Religious Implications of Atheism

Konstantin Gennadievich Volkodav, 2020

This book formulates a Particular Principle of Causality (the Phenomenon of Creativity), which serves as a solid foundation for any kind of evidence of the existence of God. It is almost impossible to challenge it. In the book, this principle was formulated for the first time. The book also examines aspects of theodicy that have been a stumbling block for theologians throughout the centuries. In addition, many other important theological topics here are illuminated from unusual angles. Quite often, atheists oppose their concept to religions. However, a detailed analysis of the metaphysics of the atheistic worldview shows that atheism has all the features of religion. This book reasonably explains that Atheism is a religion of unbelief.

Introduction

“We want to know in order to live. And to live means, on the other hand, to live not in blindness and darkness, but in the light of knowledge... And in the last depth of our being, we feel that the light of knowledge and the highest good of life we are looking for are two sides of the same principle.”

— S. L. Frank ^[2]

From time immemorial, people have argued about the criteria of truth, about the meaning of human life and about the nature of things. Usually this was expressed in religious disputes. About two hundred years ago, atheism arose in Christian Europe, and began to take part in these disputes. Many books have been written on these topics. Nevertheless, a book is a monologue of one author. A more complete picture is obtained when different colors and contrast are present in it. Therefore, it is advisable to conduct dialogues, trialogues, disputes, in which representatives of different points of view argue. For two hundred years, there have already been thousands of disputes on the topic “Religion and Atheism”, in which, as a rule, representatives of Christianity or Islam speak about religion. The titles of these disputes can vary widely. For example, there might be a title “Religion and Science”, “Religion and Evolution”, “I don’t believe!” etc. However, the essence is the same everywhere and the arguments for each side are approximately the same. It is like a children’s carousel where you can change animal figures. You can exchange horses for donkeys, camels, giraffes, etc., but the rotation mechanism and trajectory will be the same. Therefore, the disputes of the twenty-first century, in fact, differ little from the disputes of the nineteenth century. For two centuries, almost nothing has changed. Perhaps, it is impossible to reach a consensus between religions and atheism through disputes, controversies, and discussions.

Therefore, we will try to consider the discussed problems alone, in creative silence, that is, we will present our views in the genre of Plato’s Dialogues. However, it would not be correct to analyze the dispute between atheists and believers in a completely abstract way, without reference to specific individuals. It is not very nice to argue with fictitious opponents and refute the arguments of marginal anonymous (as atheists often do). Therefore, we will comment on one specific dispute here, by the example of which we will try to reveal the essence of all similar disputes. This is a debate between a prominent representative of Atheism and a well-known representative of Islam. In addition, we will comment on their polemic from the point of view of Christianity. Thus, three points of view will be presented here, and the problems discussed will be shown as if in “three-dimensional”.

Debate video source:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uSwJuOPG4FI

Title:

The Big Debates: Islam or Atheism—Which Makes More Sense?

London, March 9, 2013

Participants:

Professor Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and popularizer of science, founder of the Faculty of Earth and Space Studies and honorary director of the “Origins” project at the University of Arizona (USA), author of about three hundred scientific publications and nine books, including international bestsellers “The Physics of Star Trek” and “A Universe from Nothing: why there is something rather than nothing”.

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis is a student of the organization “Islamic Thought”, author, lecturer, employee of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA).

00:00:24: Introduction — Timothy Yusuf Chambers (Moderator)

00:06:30: Opening Remarks — Hamza Tzortzis

00:32:02: Opening Remarks — Lawrence Krauss

00:59:33: Rebuttal — Hamza Tzortzis

01:14:28: Rebuttal — Lawrence Krauss

01:22:43: Summary Discussion

01:42:07: Question & Answer Session

02:06:00: Closing Remarks — Lawrence Krauss

02:07:50: Closing Remarks — Hamza Tzortzis

Below we will alternate our comments with quotes from the debates, highlighting them in different fonts. For this, we transcribed the video into text. For the sake of brevity, we have skipped irrelevant parts of the discussion. The timestamps are indicated in square brackets.

Примечания

2

. Франк, Смысл жизни, 19. [Hereinafter, everywhere all translations from Russian are made by the author.]