There Are No Atheists in Foxholes
by David Gleeson
For the first 35 of my 40 years of life, I had never
once heard this saying.
I must have been living on Mars. Now I can't seem to go a week without
hearing some arrogant talk-show host or holier-than-thou preacher
glibly
using it in an attempt to ridicule and demean rational thinkers.
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I must admit that when I first heard it, I was perplexed.
I guess I don't
have an ear for religious doublespeak. I later learned that it's basically
a cute way of saying, "One day you will believe in God, and by
then (wink,
wink), it will be too late."
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Apart from the implicit threat of hell and eternal damnation
that's present
in many of these fundamentalist credos, this one contains a strange
and
obvious admission of one of theism's most glaring sources of embarrassment:
the direct correlation between faith and fear. Why? Because a perfectly
acceptable translation of this ridiculous little homily is this: "You
can't
be an atheist forever. One day, when you are stressed or scared, cowering
in
fear of the unknown or of impending death, you will seek out God's
comfort.
You will use Him as a crutch to get you through."
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Well, well. Humans seek comfort in stressful situations.
There's a shocker.
Atheists, I think, have a better-than-average understanding of this
type of
human fallibility. It is, in fact, one of the primary reasons we reject
theistic beliefs, particularly those that seek to assuage the fear
of death
or the unknown. It is therefore quite perplexing to me when one of
the
primary arguments against the existence of God is turned around and
used,
unwittingly, by a devout believer in an attempt to ridicule atheists.
But
this is exactly what's going on. It's as clear as if they'd rented
a loud
speaker and pulpit and plopped down in the middle of Central Park
shouting,
"Religion is for the stressed and weak-minded! God is real only
to those who
are cowering in fear!" Somehow, I doubt this is the message they
want to be
sending.
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So the popularity of this saying among the devoutly
religious strikes me as
a bit curious. And let's be honest: even if all atheists renounced
their
atheism upon their deathbeds or at the deathbeds of loved ones, what
does
that prove other than the obvious point that these people were human?
Faced
with unimaginable anguish, a human being sought comfort in a fairy
tale.
Understandable? Sure. Healthy? Perhaps. Proof of God's existence?
Hardly. As
a matter of fact, it goes a long way toward proving exactly the opposite:
God exists only in the minds of frightened and fallible human beings.
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So whenever anyone, with an air of glib superiority,
makes absurd
generalizations about the unwillingness of freethinkers to take up
residence in man-made dirt ditches, I politely tell them, first, they
are
just plain wrong; and secondly, the analogy is so thoroughly counterproductive
to their cause that it might behoove them to pick a better one.
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I'm pretty sure the devoutly religious have better things
to do than lay
bare, for all the world to see, one of the most convincing arguments
for
atheism.
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