It has been a central plank of ‘new atheism’ that religion exists to fill a void in people’s understanding. Where no rational explanation seems to fit, so the argument goes, people create a new belief to explain something. So, for example, people did not know where the world came from, so they invented the creation story and a God to act as creator of it to fill that void.

This is flawed for a number of reasons, not least because it is perfectly possible to hold both the scientific rational explanation of how events occur whilst also holding a religious belief about the meaning and purpose of those events.

However, it also seems false to Mouse for a more basic reason. People believe all sorts of things. Some of the time we are sceptical to our bones. For example, yesterday Derren Brown successfully predicted all six winning lottery numbers before they were drawn. We’ll have to wait until Friday to find out how he did it, but as yet, Mouse has not heard anyone calling for him to be burned as a witch. Nor has Mouse heard of anyone falling prostrate before him in adoration of a deity. In other words, we don’t leap to a manifestly irrational belief simply because we can’t explain something.

In other instances, we do just that. Conspiracy theories abound about just about every notable event. Following on from the death of Michael Jackson, there have already been numerous ‘sightings’ of the King of Pop alive and well in various places around the world. Theories that he faked his death to escape debt and the burden of his upcoming tour are widespread and believed by a surprising number of people. It is said that 9 out of 10 people in America believe that John F Kennedy’s death was a conspiracy.

So what does all this prove. Mouse’s view is that it proves absolutely nothing. Whether people believe something or not does not make the slightest difference to whether that thing is true or not. The ‘new atheists’ need to move on from their simplistic and clearly flawed view. Christians, in turn, need to be better at explaining why they believe the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God are objective truths.

H/T to David Keen for the Derren Brown story

H/T Church Mouse Blog

Posted via email from Tony Watkins

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