatever one thinks of the above analysis, it remains very likely that atheists will cling to one or more of the belief systems (usually grouped together) described above. And they will often be blind to the fact that they do, and will speak in terms of their mere “science” and / or “reason” (with the implication that the non-atheist usually either does not or is fundamentally irrational or “Naive” or “gullible” simply because they reject atheism).

I’m not talking about a single word (atheism); I’m talking about what atheists actually believe, and claiming that atheists stick to beliefs and belief systems (usually quite predictable those at that). In other words: atheists are just as likely to have worldviews as anyone else.

The same atheist then decried the title atheist himself and laments that its widespread use was “a game with language”. It’s downright funny; as if atheists did not choose overwhelmingly to to call This name? They can reject it if they wish. They are free to do so. No one is forcing them at gunpoint to use this name for themselves. They could use “agnostic” (and many do, but it’s a less certain and less dogmatic perspective), or they could use a word like “humanist” (which some of them do as well). But the fact remains that many and many atheists show no return to the end atheist. On the contrary, they are proud to kiss this.

For heaven’s sake, on the very site where this essay was published, if you look at the top, you see John Loftus’ books in a photograph: one of which is Why I became an atheist. The late Christopher Hitchens (a very famous and influential atheist indeed) edited a book titled, The portable atheist: essential readings for the non-believer. Antitheist atheist Dan Barker is the author of the modestly titled volume, Without God: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists.

An atheist I have debated at length wrote an article titled “Why is an Atheist an Atheist?” In which he expressed:

“But ask an atheist why he is an atheist, and most of the time the person is so ready to answer the reasons why the atheist is incorrect in his answer; they literally can’t wait for the poor to stop talking. …

“You want to know why an atheist is an atheist. Ask him. … “

But atheists don’t like the term atheist more?

In conclusion, here are some of the many things that atheists en masse to believe:

• this matter exists.
• that exists.
• that matter can be observed according to more or less predictable scientific laws (uniformitarianism).
• that we can trust our senses to analyze such observations and what they mean (empiricism).
• in the correctness of mathematics, which also starts from axioms.
• in the laws of logic, in order to even communicate (let alone discuss) anything with any meaning at all.
• assuming that certain things are absolutely true.
• this matter has the inherent capacity “like God”, in fact “omnipotent”, to organize itself, to evolve, to develop inexorably in all that we observe in the whole universe. There is no God or even an immaterial spirit who has done or could do this, so he has to fall back on matter. Belief in this for no reason to do so is what I have written at length about the de facto religion of “atomism”.
• that the universe started in a Big Bang (for who knows why).
• that the universe was created out of nothing (for who knows what reason), but he is considered more rational than the Christian believing that God is an eternal spirit, who created the universe.
• that science is the only method by which we can objectively determine facts and truth (extreme empiricism + scientism).

I’m sure I could come up with a lot more if I sat and thought for a while, but it’s more than enough to demonstrate my point: atheists (as people) have worldviews, even if the word atheism itself means (literally) “to reject a belief in God”. And that’s what we apologists (so relentlessly despised by atheists) are saying.