Topics Religion

Question Is anyone ever truly an atheist? In extreme conditions someone who has never in their life prayed to, or believed in, a God of some kind or another will openly worship them. There is a very good quote that goes with this. "There are no atheists in foxholes and it isn't an argument against atheism, but an argument against foxholes." So can anyone ever truly be an atheist?

Accepted:
December 18, 2005

Comments

It is interesting that many people, when they think of thosecircumstances that almost compel an adoption of a religious outlook,think of the death bed. They rarely think of how the world of theliving might strike one (and I'm not thinking here about arguments from design).

But to turn to your question of whether anyone can ever look death in the face and remain an atheist, David ("le bon David")Hume is a fine example. He used to drive James Boswell mad in hisrefusal to embrace the Christian faith: "Read Hume till you was sick,"one of Boswell's journal entries reads. Boswell even had dreams of Humeconfiding in him that he really was a believer. But it was all a dream.When Hume was dying, he used to entertain a veritable procession ofclerics eager to witness his conversion. But they all left himdisappointed. When Boswell told Samuel Johnson of this, the latterframed a most ingenious explanation (The Life of Johnson, 16 September 1777):

Boswell: Isaid, I had reason to believe that the thought of annihilationgave Hume no pain.

Johnson: It was not so, Sir. He hada vanity in being thought easy. It is more probable that heshould assume an appearance of ease, than that so very improbable athing should be, as a man not afraid of going (as, in spite ofhis delusive theory, he cannot be sure but he may go,) into anunknown state, and not being uneasy at leaving all he knew. Andyou are to consider, that upon his own principle of annihilationhe had no motive to speak the truth.

Twoobservations about this. First, the sly argument Johnson offers in hislast sentence is taken up very interestingly elsewhere on this site;see for instance, Question 27 or Question 200.Second, there is a wonderfully ironical echo in Johnson's firstargument for why we ought not to take Hume's "appearance of ease"seriously of Hume's own argument for why we ought not to take evidencefor miracles seriously.