Doubt, Denial and the Death of God

By Chris Park

Whilst God himself may not be as popular as he once was, many people find themselves seeking answers to questions about meaning and purpose. Why are we here? What are we here for? Of course, people have many different ideas about what the word 'God' means, and there are many different views of what God is like - absent or present, knowable or unknowable, bossy or loving. This book explores the most common positions adopted by people who say they do not believe in God, and why they hold those views. It explores why some people doubt the existence of God (agnosticism or skepticism), and why many deny the existence of God (atheism), and then sketches out the New Atheist ideas of God as invented by humans to satisfy human needs, before reviewing philosophical and theological debates over the past century centred on the so-called 'death of God'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Park
• Release date: Mar 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310395567

Chris Park

I am a retired academic with more than 30 years experience in university teaching, research and senior management in the UK. These days I enjoy spending time reading, writing, walking and travelling, but not all at the same time!

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DOUBT, DENIAL AND THE DEATH OF GOD

Copyright 2016 Chris Park

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial reasons. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy, and please consider downloading the other books in the series GOD MATTERS, both free from Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

This ebook contains material drawn from my book God: Real or Imagined? which was first published in print format by Zaccmedia in 2013. It is part of the GOD MATTERS series, the other ebooks of which are listed in ‘Other books by this author’.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Defining God

Doubting God

Denying God

Inventing God

The death of God

References

About the author

Other books by this author

1. Introduction

"I think humans have always wrestled with the Divine Idea – an idea that unites and separates, creates and destroys, consoles and terrifies. It is virtually certain that religious belief is as old as our species. And it is equally possible that uncertainty, doubt and scepticism about God have existed since prehistoric times." Robert Winston (2005)

The media often take a particular interest in God stories; after all, it sells copy. There was great interest, for example, when Alistair Campbell (his Press Secretary) was repeatedly asked about British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s faith and about whether he had prayed with US President George W. Bush before taking military action in the Middle East, famously said we don’t do God. Barack Obama told an interviewer a few years before he succeeded Bush as President I have a deep faith. I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. …  [but] I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalise or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate.

Whilst God himself may not be as popular as he once was, there’s no denying the high level of interest amongst the general public in questions about ultimate meaning and purpose. This was clearly borne out in a 2010 survey of 1.1 billion queries made on the website Ask Jeeves (Ask in most countries) since it was launched in 2000, to find the Top 10 unanswerable questions. The top two, based on the number of times asked, were ‘What is the meaning of life?’ and ‘Is there a God?’. ‘Is there anybody out there?’ came in at number 5, ahead of ‘Who is the most famous person in the world?’ (number 6) and ‘What is love?’ (number 7).

For most people in most places throughout history God was taken for granted, part of the furniture of life. Belief in God was inherited from parents, participation in religious rituals and traditions was part of everyday reality, and the existence and nature of God were rarely questioned.

As British journalist John Humphreys (2008) reminds us, it is only relatively recently that we have been able to question the existence of God and live to argue another day. Through much of European history it has not been wise to admit to doubt. At best you might find yourself cut off from polite society; at worst you might find yourself dangling from iron hooks in a dank cellar and be cut off in a more literal sense.

Wrestling with God

Why doesn’t everyone believe in God? If God exists and is as powerful and all-encompassing as believers say, surely it’s not beyond God to make everyone believe automatically, to hard-wire every person everywhere with religious belief from the moment they are born? Why give us a choice?

The answer to that simple question is complex, but in a nutshell … as a Christian, I believe that God created humans not as thoughtless automatons or robots, fully pre-programmed in every way, but as thinking, feeling individuals with free will and minds to think with. We were made with the ability to choose whether or not to believe that God exists, and what sort of God we believe in.

Even if we are given a choice, why does everyone not appreciate the logic of believing in God, particularly given the apparent benefits of religion and the fact that many people are aware of direct experiences of God? These themes are discussed in the ebooks Religion and the idea of God and Personal experience of God in this GOD MATTERS series

Given these two phenomena - freedom to choose and appreciating the benefits - would it not make sense for everyone to believe in God? But the