An Atheist's Article, and My Response:

Why Do People Believe in God?

Larry Beinhart, AlterNet

Many people continue to clutch to their belief in God, even though there's no evidence of a higher power. Why? (Click on the title to read the article).

Patrick's response (which was emailed to the author):
I read your "Why Do People Believe in God?" and found it interesting... and a bit frustrating. If AlterNet is going to print bold attacks on faith (of every form, not merely a rebuttal of some anti-intellectual fundamentalist faith), it would be nice to see a response by an intellectual who has a faith, or an excerpt from a book or article by someone like John Polkingham, the British physicist and Anglican Priest.

I agree with your observation that we are all driven to discover meaning in the world in relation to ourselves. One might even conclude that we've been designed with a will to find purpose! This – along with many other human traits -- could easily be seen as an argument for design rather than proof that all faith is by nature anti-intellectual.

I have a high regard for science, but I don't believe science has the tools to come up with a universal philosophical conclusion about the absence of meaning/purpose in nature. You quote Richard Feynman as saying, "The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as she is -- absurd"). That’s a bit of a stretch, I’d say.

There are countless examples in nature that we live in a purposeful world. Look around you, Mr. Beinhart. Intricately designed particulars in the world whisper, "I exist for this or that purpose." There are a myriad of non-absurd, purposeful realities in nature, yet you trust Feynman’s conclusion that all nature is absurd.

I wouldn’t argue that everything we observe is understandable to us. Or, even that every particular necessarily has a purpose (in the way that we think of purpose). But, it appears that our common human drive to find purpose and meaning has driven you into trusting a scientist's philosophy of absurdity.

Patrick Mulhaney
www.irishwiseguy.com