“The Rational Atheist”

A few years ago Vox Day wrote a book called the “Irrational Atheist.” It is the most disjointed, disconnected, tragic argument against atheism I’ve ever read. It is devoid of love, devoid of theology, and devoid of logic, too. It is so nihilistic, cold, cruel, it had me thinking for the first time ever, if that is God, I don’t want him. Needless to say, choosing to reject a Supreme Being, all powerful, all knowing, simply because you disapprove, is a non rational act. Conversely however, embracing such a God who has no capacity for love and mercy, is even more non rational. It’s also immoral.

Then God quietly asked, why are you allowing someone who calls himself the Voice of God and a Supreme Dark Lord  define what is rational? And in that moment I realized that atheism really is quite rational, logical, and reason based. It is actually Vox Day who is emotionally driven, irrational, his broken bits cloaked behind a mask of intellectualism, moral superiority, and reason. Trapped in a deception he cannot even see. Irrational, emotional, rhetorical.

Yes, indeed, non believers really are  the reality based community. It is my faith that is irrational, illogical, devoid of reason. It is my faith that flies in the face of what I know to be true intellectually. God is a God of impossible things who doesn’t give  a wit about what we think is “rational.” God says, step out in the midst of a storm and walk on water. God says, here’s a talking donkey, here’s a burning bush, here’s a disembodied hand writing on the wall, now suspend your disbelief. You do not know what you think you know.

To truly know God requires a leap of faith, surrendered disbelief. It is irrational, illogical, devoid of reason, a bit like falling in love. It demands intellectual surrender, complete humility, the removal of self, in order to truly hear Him, to draw close. Crushed, broken, “delusional” even, no longer firmly rooted in reality. Everything is an idol that gets in the way of that relationship, our faith in our own ability to reason, our faith in our perception of reality, our faith in our own intelligence, our confidence in our own perceptions. We must die to self, surrender all, slowly, painfully, a totally irrational act.

Peter had great faith when he stepped out of that boat, but he had greater faith in the in the laws of physics and quickly began to sink. Oh ye of little faith…

Scripture does not say,  greater reason and logic hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Scripture does not say that because that is a lie and scripture does not lie. The verse is, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.“ Love! The ultimate act of non reason. Let me tell you, if you want to do something unprofitable, painful, that will cost you everything, try love. I can make absolutely no reason based argument for it. A few misfiring pheromones might give a partial explanation for romantic love, but sacrificial brotherly love, just defies all reason.

So atheists really are part of the reality based community, secularism being based on human logic and reason. It is rational and reason based to weigh the cost effectiveness of having a child and to chose abortion. It is rational and reason based to divorce a good man, in favor of one who offers you something better. It is rational to do a cost benefit analysis and determine that healthcare should be rationed. It is rational and reasonable to redistribute the wealth and to than enforce mandates so people are compelled to serve your cost effectiveness plan. It is rational to speak of banning sugar, of assigning sin taxes to anything that might harm human health, that might hurt the bottom line. Reason leads us to perceive human beings as nothing more than commodities, to assign worth and value to people based on their cost effectiveness, their ability to produce, or their ability to benefit our own perceived praxology.

These are all things devoid of love too, things that do not take human dignity into account, a bureaucratic nightmare that soon becomes immoral, heartless, disconnected from the human experience. There really is no sanctity of human life, there is only the sanctity of God. Perceiving people as  bring created in His image manifests itself as our own respect and consideration for human dignity, the worth and value we assign to human life. In the absence of love we become commodities, having even less value than  animals and the pets we actually admire because they show loyalty and need for us.

So, I am a firm advocate of the non reasonable, the illogical, the emotional, the Spirit led. Love. Our human ability to place undo value on our own capacity for reason and logic is what got us kicked out of the Garden of Eden in the first place. All it costs one to truly know God is to surrender pride, surrender the god of reason, and let go of what we think we know.

Atheists are quite rational. To worship at the foot of human reason however, is a recipe for disaster.