The Fanatical Self-Destruction of Atheism

I am nearing the end of a marvelous volume by G. K. Chesterton entitled, Orthodoxy. At the end of chapter 8, The Romance of Orthodoxy, I came across the following observation about atheism which I probably read five or six times before I moved on. It is a wonderfully accurate portrayal of modern atheism, even more so than it was of atheism in Chesterton's day.

[speaking of the militant atheist]
"He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even the primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all."

I will follow up that quote with this excerpt from Where All Roads Lead, by Chesterton as well.

"If there were not God, there would be no atheists."

The utter futility of atheism...

I believe I have recently stumbled upon the truth about why such rabid God-haters as Richard Dawkins and Christipher Hitchins expend such copious amounts of time end energy trying to get you and I to stop believing in God. Note that they don't seem to be so much concerned with simply defending their scientifically unprovable stance that there is no God, as they are with vehemently slandering the God they claim does not exist.

So, here is why I believe these men are found spending and being spent in the pursuit of convincing people that there is no God:

"Misery loves company."

Let me unpack that statement a little.

Track with me. If there is no God, no moral Lawgiver, no Originator of meaning and purpose; if Darwinian evolution, neo-Darwinian evolution, punctuated equilibrium, or whatever they come up with next, is true... then we, this planet, this universe, are little more than a cosmic accident, the product of a miraculous belch in which nothing somehow became gasses and then relieved itself. I move to rename it the Big Fart.

So, following logically, if we are the accidental outcome of evolution then our existence is intrinsically meaningless. There is no purpose. Sure, you can accumulate wealth and power but when you die it either goes with you into the ground (if you are a grumpy accident), or it goes to your children (if you are a sentimental accident), or... it goes to charity (if you are an altruistic accident). But even if you pass it on at some point it also passes on, as do all of those you passed it to.

Or, you could live a life of sacrifice in which you choose the betterment of others over your own pleasure, but all of those for whom you spend your time, energy and resources trying to help will also eventually die and then what have you done? You have worked against natural selection!

This can go on for eons and then what?

Heat Death

The universe attains equilibrium and becomes a really, really big ghost town, where nothing can or will ever live again.

This is depressing stuff. Seems like it would tend to make those who believe it miserable. And, as we know, misery loves company.

See, it doesn't make sense to rail against a being who does not exist. What if I started an anti-Shiva website, where I made it my singular aim to defame, insult, curse and otherwise bully Shiva the Destroyer (a Hindu god who, together with Brahma and Vishnu, make up the Hindu version of the Trinity), a being I know to be fictitious? If I know that said being is not real I will give an apologetic for what I believe and against this other entity, as Christians do, but there would be no animosity (and there isn't). I may even speak out against the founder of Shiva worship, laying out evidence that this person is not credible, but I would have no personal emotional response to the deity.

So my question for the New Atheists is this:

Why all the hatred? Why the obvious personal vendetta against a God you claim does not exist? If you say, "Because religion has caused so much death and destruction! That's why!" then you will probably want to tune in for an upcoming entry where I will display and discuss the numbers of people killed in the name of religion compared and contrasted with the numbers of those killed as a result of secular humanism and the atheistic worldview.