Bruce Sheiman doesn't believe in God, but he does believe in religion.
Setting aside the question of whether God exists, it's clear that the benefits of faith far outweigh its costs, he argues in his new book, An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It.
"I don't know if anybody is going to be able to convince me that God exists," Sheiman said in an interview, "but they can convince me that religion has intrinsic value."...
...In recent years, the skeptical scene has been dominated by the New Atheists —Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others — who argue in best-selling books that religious faith is a mental illness, or worse.
But now, a new crew of nonbelievers is taking on the New Atheists, arguing that while they may not have faith themselves, there's little reason to belittle believers or push religion out of the public square. The back-and-forth debates over God's existence have shed a little light, but far more heat, they argue, while the world's problems loom ever larger.
"The work that we need to do, we atheists, humanists and non-believers, is to build a better world and not try to tear down those with whom we disagree," said Greg M. Epstein, the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University.
Two thoughts on this:
First, this is a good example of a two-tiered view of Truth. Tier number one is what we can know from science or nature. It is knowledge based on the material world, and includes such topics as gravity, medicine, and the physics of baseball. Tier number two is what can be known about spiritual matters. This truth is not provable and should not have any bearing on tier number one. Tier number two is valuable as long as it remains private and does not claim to shed any light on tier number one. In short, religion may not be true, but it doesn't matter because it gets good results, and it can be positive as long as we don't claim that it has any bearing beyond our personal, private life. This concept has been very well explained by Nancy Pearcey in her great book, Total Truth.
Second, I see many students buy into this type of fallacy. Many times we as youth pastors (myself certainly included) present Christianity in a utilitarian kind of way. What I mean by this is that we try to show how following Jesus "works" and can improve their lives. This is different from applying truth to everyday situations. Too many times we present Jesus by saying, "Jesus can change your life and your relationships" rather than "Jesus is Lord of all, he died to save you, and by accepting that truth, your life will be changed." Do you see the nuance there? There is a difference between following Jesus and following Christianity, a church, or any religion. It reminds me of Mark Driscoll's sermon series and eventual book, Religion Saves: and Nine Other Misconceptions.
