On a number of occasions throughout my adult life in which I have discussed my views with theists, I have been accused of being closed-minded. Typically, the conversation starts out amicably enough, but at some point the theist realizes that my defense of my rejection of theism is impervious to his apologetic tactics. That is when frustration kicks in and personal attacks begin to well up. Usually the believer tells me that I hate his god or that I just don’t want to give up some sin or another. In some instances, the theist announces that I’m simply closed-minded and therefore unwilling to “see the light” as it were.
In one exchange I had with a theist a couple years ago, I explained that my atheism was really a natural consequence of choosing to be honest on questions pertaining to theism in particular as well as philosophy in general. After all, I realize that I have no direct awareness of any gods, and I have found without exception that efforts to support the inference that there is (or “must be”) a god, are terminally deficient. I am of the view that choosing to believe something that one does not think is true (assuming that’s really possible) is not an application of honesty. Pretending to know something when one does not is certainly not an expression of an honest orientation to facts.
To this, the theist replied:
Taking the honest route is always good, but realize that what you view as ‘honest’ may not be completely open.
I responded with the following:
Like other people and I’m sure you, I encounter a lot of stuff in my course of living. Some of that stuff includes people making claims that they want me to accept as knowledge. We just got through a few years of self-appointed experts appearing on televised news programs insisting that a rushed vaccine is ‘safe and effective’, only to learn that this claim is probably not true in the least. In my life, people have told me many things that simply were not true, and I have learned that along with being honest I must also be discriminating. If that means I’m not “completely open,” this is entirely acceptable to me. There are probably a lot of things you believe which I do not believe. I do not seek to have an “open mind” but rather an active mind. Knowledge by virtue of its grounding in reality is to be expected to be limited – not only because our minds have finite natures and must operate in accordance with their constraints, but also because whatever is true must also be limited to what can be supported by reference to reality. Many Christians whom I have known over the years have complained about how “limited” science is and how “limited” scientific thinkers can be in the range of items they will accept as legitimate knowledge. Clearly, they see that as a deficiency of sorts. Per se I do not. I do not see “openness” as such to be a special virtue. A person who has been burned by his own gullibility one too many times may find that not being quite so open is a better life-preserver.
In fact, I find such complaints rather ironic. On the one hand, Christians have told me that there’s no basis for any certainty in my worldview. When I correct them on this, they then turn around and accuse me of being closed-minded. Well, which is it? Am I so foundationless and uncertain that I’m open to every passerby’s claims, or am I so obstinate and pigheaded that I’m just a spoilsport? I find that every time a Christian tries to convince me of his religious beliefs and fails, the diagnosis is always that there’s something wrong with me. But I’m simply trying to be honest – i.e., I am deliberately doing my best NOT to fake the nature of my own consciousness. But this also means being closed to things that I do not think are true. If I know that the answer to the question “What is the sum of two added to two?” is “four,” I’m not going to be open to alternatives like 46.7 or 5493.8.
Presuppositionalists of the Greg Bahnsen camp will of course accuse me of “the pretended neutrality fallacy,” i.e., “a non-committal attitude toward the truthfulness of Scripture… a ‘nobody knows yet’ attitude” on questions pertaining to the alleged truth of theistic claims (Always Ready, pp. 3-4). But if I’m being honest, then there’s no room for pretending. Besides, I am very upfront about my commitments – to the primacy of existence, the factual evidence available to our senses, to reason as my only means of acquiring and validating knowledge. And my claim is that my atheism is wholly consistent with these commitments.
Meanwhile, it might occur to us that it may be in fact the theist himself who is guilty of his own charge of closed-mindedness. If his complaint is intended to imply that having “an open mind” is his preferred ideal, is he really living up to that ideal by discounting my position without at least trying to understand it in a charitable manner? Or is everything supposed to go just one way, to favor theism as though it were some default, and non-belief is saddled with unsurmountable hurdles set arbitrarily by the theist?
So when the apologist eventually accuses me of being closed-minded, perhaps the appropriate reply would be: “Thou sayest.”
by Dawson Bethrick
Meanwhile, it might occur to us that it may be in fact the theist himself who is guilty of his own charge of closed-mindedness. If his complaint is intended to imply that having “an open mind” is his preferred ideal, is he really living up to that ideal by discounting my position without at least trying to understand it in a charitable manner? Or is everything supposed to go just one way, to favor theism as though it were some default, and non-belief is saddled with unsurmountable hurdles set arbitrarily by the theist?
So when the apologist eventually accuses me of being closed-minded, perhaps the appropriate reply would be: “Thou sayest.”
by Dawson Bethrick
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