Natural Born Atheist

Atheists will sometimes argue that we are all born atheists and only end up believing in God because someone taught us to do so. This is a clever quip, yet it is faulty for various reasons.

Firstly, let us consider the implications. The claim is that atheism is our natural state of being from birth and it is only by some sort of indoctrination, or "child abuse" as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others term it, that some people end up believing in God. Even this concept must be defined since there are various sects of atheism. The sect that is in view in this quip is the kind that is certain that God does not exist.

Employing a tongue-in-cheek mode of discourse we may consider that the quip seems to admit that atheism is a mindset that is based upon an infant's empty mind. Atheists will certainly state that this is not what is meant by the quip. However, we may further infer that atheism is not based on logic, intellect, rationale or lack of evidence but upon a thoughtless infantile mindset.

If the quip was based upon another of atheism's sects the quip would actually function against atheism. Another of atheism's sects does not know whether or not God exists but may believe if they encounter convincing evidence. If the quip was based on this sect the outcome would be very different. It would then imply that we are all born without a concept of God, and also without a concept of God's non-existence. Then as we grow up we acquire certain knowledge and end up applying our cognitive faculties to the issue.

Thus, is may be better stated that we are all natural born agnostics. Although, even this may be a stretch since infants have not considered the issue to the extent of taking a position in favor or God's existence, against God existence nor anywhere in between.

Another inference to be drawn from the quip is that atheists are born as unbelievers and simply continue through their lives believing in infantile notions. Surely, atheists would discount this line of reasoning. They will certainly state that rather, they grew up and developed their cognitive skills. They became capable of logic, intellect, rationale and realized that there was no viable evidence for God's existence (see my essay Proving God's Existence). Of course, the theist can grant the quip and state that while they were born atheists they grew up and developed their cognitive skills as well. They became capable of logic, intellect, rationale and realized that there indeed was viable evidence.

Moreover, consider just how many things are we born not knowing and must have someone tell us. In fact, we are all naturally born not knowing anything at all. We may also wonder how, if we are all natural born atheist, the concept of God ever occurred to us. Be aware that at this point atheists will commit the ad hominem logical fallacy and claim that God cannot exist because human beings invented the idea of God's existence. Or else they may make assertions without evidence about belief in God being part of our evolution.

There are theists who believe in God for various reasons. Likewise, there are also atheists who hold to their beliefs for various reasons and based on various life experiences.

I recall listening to a Christian radio program that received a call from an atheist. The atheist was asked if she would like some literature sent to her and if so, whether she would like it to be based on logic. Fair enough, however, the reasons she gave for having become an atheist were far from logical. She claimed to have rejected religious beliefs due to one particular religion's mistreatment of her family. We must empathize with the distress that some people who claim to be followers of God can bring about. In this case, her family was actually dealing with a religion known for its cultish characteristics at that. It is interesting to note that for her rejecting God only required subjective emotional reaction but belief in God would require objective logical demonstrations. Why the double standard? Perhaps some level of psychological trauma rather than logic.

Here are some other insights into the mind of certain atheists:
Helmut Ditsch retells part of his upbringing:

"Until my twenties, I was an atheist. Although I felt the spiritual world, I used atheism as a reaction to a very difficult childhood. My mother died when I was 8 years old. Although my father was concerned with giving us a comfortable childhood, it was…sad."1

Ira Glass offers further insights:

"'I find that I don't seem to have a choice over whether or not I believe in God,' Glass said. 'I simply find that I do not.' 'Either you have faith or you don't. Either you believe or you don't.' 'I was once talking with a Chinese friend. She asked whether I believed in God. I told her I did. I returned the question. She said 'no,' and I asked her why not. Her father, she explained, had told her there was no God when she was a child. She hadn't really thought about it much since then.'"2

Note carefully the words of Thomas Nagel; (B.Phil., Oxford; Ph.D., Harvard), Professor of Philosophy and Law, University Professor, and Fiorello La Guardia Professor of Law. He specializes in Political Philosophy, Ethics, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Mind. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.3

Consider the following words of Isaac Asimov, one of the most prolific scientific writers of the last century:

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."4

Gary Wolf includes himself in the following description, "we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth" He wrote:

"At dinner parties or over drinks, I ask people to declare themselves. 'Who here is an atheist?' I ask.
Usually, the first response is silence, accompanied by glances all around in the hope that somebody else will speak first. Then, after a moment, somebody does, almost always a man, almost always with a defiant smile and a tone of enthusiasm. He says happily, 'I am!'
But it is the next comment that is telling. Somebody turns to him and says: 'You would be.'
'Why?'
'Because you enjoy pissing people off.'
'Well, that's true.'
This type of conversation takes place not in central Ohio, where I was born, or in Utah, where I was a teenager, but on the West Coast, among technical and scientific people, possibly the social group that is least likely among all Americans to be religious."5

We find atheism as a reaction to a very difficult childhood and not premised upon logic. We find a simple faith based lack of belief. We find thoughtless adherence to a father's lack of belief. We find that some simply do not want God to exist. We find atheism based on hope and emotions.

Atheists may rightly claim that the same could be said about theists yet, the same can be said about atheists. Merely claiming that the same can be said about theists does not alleviate atheism from admitting its own adherent's belief by upbringing, by lack of concern for the issue, by mere thoughtlessness, based on emotional reactions, due to bias, due to prejudice, due to ad hominems, etc., etc. My Pastor's wife's parents are atheists, her father would tell her that there is no God while tucking her in to bed at night when she was a child.

Sigmund Freud claimed that belief in God was merely humanity's search for a father figure, although he admitted:

"Let us be quite clear on the point that the views expressed in my book [The Future of an Illusion] form no part of analytic theory. They are my personal views, which coincide with those of many non-analysts and pre-analysts, but there are certainly many excellent analysts who do not share them."6

Most of the people who are most influential to atheism rejected God on the basis of highly emotional childhood experiences and then sought ways to discredit the very idea of God in order to reinforce their psychological trauma. Paul Vitz has made a fascinating study of the lives of some of the people who have been most influential to atheism. In his lecture The Psychology of Atheism he has concluded that these persons rejected God because they rejected their own fathers. This was due to their poor relationships with their fathers, or due to their father's absence, or due to their rebellion against their fathers.

Some atheists claim that belief in God is a social convention. This is a view that they base upon materialistic speculations about the origins of theism. For example, they argue that if American Christians had been born in India they would be Hindus. This argument clearly assume that Christians in America are Christian because it is the majority religion and it is mere statistical probability that an American is raised Christian.
Yet, arguing according to this premise we should ask American atheists why they are not Christian and tell them that if they had been born in India they would be Hindus. Certainly, many American atheists were "raised Christian" (whatever that means) but would say that they grew out of that childish and ignorant superstition. Christians may likewise argue that were they to have been born in India and raised as Hindus they would have grown out of that particular theology and accepted Christianity.

I may not be able to say for sure but having witnessed the birth of my three children I am fairly confident that infants are not born atheists: they do not believe that God does not exist or that God does exist. They do not appear to believe anything at all. They hold no theological of materialistic world views.

1. 1. Natalia Rodriguez, Epoch Times Argentina Staff , The Artist Who Paints Gods - Interview with Argentine Artist Helmut Ditsch [6-15-06]
2. 2. Religious, Atheist Beliefs Stem from Childhood [6-22-06]
3. 3. Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (1997), pp. 130-131
4. 4. Isaac Asimov cited in Paul Kurtz, ed., "An Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible," Free Inquiry 2 (Spring 1982): 9
5. 5. Wired Magazine online: Gary Wolf, The Church of the Non-Believers (found here
6. 6. Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister ([H. Meng & E. L. Freud, Eds.; E. Mosbacher, Trans.] New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 117