In this entry I continue my interaction with Michael Brown’s 7 honest questions for atheists. This post is my answer to Brown’s fifth question. My answers to Brown’s previous questions can be accessed here:
1. Why are you an atheist?
2. Can an atheist have purpose?
3. Are you sure there’s no god?
4. Can science answer the remaining mysteries of the universe?
In his fifth question, Brown queries atheists on their personal experiences, asking whether or not they’ve had any which challenge their atheism. The subliminal assumption seems to be that atheism is a worldview like a religion, and that certain experiences that one might have may conflict with the fundamental tenets of atheism. But atheism is not a worldview, and as such atheism has no tenets to speak of. Theism is not fundamental, and thus neither is atheism as an antithesis to theism. One can be an atheist and, like theists, still get the issue of metaphysical primacy wrong. (In fact, many atheists do!)
