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Monday, September 17, 2007

Why atheists are doomed if they are right, but not if they are wrong

In “The future of atheism: Damned if you do; damned if you don’t”, English teacher Alan Jacobs comments on the infinity of silliness that modern atheists have come up with to try to explain spirituality. He shows why atheism, is, well, doomed:
... if the evolutionary account of religious belief that many atheists are now promoting is correct, then atheists don't have much of a future. Their own arguments, plus some elementary demographic data, show that their position cannot become dominant. The only real chance that atheism has to flourish is if it's wrong.

[ ... ]

Perhaps my thought experiment has gone awry somewhere—I am not convinced of its correctness—but I am sure of one thing. After having spent a great deal of time and energy trying to come up with an evolutionary explanation of religion, atheists now need to turn their attention to a still greater puzzle: What's the evolutionary explanation for atheism?


Seriously, the biggest problem, as we detail in The Spiritual Brain, is that there is NO consensus among materialists on whether religious belief is in fact an adaptation or a glitch. They know for sure they don’t like it, but so? That’s hardly a foundation for a discipline, only a lobby group.

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