ATHEISM AS WORLD VIEW IN THE BOOK STEALING FROM GOD BY FRANK TUREK

Quote: Don’t Atheists Just Lack a Belief in God? It’s been fashionable lately for atheists to claim that they merely “lack a belief in God.” So when a theist comes along and says that atheists can’t support their worldview, some atheists will say something like, “Oh, we really don’t have a worldview. We just lack a belief in God. Since we’re not making any positive claims about the world, we don’t have any burden of proof to support atheism. We just find the arguments for God to be lacking.” That is why the argument: "Christians are atheists towards all gods but one" is not only a good point but proves it makes less sense to argue there is one true all-powerful God than to argue that a god like Odin is real.

COMMENT: It is important for Christians like Turek to refute the view that lacking belief in God or lacking evidence for God makes you an atheist for it would make science atheistic.

Turek thinks that this negative atheism is not saying anything about God’s existence but only saying that the atheist “I’m not psychologically convinced that God exists.”

His point is that you thinking there is no case for God is not proof or evidence that you are right. But it is extremely weak evidence. It is still evidence. You can still intend it to be evidence even if it is not good evidence. 

Evidence can be a hunch that you cannot put your finger on. The hunch is telling you that something is not right even if you do not know what it is. If God is truth he is by definition bigger than any errors you make and is in your life and inspiring you so thinking there is no case for God is a sign that he may not exist. It does not need to be good evidence to be evidence. Thinking there is no God is evidence that there is none. It is not the same thing as thinking Australia does not exist. Australia is not able to influence your mind and make sure you get information.

He argues that everything lacks belief in God. Are squirrels atheists then? Why not? They are conscious beings – not as smart as us but they must have a degree of intelligence!

Are atheists who say that atheism is a lack of belief in God thinking of belief as in trust? The difference between defining atheism as a lack of belief in God and as a lack of trust in God is that belief is about theory and trust is a personal assurance that God will deal fair with you and look after you. The latter is a denial that God is God so it is atheism in that sense.

ATHEISM AS WORLDVIEW? AN INQUIRY BASED ON TUREK'S STEALING FROM GOD

Christian Frank Turek of https://impactapologetics.com/ is a prime defender of the Christian faith. He wrote the runaway best seller Stealing from God. This book claims that atheists are using arguments that belong to and with belief in God to argue against God.  We want to study what he says about atheism as a worldview.

Quote: If atheists merely “lacked a belief in God,” they wouldn’t be constantly trying to explain the world by offering supposed alternatives to God.

My comment: Most atheists just settle for there being no God. Atheists giving alternatives to God does not mean they just care about finding alternatives to God. Atheists give alternatives to atheistic theories about how the universe and life began. God is one alternative suggestion among many for testing and thinking. Most atheists do not obsess about God and justifying atheism. It is only some who constantly battle religious lies because they are lies.

Atheists looking for alternatives to God is a way of justifying their atheism as in lack. 

Quote: Atheism is a worldview with beliefs just as much as theism is a worldview with beliefs. (A “worldview” is a set of beliefs about the big questions in life, such as: What is ultimate reality? Who are we? What’s the meaning of life? How should we live? What’s our destiny? etc.)

My comment: Atheism is simply about God. The consequence of that belief follow from atheism but are not atheism. How we should live? is the main part of a worldview but it does not follow that God or atheism helps with that question. It is the now that we have to work with - our future destiny if any is not what we are working with and in now. For more than a thousand years Judaism got by without worrying about us having any destiny other than death. Concern about the afterlife was only made part of the faith much later. There is no reason to agree with Turek that a worldview is about the things he lists. For some it is just about how we live. For gnostics it is just about our destiny. For theists it may be just about cherishing God - Jesus said to love God for his own sake and to love others only to please God so it is really only God who is loved. This doctrine makes other things pale into virtual nothingness. We should speak of worldviews not worldview. Each thing Turek lists is a worldview. He cannot call a collection of worldviews a worldview.

Quote: "To claim that atheism is not a worldview is like saying anarchy is not really a political position."

Comment: Atheists who say they lack faith or belief in God deny their atheism is a belief or worldview. They seem hard to distinguish from agnostics for they say they don't reject God's existence but just have no reason to believe. The key is that faith and belief are different. Faith is seeing God as that you can have a relationship with and committing to him. Belief is just agreement that there is probably a God. So as they reject faith they are more than just agnostics. It is not so much that they believe there is no God, they have faith that there is no God or if you like they have no faith in God and faith in themselves as beings who are not from God and need no God. Lack of faith and trust in God is unbelief in a sense.

Lacking faith or belief in God is not evidence that there is no God. So we are told. But believers in God say that belief and faith start to turn into evidence. That is the root cause of their faith and continued faith. So why can't it be the opposite way as well? Why can't having no sense of the existence of a God be evidence that there is no God? It may not be good evidence but that is not the point. Evidence rules the day until new evidence comes up or clarity comes. Bad evidence has to do until good evidence comes.