Chuck the Atheist often monitors Christian radio in the Chicago area. The two radio stations that I predominantly listen to are WYLL AM 1160 and WMBI FM 90.1. WMBI is the Chicago flagship of the Moody Bible Institute, an old institution from the early days of radio. Folks that can be heard on WMBI are evangelical and Young Earth Creationist. One of the programs on WMBI that can be heard each week day is Prime Time America, a show hosted by Greg Wheatley that starts during the afternoon drive. On the April 20th and 21st broadcast, Wheatley’s guest was James Spiegel, Professor of Philosophy at Taylor University. The topic was the nature of the New Atheism.
Spiegel’s has a new book out called, The Making of an Atheist, apparently the promotion of which was the primary reason to be interviewed. The book was published by Moody Press, a fact that I’m pretty sure was not disclosed during the broadcast. So what does make an atheist? Spiegel sums it up in one word, wickedness. Yes, atheists are apparently are people that exhibit immoral behavior. Further, it’s not really atheism that leads to wickedness, but it’s actually immorality that leads to atheism. Spiegel’s website (www.jimspiegel.com): “Atheism is not at all a consequence of intellectual doubts. These are mere symptoms of the root cause—moral rebellion. For the atheist, the missing ingredient is not evidence but obedience.”
Wheatley asks if there must be something immoral in the lives of the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Spiegel doesn’t answer the question (unfortunately, for I had tensed up in anticipation of some expected libelous remark), but states that Dawkins is the one whom is suffering under some kind of delusion, a reference to the title of Dawkin’s book, the God Delusion. For Spiegel it is immoral behavior on the New Atheists part, because of their inability to acknowledge what must be plain to everyone – that creation itself is evidence for god. So the fact that Richard Dawkins can give a cogent argument that is in favor of a materialistic explanation of the living world, the theory of evolution, is what is immoral. Try to make sense of that. Chuck the Atheist can’t. It must be because I, too, am wicked.
Wheatley then asks what is going on psychologically, intellectually, and morally with someone who doesn’t believe in god. Spiegel answers that there are two phases to the progression towards atheism, first, are the causes of atheism proper, and second, the obstinacy of atheists and what entrenches the unbeliever in the atheistic perspective. For causes of atheism, Spiegel cites the work of psychologist Paul Vitz, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at New York University. Spiegel states that Vitz’s research is hard to ignore. The modern era has provided us with many famous atheists that had a severe break with in the relationship with their fathers. Spiegel tells us that there’s an element of immorality, sinful activities, and vices. It is that which brings a person to atheism. But as you read a summary of his views in a short paper by Vitz on the same subject his examples only list Freud’s father, Jacob, as someone whom Freud regarded as a “sexual pervert.” (Vitz 2002).
I checked out what might be the quality of Spiegel’s source, and looked up Vitz’s list of selected publications. In addition to that already mentioned, I found that Vitz wrote a book, Faith of the Fatherless: the Psychology of Athiesm (Vitz 1999). So what exactly is the content of this “research that is hard to ignore?” Always on the prowl for digging up primary sources in the literature, Chuck the Atheist does not simply accept the secondary comments of those who probably either don’t know what they are talking about, or who want to obfuscate the veracity of their sources to validate their rhetorical apologetics. Vitz starts out with a bit of a disclaimer:
“I am well aware of the fact that there is good reason to give only limited acceptance to Freud's Oedipal theory…Since there is need for deeper understanding of atheism and since I don't know of any theoretical framework-except the Oedipal one - I am forced to sketch out a model of my own, or really to develop an undeveloped thesis of Freud.
I’m sure that contemporary psychologists feel a certain indebtedness to Freud. He was indeed a pioneer. But I don’t think that too much current psychological research hinges so much on the Oedipal conflict. Vitz tells us that Freud, Karl Marx, Ludwig Feuerbach, Madelyn Murray O’Hair were atheists who had bad relationships with their father, or who simply didn’t respect their fathers. Vitz states that other well known atheists such as Baron d’Holbach, Bertrand Russel, Neitzsche, Sartre and Camus all lost their fathers at an early age. Vitz:
“The psychology of how a dead or nonexistent father could lay an emotional base for atheism might not seem clear at first glance. But, after all, if one's own father is absent or so weak as to die, or so untrustworthy as to desert, then it is not hard to place the same attribute on your heavenly Father.
I’m not sure where exactly the immorality fits in. Remember that it was only Freud’s father that was cited as being immoral. The other atheists upon which Vitz commented had lost their fathers at an early age. This contradicts the thesis that Spiegel lays out in the WMBI broadcast. The alleged link between immorality and fatherlessness was not discussed by Vitz, whom concludes:
“Finally, there is also the early personal experience of suffering, of death, of evil, sometimes combined with anger at God for allowing it to happen. Any early anger at God for the loss of a father and the subsequent suffering is still another and different psychology of unbelief, but one closely related to that of the defective father.
So it comes down to more of a question of theodicy. How god could take away my father, make me live a life without a loving, present father? Because Christians liken their relationship to god as a matter of filial piety, some like Vitz surmise that Atheists that have lost their father’s can’t imagine god in a fatherly role. This makes sense in a superficial way, perhaps. But simply listing a survey of a few famous atheists and their alleged difficult or non-existent relationships with their fathers doesn’t seem like extremely solid research that is difficult to ignore. An honest approach would be a more exhaustive, random survey of atheists and the relationships they had with their fathers. At any rate Spiegel also apparently mischaracterizes Vitz’s hypothesis. No alleged link between immorality and fatherlessness was given on Wheatley’s broadcast. Christians often fall victim to the bait and switch of Christian apologists. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. Honest scholarship is unimportant if your audience doesn’t bother to check the sources. And often these the purveyors as well as the consumers wouldn’t know what research is if it was conducted exhaustively in front of their very noses. Honest scholarship is unimportant if your goal is to emotionally manipulate your followers. You’re just preaching to the choir anyway.
The second phase of the development of an atheist, Spiegel tells Wheatley, is the entrenchment in an atheistic world view that does not allow one to accept conflicting information. That sounds to Chuck the Atheist like psychological projection, doesn’t it? It’s the fundamentalist Christians, who cannot accept scientific evidence if it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible.
References:
Spiegel, J. S. 2010. The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief, Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
Vitz, P.C. 1999. Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, Dallas, TX: Spence.
Vitz, P. C. 2002. The psychology of atheism. The Truth Journal, Leadership University. http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth12.html
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