Crisis Time: Are You a Confident Atheist?

Zoc and Didi discuss Atheism

Zoc and his friend Didi have just bought some coffee from the famous Warming Hut at Crissy Field in San Francisco and are walking on the edge of the Bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

Crissy Field is where the two love to chat and solve the problems of the world! It's a great morning. Cyclists are out. So are plenty of folk with their dogs. There is a bit of a haze obscuring Alcatraz out in the Bay to their right. The left hand side of the Bridge looms high in front of them. The Bridge is so huge that cars crossing it look like ants crawling in slow motion.

Crissy Field and the Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco

Zoc: So Didi what have you been up to?

Didi: Not much. But, I have been doing quite a bit of reading.

Zoc: And?

Didi: And ....... I have become an atheist.

Zoc: What! (Zoc stops, waits for a cyclist to pass, and puts his empty coffee cup in a trash bin.) Why have you decided to become an atheist? And anyway. What do you mean by "atheist?"

Didi: (Confidently)An atheist is a person who believes that God does not exist. That is me now Zoc. I have thought a lot about it. I have decided there is absolutely no evidence that God exists. I have finally decided to be honest with myself.

Zoc: Well! It's good to hear you say that honesty is so important to you. Are you saying that you have decided to go where ever the evidence leads? Like Socrates?

Didi: (Pleased with the association with Socrates) Exactly.

Zoc: Good for you Didi, but I have a problem.

Didi: What is it?

They are getting nearer to the Bridge now. On their right are rows and rows of small boulders protecting the road from the waters of the Bay

Zoc stops and points to the long row of boulders. The water sucks to and fro as the small waves come in and go back.

Zoc: Tell me Didi. Could you say for sure that there is not a gold plated needle somewhere under one of those boulders?

Didi What a silly question! How could I possibly know?

Zoc: (Zoc laughs.) Well then Didi, how could you know for sure? What would you have to do to be absolutely sure?

Didi: (Gets impatient.) I would have to look under every boulder from the Warming Hut to the Bridge before I could say for certain that your ridiculous gold plated needle was not there. An absolutely impossible search! And I would get wet!

Zoc: So Didi, should not your honest answer to the golden needle question be "I don't know and it is impossible for me to know?" Shouldn't you say "When it comes to knowing if there is not a gold plated needle under one of these boulders, I am agnostic"?

Didi: (cautiously)Maybe....Maybe I am. What are you getting at?

Zoc: What I am getting at is this. Just now you told me that you had become an atheist. You told me you had become an atheist because you decided there is no evidence that God exists. But Didi,  when you searched for God did you not bang into almost the same problem you faced when thinking about the search for the golden needle? For you to say there is no God you must have looked in every nook and cranny in the physical and metaphysical universe! Did you do that Didi? Or, is that a totally impossible search? Much more impossible than the search for the gold needle?

Didi: So?

Zoc: So, Didi, when it comes to making statements about the existence of God, would it not be more honest for you to say you are agnostic? (Zoc winks at Didi.)

There is a short silence.

Didi: And you Zoc? I suppose you are an agnostic?

Zoc: (Zoc laughs.) That's another discussion. For another time.

:

The two friends turn and head back to the Warming Hut for a second coffee'

John Bartels

Mill Park

Port Elizabeth