Ten Terms to Understand in Engaging the Atheist (1/10)

Growing up in the 90s, especially in this Country, I thought that atheism[1] WAS (both as past tense and as subjunctive) only for intelligent, cool and smart pals. Because there were self-confessed atheists from some certain high caliber universities, I thought it was a tough stuff. “Fascinating”. It was what I used to describe the feeling and thought of wanting to be one. Their cocky, seat in the pants retorts to tough questions always had that charm for me.

Time went on and I got to allow my feet feel through the sifting sand of education and scholarship— history, literature, philosophy― then the “fascination” started to wane as I get to see the perspective, counter-perspectives and differing worldviews that overarch human consciousness. Consequently, I started sensing the angst and belligerence that appear embedded in the atheist claims. Inevitably, I started asking why.

A pronounced Christian, i.e. someone who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ, for a decade[2] now, I would like to know their bone of contention, at least from a rational perspective and see if the way I engage them somehow makes sense, though maybe not necessarily to them, but to the average thinking individual who might be asking the fundamental question: What is truth?

In this brief survey, we shall look into the ten (10) common terms that are (mis-/ab-)used and attacked by atheists, in the Philippines or abroad, and see if they mean the same as Christianity really means such terms or as they are supposed to be. For a Christian to be an effective "case maker", i.e. someone who explicates the Truth claims of Christianity, s/he should have a strong grip of these terms and definitions and must not compromise the meaning that undergirds them. The first to be studied is the word “Myth”.

Myth

Surely, we have heard of this term several a time. In its popular usage, myth is something to be “busted”, thus shows like MythBusters. It has a negative connotation. Myth is synonymous to fantasies or fantastic stories we were told when we were young. We grow older and ‘sadly’, we discover that Santa Claus is ‘just’ our parents or ‘True love’ is not always true (or something to that effect..).

Conversely, in the field of academics, especially in the language of some Psychologists and Anthropologists (e.g. Carl Jung, Claude Levi-Strauss, Joseph Campbell etc.) Mythology[3] is the attempt at gleaning from the collective human experiences inscribed in the folktales of different peoples. It is as if the study of “human nature” or “human psyche”. Thinkers of the old and recent, like Giambattista Vicco[4] and Roland Barthes[5], called it as “structuring principle” or “signifying process”.

Nevertheless, the common ground between the popular and the scholar dimensions of the word, which atheists bank on, is its being a collection of stories (tales and narratives) with reference to reality, but with details blown out of proportions. In short, M-/myths are mere products of human imagination.

And because religion, in general and Christianity, in particular, specifically the accounts of the Bible admit the possibility of the supernatural―and myths are characterized by the fantastic, atheists use it interchangeably, if not ‘substitutively’ with religion. Christianity, being a religion and like others, therefore, is a “myth”.

The first detail that this mental attitude glosses over is that myths, either the old or the new, are systems of belief about the world and universe (or the pre-scientific version of Cosmology and Cosmogony). In other words, all myths have their claim and version of the “origin”. And while each of them has a version of the “origin”, it thus means that they cannot be lumped together and be said that they are “all the same”. For if this is the standard of atheists in saying that Christianity is one of the many myths (or in their more pejorative version “fairy tales”), then Science, as they revere it, is also a myth, for it gives a version of the origin of the universe and life. And with scientific theories being “tentative”, at least from the skeptical stance of the atheist, then, there can be another body of knowledge that can supersede modern science. That would have made the present body of belief surely as “tales from the old”. Surely, the atheist is quick to respond that “well, but it is proven by facts from experiments and research!”. Indeed! But what the atheist fails or refuses to recognize is this: before the establishment of facts and the act of embarking on a research, is the “fact finder/researcher’s” presupposition that FACTS CAN BE DISCOVERED and the UNIVERSE IS A SUITABLE GROUND FOR STUDYING. This very assumption is true in all bodies and systems of beliefs. Science is not an exemption[6].

What it simply says is this: atheists’ use of the word “myth” to condescend religions is unchecked. Because the very accusation they use can be actually used against them, under the “you too” fallacy, this line of thinking is therefore condemned as illegitimate. Playfully laid, we read the great Stephen Hawking said “Heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark”, to which another great personality, John Lennox courteously retorted: “Atheism is a fairy story for those afraid of the light.”

Secondly, and on a more serious note, it is central to the Christian faith to have the exclusive claim to truth and origin. As a matter of fact, all worldviews are exclusivists in their claims. The neighboring myths during the time of Moses believed that heavenly bodies were (personified as) deities. A keen reader would remember that the Genesis account, despite its mythic overtone, sets itself apart from the competing narratives by practically saying that the sun, the moon, the stars, and other heavenly bodies, were created objects and thus not meant to be worshiped. This is an important distinction. Fast forward to the New Testament, we read Paul reminding Timothy as he pastors the Church in Ephesus to not “devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work--which is by faith.”[7] (emphases added). The word “myth” is from the Greek “mythos” (fables or figments) which Plato distinguished from "logos" (logic). Needless to say, the Bible condemns myth-thinking as a meaningless, purposeless and futile, as atheists accuse the Bible as mere myths, and thus, is not worthy of the privilege it has. I suppose at this time, we have already seen the dissonance. The Bible cannot be what it condemns. So the logical conclusion is either atheists are (closet) Bible believers or they attribute something to the Bible and Christianity that they made up: their own “myth” of the Christian worldview. Spells like a big contradiction, doesn’t it?

In the final analysis, for atheists to mean Christianity as “myth”, i.e. a mere fabricated tale with unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, is a wholly misinformed, baseless accusation. Christianity, and thereby, the Christian, sets itself apart from myths and tales of imagination as the one that claims exclusivity to the coherent explanation of origin. To give the striking emphasis, concession and accommodation of the supernatural in the Christian worldview, however, C.S. Lewis, the great literary critic, novelist, and Christian Apologist says:

“The story of Christ is simply true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened”[8]

(emphases added).

[To be continued...]

[1] For a uniform, objective definition, let us have the Merriam-Webster denotation for atheism- disbelief in the existence of deity; the doctrine that there is no deity; from Greek a- no; theos- god; transliterated: no god

[2] I declared my allegiance to Christianity February 5, 2006 at Bayview Park Hotel, Malate Manila

[3] Usually with “and Folklores”

[4] Cf. Sapienza Poetica

[5] Cf. Mythologies

[6] As a matter of fact, Scientists conduct experiments and researches in assumption, if not the hope of arriving (back) to a condition of ceteris paribus, Latin for everything is equal under the laws of nature.

[7] 1 Timothy 1:4

[8] C.S. Lewis’ letter to Arthur Greeves of October 18, 1931, p. 977 (from the Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis: Books, Broadcasts and the War 1931-1949. Volume II. Ed. Walter Hooper. Harper San Francisco. Zondervan.