Atheism and religion: friends or enemies?

By Benjamin O'Loughlin 

Tweeting on religion and atheism, I said that both require a leap of faith... and got immediate responses from unbelievers. Some dissed me. Others were confused. Some wanted to talk. One put me in their public list of Condescending Bigots.

In other words, I got the same responses that an atheist would get from Christians if he tweeted about faith. 

Say what?

Our biggest problem isn't the obvious one—the God thing. It's the mudslinging. Instead of looking for common ground, we immediately reach for our guns. No common ground means no dialogue. No dialogue means that any conversation turns into a mudslinging contest almost from the go.

That's a problem. We have to live with, work with, and be nice to each other every day. If we can be friends, even better.

I say we can. We just have to breath deeply, count to ten, and then come to grips with what we have in common, and what separates us.

The first surprise is that we have much more in common than we think. Both faith and atheism kick into play when reason reaches the end of the line. When we stand on the brink  of the unknown. When we ask that one last  question and science says "I don't know."

Astrophysicists have gone back to mere milliseconds into the Big Bang. But "00:00:00" is still a mystery. Biologists argue back and forth over what makes us different from other other great apes. As one of my college professors put it, "We've organized hundreds of  conferences and lectures on simian intelligence, but simians haven't organized a single conference on human intelligence." The 1% difference between the human genome and its chimpanzee counterpart doesn't seem to account to for the quantum leap that separates humans from the rest of the biosphere. 

Science doesn't know the answer to the biggest questions of all: how and why? Whether that's because science needs more time or simply can't answer, we're left wondering.

True, some pseudo-sciences have claimed to bridge the gap. But far below us, the base of the cliff is littered with the bodies of the millions that pseudo-thinkers like Hitler and Stalin dragged down with them on their trip off the deep end. "Science" can  be dangerous when it runs off the tracks.

That leaves us all in a dilemma. The train of human though has solved countless problems and overcome immense difficulties. But now it seems to have reached the end of the line. We're left hanging. If science can't offer an answer, what can?

That's our common heritage. Now for the differences.

Agnostics say that we simply can't know. No scientific proof means no knowledge. And we're left in the dark with our doubts... and with our frustration at not knowing.

Moved by that need to know, atheists and believers alike take a leap of faith. With no word from science, we have to decide for ourselves.

Atheists say no scientific proof means there is no answer. No meaning. No God. The leap of faith? No evidence that God exists doesn't mean that he can't exist. It only means that we don't have scientific proof that he does.

Believers say that God exists even though there is no hard scientific evidence. The leap of faith is clear.

However, believers have one thing going for them that atheists can't lay claim to: the inner logic that drives the universe and science itself. 

The universe functions like clockwork. Everything fits together: galaxies, solar systems, planets, ecosystems... even our bodies. It makes sense that the cause of all that order wouldn't be random. 

Empirical science is based on the fact that effects have causes. If we haven't found them yet, it doesn't mean they don't exist. It means we keep looking. God makes sense.

All three responses to the end of the line are valid. But only one can be true. Either God exists, or he doesn't. Whichever camp you find yourself in, remember that we aren't enemies. We're just people facing the same dilemma. The same doubts. We shouldn't be scared of one another. And when we share instead of bickering, every step we take in quest of truth will enrich everyone.