Unprompted, Does an Atheist Ever Claim “There is No God!”

Unprompted, Does an Atheist Ever Claim, “There is No God!” 

I might have been wearing ear-muffs when there were muffled sounds of an atheist claiming the non-existence of God (yes, God and not god). Yet, there has been no such chorus, even Mr. E. V. Ramasamy Naicker did not claim so in the early to mid 20th century in Tamil Nadu.

I do not know how many of my readers would have read an essay written in his early college years by Antony Flew entitled, “Theology and Falsification.” That essay, I believe is essential reading for anyone discussing the existence of God.

I will try to weave in what Flew wrote, as I understood, on existence of God. It would definitely be a torture; I am not recommending this post to anyone to read. I developed my idea from what the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, and more importantly how I rewrote it in my head. I read about fifty pages of his writing during a very stressful time in my life, if you would like to know.

So, that should give you the idea that I behaved just as religionists and believers do when going through difficult times. But, that would be wrong. After reading those pages, I just let those thoughts float to the back of my mind. It was only when I found my professional footing and also tried to root myself as a reed in the bed of a slow moving, unruffled stream of thought, I began to think about what Hume had said.

As a non-philosophically inclined layman, I thought Hume said that one cannot prove the existence or non-existence of anything because any claim in this regard depends on an individual’s experience. This is, of course, dependent on an individual, pointing to only a subjective as opposed to an objective existence.

I went further and asked myself, weren’t existence and non-existence two sides of the same coin. I thought they were. Hence, if one face of the coin cannot exist, the other face too cannot exist. Wrong. This coin analogy appears to be egregiously false. The existence or non-existence of something (head or tail) does not prove either the existence or the non-existence of its opposite (tail or head).

One can prove that a black elephant exists−merely show the sceptic a normal elephant−yet to prove a white elephant exists (not as a metaphor) or does not exist is only as easy as conjuring or not Lord Indra’s mount Iravatham (refer Hindu mythology).

A macabre (originated in my own mind, hence macabre! I suffer from headache so often thatI wish my head never existed!) example: absence of headache does not prove the existence or non-existence of a head! 

The above tunes in perfectly with the wavelength of what Flew said in his essay. The argument also follows, in a manner of speaking, William Paley’s assertion that there indeed is a designer who designed life and He is God, and ends arguing precisely the opposite. Flew gives the argument as a parable, a conversation between a Believer and a Sceptic. The pair comes upon a “clearing in a jungle”, in which they see many flowers and weeds growing. 

The Believer says, “Aha, there is a gardener who tends this patch!” The Sceptic is not convinced. They try to take many efforts to catch this gardener, like patrolling with bloodhounds, setting up a barbed wire and electrifying it and on and on, but to no avail. Yetthe Believer is convinced that there is a gardener. He says, “"But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." 

Then, the exasperated Sceptic cries out, “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?”

Ouch...!

Flew concludes that religious believers cause God to “die the death of a thousand qualifications”. In the name of fairness, let me also offer the following: Flew recanted his essay later, egged on by people of the Intelligent Design persuasion. In announcing his death, the NY Times called him an “Ex-Atheist”! But, the strength of the argument is in its simplicity and it endures.

For an atheist to be an atheist, she has to invite others into an argument with her. An atheist is never inclined to do this, unless there is an argument put forth on the other side, may be a theist or a Jeffersonian Deist. I give you a true instance: In the university in which I did my Graduate work, there was an area that was not outwardly marked off as for free-speech, but where anyone could think of themselves as standing on a soap box in Hyde Park in London. It was there a fundamentalist group (about twice a semester) would start provocatively, calling out students in Fraternities and Sororities as fornicators. The fuse has been lit, as most of them are Christians (repulsion takes over when called out as fornicators, true or not), from families who are believers. This “debate” gained sharp edges when an atheist (yours truly) appeared. It was fun for others but a serious involvement for the atheist, who became a more convinced and convincing atheist because of these interactions.

Many atheists I have come across, some in Delhi, would share their thoughts with me but not with others who they might have suspected as theists. I, on the other hand, was never shy. I am sure all of them are waiting for me to convert on my deathbed.

I sincerely wish readers of this post would read an essay entitled, “Message of the Non-Jewish Jew” by Isaac Deutscher and try to understand that to be an atheist in a majorly theist society, one has to “go beyond the boundaries [of theism]”, yet allow the co-traveller (if any) to go his theistic way. The atheist shall not care whether the believer would turn into an atheist or not. That is for the latter to decide.

The above is why, I think, an atheist does not claim, “There is No God!” That is for the theist to hear and decide.

Raghuram Ekambaram