Opinion Column

Tallman: Questions for thoughtful atheists

By Bruce Tallman, Special to Postmedia Network

In his Dec. 15 column, Goldwin Emerson asked some “Questions for thoughtful Christians,” as the headline said.

I tried to answer in my Dec. 22 column, A thoughtful Christian responds. Now I have some questions for him or any other atheist who would care to answer.

If there is no God, why is evolution on our planet heading in an increasingly spiritual direction: from matter (rocks and chemicals) to life (plants and animals) to thought (humans) to spirit (religions spreading around the globe)? This direction of matter to life to thought to spirit says that everything on Earth is evolving toward the eventual reign of God. There have been major setbacks along the way, for example two world wars in the last century, but still the big overall direction is this: four billion years ago, rocks; now, world religions. Why is this?

A favourite answer of atheists is “there are multiple universes, and it just happens to be that way in our universe, but in other universes it would be different.” However, this is not an answer; this is pure metaphysical speculation since we have no knowledge of other universes.

Why have officially atheist states, such as the former USSR, China and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, always engaged in mass slaughter? Estimates in The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois (1999) are that 85 million to 100 million people died in a span of only 80 years — more than all the religious wars in all of history.

Why is the atheist game plan not working out? That is, why have science, reason, and education not solved all our problems? More people are attending university than ever, and yet our problems do not seem to be decreasing. In fact, science has introduced entirely new and deadly problems, such as the possibility of nuclear and biochemical warfare.

Why is the second part of the atheist game plan, that religion would eventually disappear, also not happening? According to a new study on global religious identity reported in Christian Century (January 2013) “eight in 10 (84%) of the world’s seven billion people adhere to some form of religion. Christians make up the largest group, with 2.2 billion adherents, followed by Muslims with 1.6 billion.” These two groups alone make up 54% of human beings.

Churches in North America and Europe have declined in numbers, but Christianity has shifted to the southern hemisphere. To give one small example, in 1962 in Africa, there were 15,000 Catholic priests and 29 million laity, and now there are 40,000 priests and 186 million laity.

Why do atheists attack only fundamentalists? Why don’t we hear them debating with genuinely profound thinkers like Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, or Ken Wilber, author of Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Post-Modern World?

If there is no God, why is life foundationally good? No doubt there is evil, but it is always a corruption of what was originally good. For example, war is always a corruption of original peace and illness is always a corruption of original health. In spite of all the evil, there is always an underlying goodness. Often atheists try to extricate themselves from questions like this by saying “that’s just the way it is,” but this really explains nothing. Why is it the way it is?

If there is no God, why is love the central thing in life? Poets and musicians have written and sung about this for millennia, so it does not require any extrapolation, except to say that if not for the love between men and women and between parent and child, the human race would not exist.

Finally, why does everyone long for absolute love and peace and joy? That is, why does everyone long for God, whether they know that is what they are longing for or not?

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director. www.brucetallman.com


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