IN RESPONSE TO THAT WOMAN ATHEIST

The following letter touches upon a subject seldom treated in this journal, but it just might be of interest. It was sent to a Dallas newspaper for its “Letters from Readers” column following the appearance of Mrs. Madeline O’Hare on an area radio station. A copy has also been sent to Mrs. O’Hare. We are making no important claims for the letter—it is surely no big deal—but it may contribute in some small way to the subject.

I was disturbed far more by the oppressive attitudes shown toward Mrs. O’Hare and to the station for featuring her than I was by her atheism. Some callers assigned her to hell, to which she responded, “Now isn’t that loving and Christian!” And the station was bitterly attacked for “advertising atheism” for days afterwards. I agreed with one sweet voice of reason that said, and I bless her, “I am a Christian and do not agree with her, but I’m glad to get the atheist point of view right from an atheist. Thank you for having her on.” I say Amen!, for if we start suppressing minority opinions, ours may be the next to be suppressed.

One can’t sit in one of my philosophy classes long without being exposed to John Stuart Mill’s Essay On Liberty, which I place right after the Bible in significance. In this piece he shows how important it is for a society, if it really wants to be free and progressive, to have open and full discussion of every controversial issue. He says if everyone in a nation holds one view with the exception of but one man, they have no more right to suppress that one man’s view than he has to suppress theirs. As a minority of one his viewpoint has as much right as theirs! If a society does not allow for free speech, it assumes itself to be infallible, he says. Further, a society might well miss some truth if it suppresses a minority position, for almost certainly it will contain some truth, even if it is basically wrong. Even if we should know a position to be completely wrong, Mills insists, still we should give it a hearing, for the truth we hold, when confronted by error, shines all the brighter and we understand it better when so tested. And in this way error tends to spend itself.

Dallas Times Herald

Dallas, Texas

To the Editor:

Mrs. Madeline O’Hare, the aggressive atheist, appeared recently on a KRLD talk show, to the apparent consternation of a number of listeners who exchanged views with her. The station is to be commended for providing this voice of dissent. The church, like every social institution, needs to be criticized; and if it has the truth, it has nothing to fear in having its faith tested through open discussion. Those of us who are theists only regret that those who confront this champion of atheism are often unequipped to deal with her shrewd tactics. This results in her getting by with saying things that just aren’t true, and in making atheism look better than it really is. After listening to her for sometime, I wanted to make these points in response.

1. She is guilty of what logicians call special pleading in that she depicts the dark side of religion without presenting the other side. She points to the holy wars, the inquisition, oppression and superstition, but does not mention the enlightenment that religion has brought to the world, with all its educational, spiritual and charitable institutions. She does not tell us how many colleges, hospitals, shelter houses and leper colonies that atheism has given the world.

2. She falsely generalizes in that she describes all theists as “other directed” or “clergy dominated,” as if all atheists were inner-directed and free. She sees the religionist as weak, ignorant and unconcerned for social justice, while she, “free of theism,” is well-balanced, happy and busy building a better world. She never mentions the like of Albert Schweitzer, a doctor three ways, who went to Africa as a Christian response to help atone for what the white man has done to the black, or to a Martin Luther King, who was as inner-directed as one could be, in his concern for social justice. Atheism has something less than a glorious record in alleviating human misery.

3. She has every right to be an atheist, and I’ll defend her liberty to state her case, but she is wrong in telling a radio audience that she has such august company as our founding fathers on her side. She named in particular our first five Presidents and Thomas Paine. This simply is not true. Norman Cousins in his In God We Trust corrects this notion that our founding fathers were atheists or agnostics. They opposed biblical literalism and clericalism, but they “most certainly did not turn against God or lose their respect for religious belief,” to quote Cousins. They may have been deists (belief in one deity), but not atheists. They might not have made good Southern Baptists, but they believed in a Supreme Being. As for Paine, he even started a society in France designed to oppose atheism as a curse to the world! Hardly shades of Madeline O’Hare.

4. She misses the point of religious faith. We do not claim proof that God exists, for that would make religion a science. Religion is a love story, and we believe that God is and that He loves. But neither can she or any atheist prove that God does not exist. While humility may not be her crowning virtue, she hardly lays claim to omniscience. So there is much she does not know, and that may include the existence of God. To know that God does not exist, she would have to know everything, which would make her God since omniscience is an attribute only of God. The proposition that “God is” is an axiom that one either accepts or does not. It is not something to be proved either way. That wise old Harvard philosopher, William James, observed in his The Will to Believe that the grounds for believing in God or as good or better than not believing, so one has good reasons for believing just because he wills to and needs to. If Mrs. O’Hare wills to disbelieve, that is her business, but she ought not play dirty pool with the public.

Her insistence that churches ought to be taxed and that religion should never be imposed upon others, such as prayers in public schools, has considerable support even from within the church. So, she should count her blessings, for God is helping her more than she realizes! 

Sincerely,      
Leroy Garrett

(This letter was read over KRLD radio in Dallas.)