The theology of an atheist

 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. --Hebrews 11:6

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich and now lives in London and is the author of Religion for Atheists.  This essay appeared on NPR on March 16 under the title, "The Wisdom of Faith: What Religion Can Teach Us."

A survey published in the U.K. in January predicted that within 20 years, the majority of the British population will define themselves as having no religion. In the British isles, religion has become something of a sideshow, even a joke. Remember that this is the land that gave us The Life of Brian. Even the BBC has caught on with a satirical series called Rev., about a hapless comedic clergyman who has no faith but has a strong inclination to be good.
Of all the cultural differences between the old world and the new, this is perhaps the greatest. We think it rude to talk of money or sex: you think it rude to bring up religion. In both cases, at issue is what it might take to tread on sensitivities and cause offense. Euphemisms abound in the U.S.: "Do you come from a large family?" for "Are you Catholic?"
And yet, surveying the bitter religious disputes in the U.S., an outsider like me thinks just one phrase: the Jefferson Bible.
One of your greatest presidents famously tried to overcome the divisions between theism and atheism by rewriting the New Testament — with all the supernatural bits left out. Thomas Jefferson's new version emphasized Jesus' wisdom, ethics and consoling power. In so doing, he appealed to the entire nation, even those of different or no faith at all. It was a move of intellectual deftness which I can appreciate: I was brought up an atheist, and while I still don't believe, I've lost my cynicism. Now I long only for Jefferson's spirit of conciliation.
But where is that spirit now?
Unfortunately, recent public discussions on religion in the U.S. have focused obsessively on the most polarizing point of them all — whether or not the whole thing is true: a hardcore swathe of believers pits themselves against an equally strong band of atheists. Think of Christopher Hitchens' and Douglas Wilson's legendary book tours around the Bible Belt, where rallies would take place outside normally sedate lecture halls.
But, Jefferson in mind, I prefer a different tack. To me, the real issue is not whether God exists, but where one takes the argument to once one concludes that he might not. I believe it must be possible to remain an atheist and nevertheless to find religions sporadically useful, interesting and comforting — and be curious as to the possibilities of importing certain of their ideas and practices into the secular realm.
The error of modern atheism has been to overlook how many sides of the faiths remain relevant even after their central tenets have been dismissed. Once we stop feeling that we must either prostrate ourselves before them or denigrate them, we can discover their occasionally ingenious concepts.
Ultimately, atheists need to rescue some of what is beautiful from all that no longer seems true. With Jefferson's example before us, I propose that the wisdom of the faiths belongs to all of mankind, even the most rational among us, and deserves to be selectively reabsorbed by the supernatural's greatest enemies.
As your great president knew, religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone.

Now, with all due respect to Mr. de Botton, his sentiment is naive at best, and dangerous at worst.  It appears that he is no longer a true atheist, but rather an agnostic, open to "truths" from all religions, and rejecting those that one cannot prove--the definition of agnostic is one who cannot know, or is "without knowledge" of the supernatural.  But more to his point about wanting to open up a dialogue between atheists and the religious sounds very much like Rodney King asking, "Why can't we just get along?"

To take his premise to its logical conclusion: if everyone would just realize that there is no god, then there would be less violence in the world--no sectarian strife, no religious wars, no Crusades--and on the flip side there would be less reason for atheists to be belligerent in their arguments.  Then men would be free to take the best from every tradition, and assimilate those traditions into our daily lives, without prejudice or bigotry or strife, because ultimately there would be no one alive to say, "you are wrong."

Respectfully, Mr. de Botton, you are wrong.

Let's examine your statement, "To me, the real issue is not whether God exists, but where one takes the argument to once one concludes that he might not."  I propose that if there is no God, then there is no goodness, no hope.  If there is no God, then there is no truth, and no accountability.  If there is no God, then there is no order to the universe, and we are left with chaos.

No God, no Good; without Him, no Hope
C.S. Lewis, himself a reformed atheist, wrote, "This is the fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion."

What would be the point of assimilating religious traditions into society without acknowledging the God of that religion?  Wouldn't that be an empty exercise?  Let's reduce the Ten Commandments to just Eight, because the first two deal with the authority of God.  So all we are left with are platitudes--do not lie, do not steal, do not kill.  But without the moral authority of God, why would we follow those rules?  If there is no Supreme Being, then there is no ultimate consequence to my lying, or stealing, or killing.  It's every man for himself.  Sure, the society I live in may imprison me, lock me up away from the general population, but not because I have committed a "crime", but because it is in their interest to do so--to protect persons and property from theft and murder.  There are no more morals, but rather societal norms.  Emptiness.  Loneliness. Suspicion.  It's a wonder more people don't go "off the grid".

To that point, C. S. Lewis said this: "My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning"

Atheists accept no accountability, as there is no Absolute Truth
Robert Laidlaw has written, "God exists whether or not men may choose to believe in Him. The reason why many people do not believe in God is not so much that it is intellectually impossible to believe in God, but because belief in God forces that thoughtful person to face the fact that he is accountable to such a God."  C.S. Lewis wrote, "If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all."

If there is no Absolute Truth, then it is every man for himself.  But as William Murray says, "Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. But watch out if you are in a lifeboat and there are others who are younger, bigger, or smarter."  And that leads to my final point.

Without God, we are left with chaos
Douglas Wilson wrote: "If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of chemical reactions… … Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else."

Peter Kreeft said, "Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would eventually type out all of Hamlet by chance. But when we find the text of Hamlet, we don't wonder whether it came from chance and monkeys. Why then does the atheist use that incredibly improbable explanation for the universe? Clearly, because it is his only chance of remaining an atheist. At this point we need a psychological explanation of the atheist rather than a logical explanation of the universe."  And that is ultimately the point.  Somebody once said that the atheist can't find God for the same reason that a thief can't find a policeman.  Rejecting God is a conscious act.  You must want to believe.  It takes faith to be an atheist.

It is much easier to have faith in something rather than to place your faith in nothing.  It is like trying to prove a negative--it is very hard to do.  You read the children's nursery rhyme "the cow jumped over the moon," and you say, "That can't happen."  But if I say "prove it," you can only show by your own experience that you have never seen, in your own experience, a cow jump over the moon.  You may even say that in your own research, in books, magazines, periodicals, and even on the internet, that you have not seen any other eye-witness accounts of an actual cow jumping over the moon.  But that proves nothing.  You have to know the physical limitations of cows, how they are created, to come to the conclusion that it is impossible for a cow to jump that high.  Then why is it so easy to say that God does not exist?  Prove it! "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'." (Psalm 14:1)

So no, Mr. de Botton, Jefferson did not make the world a better place by removing all evidence of the Divine from the New Testament.  That is not something to emulate in all of society.  Rather, the purpose of the Church is to invite debate, and to show the World the ultimate Truth.  For those who reject the Truth, they are free to live as they please.  But again quoting C.S. Lewis, "The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded."