What do you think of atheism? Do you consider it a kind of religion, since nobody can prove that there is no god anywhere inside or maybe outside this universe/dimension, atheists just believe there's no god?

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Atheism, and its counterpart materialism, result from the overvaluing of a certain kind of logic. This kind of logic is easily and readily taught in academic settings and leads to lucrative careers. But the rationalist mindset is but one of many mindsets one can adopt.

The rationalist mindset demands proof for everything. When you ask most atheists why they don’t even consider the prospect of deity or a spiritual reality, the knee-jerk reaction is to demand proof.

But if you study the concepts of proof, logic, and epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, a different picture emerges. Not even those in the academy can rely on proof for everything. Our entire world is built on far less rigorous standards for acceptance.

And so you can see the shell game being played here, the motte-and-bailey strategy being employed. When quizzed on exactly which standard of proof they’re demanding, they can never give a reasonable answer. They’ll retreat back to a sensible, if meaningless position that nobody really knows anything, but goes right back to demanding proof, goshdarnit, once the sharper interlocutor goes away and they can get away with it.

It doesn’t help that many Christians do the exact same thing. Finding a reasonable middle ground is apparently beyond many of us.

This state of affairs makes sense given the demands Christianity makes on a person. That you believe in your heart-of-hearts in the Jesus myth and message of salvation. Perhaps despite the fact that you don’t feel like you need to be saved.

If Christians weren’t so bone-headed about demanding unquestioning faith, thinking their importunings are serving the greater good rather than their egos, then we wouldn’t have so many atheists.

Personally, my problem isn’t with the specific dogmas that you believe in or disbelieve in. That’s all but meaningless to me, any more than the specifics of denominational theology matter to me. The uncompromising vision of salvation through Jesus or having your soul burn in Hell forever is just laughable from an ethical standpoint. Pope Francis himself even denied that it held water. Many Christians have run themselves into a theological ditch and won’t let anybody pull them out.

My problem is with the over-valuing of the rationalist mindset that underpins materialism and atheism. Not every problem has a solution, not every question has an answer. The rationalist mindset diminishes the value of hard-to-answer questions, particularly deep philosophical ones. By not accepting God and spirituality as even possible, they’re cutting themselves off from something truly amazing.