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COMMENTARY: Atheism is not only the failure to believe in God, but the failure to believe in one’s self.
Before C.S. Lewis became one of the world's most convincing apologists for Christianity, he was a confirmed atheist. In his book The Problem of Pain, he reflects on his previous thoughts as an atheist. If anyone were to ask him, he writes, “Why do you not believe in God? He would have said, something like:
“Look at the universe we live in. By far the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold. The bodies that move in this space are so few and so small in comparison with the space itself that even if every one of them were known to be crowded as full as it could hold with perfectly happy creatures, it would still be difficult to believe that life and happiness were more than a byproduct to the power that made the universe.”
The error in Lewis’ thinking here is a confusion between quantity and quality. No amount of quantity can produce anything of quality. Six monkeys jumping up and down on a typewriter for millions of years, will not reproduce Hamlet or anything of beauty.
It took Johannes Brahms 10 years to produce his first symphony. Its performance time is one hour. Ten years consists of 87,600 hours. Yet, one cannot dismiss Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 because it was mostly time spent and not beauty produced.
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
Before C.S. Lewis became one of the world's most convincing apologists for Christianity, he was a confirmed atheist. In his book The Problem of Pain, he reflects on his previous thoughts as an atheist. If anyone were to ask him, he writes, “Why do you not believe in God? He would have said, something like:
“Look at the universe we live in. By far the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold. The bodies that move in this space are so few and so small in comparison with the space itself that even if every one of them were known to be crowded as full as it could hold with perfectly happy creatures, it would still be difficult to believe that life and happiness were more than a byproduct to the power that made the universe.”
The error in Lewis’ thinking here is a confusion between quantity and quality. No amount of quantity can produce anything of quality. Six monkeys jumping up and down on a typewriter for millions of years, will not reproduce Hamlet or anything of beauty.
It took Johannes Brahms 10 years to produce his first symphony. Its performance time is one hour. Ten years consists of 87,600 hours. Yet, one cannot dismiss Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 because it was mostly time spent and not beauty produced.
Continued below.
An Atheist’s Argument for Atheism
COMMENTARY: Atheism is not only the failure to believe in God, but the failure to believe in one’s self.
