INSIGHTS ON ATHEISM

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Popular Works Against Unbelief
–Chesterton’s Orthodoxy
–Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man
–Pascal’s Pensees
–Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles
–Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua
–Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy
–St. Bonaventure’s The Journey of the Mind Into God
–Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Debating with Unbelievers
–Do We Agree?: G.K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, with Hilaire Belloc as Moderator
–Chesterton-Shaw Debate Speaks to the Present Crisis
–BBC Debate (1948) on the Existence of God: Fr. Copleston and Bertrand Russell
–Does God Exist?: William Lane Craig and Corey G. Washington
–Does God Exist?: William Lane Craig and Douglas M. Jesseph
–Does God Exist?: John Frame and Michael Martin
–On the Existence of God: Phil Fernandes and Michael Martin
–On the Existence of God: Ted Drange and Douglas Wilson
–The Atheist’s Boundless Faith in Deo-Atomism (“The Atom-as-God”): Dave Armstrong and Eric Smallwood
–Atheists on Souls, Bodily Resurrection, and Heaven: Dave Armstrong with Steve Conifer and Sue Strandberg
–Debate with an Agnostic on Relativist vs. Absolutist Morality and Natural Law: Dave Armstrong and Dr. Jan Schreurs

more still to come…
 
Possible Causes of Unbelief
–The Pyschology of Atheism
–Why Some People Become Atheists: The Defective Father Theory
–The Power of a Father’s Strong Faith
–The Multiple Complex Causes of Atheist Disbelief, Romans 1 and 2, and the Possibility of Atheists’ Salvation
–On the Will to Know the Truth: Newman on Why Men of Learning Often Do Not Believe
Pillars of Unbelief
–Machiavelli
–Immanuel Kant
–Nietzsche
–Freud
–Karl Marx
–Sartre
–Was Skeptical Philosopher David Hume an Atheist?
Other Arguments
–The Christian Response to Atheism: Dostoevsky
–From Relativism and Skepticism to Truth and Certainty
–Contemporary Atheism: Parts One and Two
–Why the Burden of Proof Is on the Atheist
–There Are No Atheists

for more on non-christian religions, go here
for the entire reference section at phatmass, go here

pax christi,
phatcatholic

ps: let me know if this gets on anyone’s nerves…
 
Type in the word atheism at Yahoo and you get 907,000 results. THAT makes me nervous.

Thanks for the list you supplied!

Carl
 
“I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God … but I am considering the faculty of reasoning actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is toward simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it in the long run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of religious knowledge were all but disappearing from those portions of the world in which the intellect had been active and had a career. And in these days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church things are tending - with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age, – to atheism in one shape or another.”
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                                       John Henry Newman
                                       “Apologia pro Vita Sua”
 
Henri de Lubac said:“It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God. What is true is that, without God, he can only organize it against man.”

A world without God means “man vs. man” or “me vs. the other”. The only way to take this kind of mentality out is the Christian worldview which tells us “me vs. myself”, me vs. my selfishness, pride, etc. And this is only possible in a kind of worldview which tells us that we are not made for this world but for another. I’m saddened by the atheist. The atheist is a person and every person has a natural desire for the Infinite. Yet, the atheist thinks he is can be satisfied with the finite. He then becomes an unhappy man.

The atheist needs to know that he is worth more than the atom. He also needs to know that he desires something or Someone greater than himself.
 
There are just two kinds of people in the world: those who seek God, and those who do not know they are seeking God.
 
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Carl:
Type in the word atheism at Yahoo and you get 907,000 results. THAT makes me nervous.

Thanks for the list you supplied!

Carl
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Google has 790,000 for “atheism” and 875,000 for “atheist”

Does this mean that there are more atheists than atheistic sects? 🙂 What does this portend for mirror sales? 🙂
 
Here is an interesting one from John Henry Newman:

“I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God … but I am considering the faculty of reasoning actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is toward simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it in the long run; and hence it is that in the pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of religious knowledge were all but disappearing from those portions of the world in which the intellect had been active and had a career. And in these days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church things are tending - with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age, – to atheism in one shape or another.”
*Apologia pro Vita Sua*
 
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Carl:
We may need an atheist in this forum to kick it up a notch.
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You said it!

Quotes like this:

Carl said:
“There is no bigot like the atheist.” (Magic)
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is just simply name-calling. Care to back that up with an explanation?
 
Richard Lamb:
It takes more faith not to believe in God in light of the evidence… :tiphat:
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Well, if faith is a virtue then are you admitting that atheists are more virtuous than believers?
 
Atheism is a luxury I can’t afford.

So true. Atheism can furnish the fast track to wealth, power and fame; but it’s too expensive at the cost of our immortal souls.
 
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Carl:
So true. Atheism can furnish the fast track to wealth, power and fame; but it’s too expensive at the cost of our immortal souls.
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Not exactly what I was thinking about. My point was atheism has no promise for either this life or the next one. If atheism is true then no-one helps you in your difficulties in this life, and death ends you completely. The cost is one’s peace of mind. I was an atheist during fair weather, but now, as a college student, that the clouds are very much gathered in the sky, atheism simply isn’t an option for me.

As I say, the end result of the Enlightenment was that the idea that God makes nothing in vain was replaced by the idea that there is no God and that everything is vain.
 
*Originally Posted by Carl
“There is no bigot like the atheist.” (Magic)

is just simply name-calling. Care to back that up with an explanation?*

If you want to engage me, you must not leave wrong impressions with people who have not read previous posts or who have forgotten previous posts. This is not fair and will not help your challenge to the substance of the remark.

The words “There is no bigot like the atheist” are not mine but G.K. Chesterton’s. If you want to examine the context in which the remark was made, you will have to read a play of his titled Magic.

I am, however, pleased to defend the remark.

Hitler was an atheist. So was Stalin. So was Mao. These men were shameless bigots against all religions. Chesterton had them all before him in his lifetime as examples of shameless bigotry.

Madalyn Murray O’Haire was a shameless atheist bigot, as her surviving son has testified.

If you were a Christian and wanted to learn first hand the extent of atheist bigotry, all you would have to do is visit any atheist forum on the Internet and identify yourself as a Christian. I have done this. The venom spewed forth against me was edifying, to say the least.

I suppose that Chesterton’s reason for pointing out this bigotry of atheists is to counter the many slurs atheists have directed against Christ and Christianity. They have falsely presumed the high moral ground and will never let Christians forget the sins of past Christians, but at the same time will hardly ever mention the sins of past or present atheists. The first person of this ilk who comes to mind was Bertrand Russell. Bernard Shaw was another. He despised Chesterton for turning Catholic, but took every opportunity (with H.G. Wells) to embrace the thugs behind the Russian Revolution. Yet now that the Communist empire has been overturned, Russians are once again free to go to Church. The atheist bigotry is ended.

So we are all sinners before the Lord.

God bless all atheists with the gift of faith that will overcome their wounded and angry hearts. God bless all Christians for defending their faith against every assault.
 
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Carl:
If you want to engage me, you must not leave wrong impressions with people who have not read previous posts or who have forgotten previous posts. This is not fair and will not help your challenge to the substance of the remark.

The words “There is no bigot like the atheist” are not mine but G.K. Chesterton’s. If you want to examine the context in which the remark was made, you will have to read a play of his titled Magic.
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I’m not sure what “wrong impression” I could have left other than to take it out of context or to falsely imply that you agreed with it. You seem to agree with it so that’s not it. And you provided no context for the quote so that’s not it either. I just thought you made Chesterton look bad by not backing up the slur with a little substance. But now you’ve done that so it’s no longer an issue.
 
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Carl:
Hitler was an atheist. So was Stalin. So was Mao.
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Ok, I’ll concede Stalin and Mao. But do you really have definitive evidence that Hitler was an atheist? Certainly, his public statements showed that he wanted to be perceived as a good Christian. I’m aware that there are reports that he made some ugly private statements regarding certain religious people but does that make him an atheist?
 
This just came to me having read all these posts and in considering my own run-ins with athiests. I have an observation.

What I’ve seen is first of all from athiests display some major defensiveness. They attack without being approached, they discount our beliefs without giving us a chance to speak, and they do their very best to be sure that they appear as the victim in the conversation.

It is very similar to an abused child with a very low self esteem; act as the bully, so as not to be “loved”. Attack first so that one can prevent the next round of torture. Attack relentlessly so as to finally be “beat up” and then end up as the victim…self fulfilling prophecy.

And what I learned from working with these types of children (and adults) directly is that deep down inside, they really, desperately want so much for someone to reach out to them, but they are defending against that very thing for fear that once they discover what love really is, it will be taken from them. They feel it is better to discount the intangible than to be rejected by it.

Therefore, atheism is synonymous with fear of rejection. What they need is our prayers.
 
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JCPhoenix:
This just came to me having read all these posts and in considering my own run-ins with athiests. I have an observation.

What I’ve seen is first of all from athiests display some major defensiveness. They attack without being approached, they discount our beliefs without giving us a chance to speak, and they do their very best to be sure that they appear as the victim in the conversation.

It is very similar to an abused child with a very low self esteem; act as the bully, so as not to be “loved”. Attack first so that one can prevent the next round of torture. Attack relentlessly so as to finally be “beat up” and then end up as the victim…self fulfilling prophecy.

And what I learned from working with these types of children (and adults) directly is that deep down inside, they really, desperately want so much for someone to reach out to them, but they are defending against that very thing for fear that once they discover what love really is, it will be taken from them. They feel it is better to discount the intangible than to be rejected by it.

Therefore, atheism is synonymous with fear of rejection. What they need is our prayers.
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This is a great point and I think it is true for the most part. I can see the automatic conclusion from this fear.

Unfortunately, however, I have an uncle who is a very loving person and not defensive. Actually, very respectful of people, has strong opinions but loving about it. He loves nature so much too. That is why I find it hard to understand how he could not believe there is a God behind it. We lost my cousin, his son, in an accident at 19 and I thought that would possibly stir something in him but has not as of yet. That was 9 years ago. I keep praying.

God Bless
 
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