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Atheist-Theist Encounters
If you’re pretty sure there’s no god, when may you tell theists they’re wrong?
If you’re pretty sure there’s no god, likely you also feel pretty sure that theists hold an incorrect belief. You might at least believe (to put it a bit differently) that your atheist reasoning or gut instinct is more valid or otherwise stronger than someone else’s theism and that your position ought to be more compelling to them, if only they’d take time to see it.
Ought you tell them so? Are you ethically obligated to share your position with them?
To you, it may seem a straightforward fact that supernatural beings don’t exist — and you may be correct. But whether, when, and how to pick a fight about atheism is a nuanced choice.
Context Matters
You can meet someone’s arrogance with firmness. But their humility and modest aspirations might not need to be countered at all.
If someone’s using the idea of God to oppress others, then it might be effective or satisfying resistance for you to tell them their God doesn’t exist.
But if they talk about God to bolster themselves in a harsh world, without using their theism to directly hurt anyone, then maybe you can learn something from them (even if you don’t need to use any God-concepts).
No philosophical debate exists in a pure space. Everything is touched by politics and emotion. At every turn, we risk stepping on the toes of someone who has real-life needs and concerns.
I appreciated George Yancy’s interview of Todd May in the New York Times (October 2020). Yancy asked if May felt “a responsibility” to inform “those who believe in the supernatural…that they are wrong.” May answered that he teaches men in prison, and “it would be unethical for me to try to argue that they’re mistaken” about religion. The men “sit around a table” while acknowledging each other’s religious beliefs or lack thereof. Their faith “often plays an important role in sustaining them psychologically.” It’s his role as a teacher to facilitate a discussion, not to be yet another authority who tells them what they can or can’t or should or shouldn’t say.
