I have a dear friend who likes to get on Facebook once a week or so and broadcast to everyone how bad Christians are and how smart atheists are. He goes on about how every Christian has a massive stockpile of assault rifles, voted for Trump, and doesn’t believe in science.
Bertrand Russell said, “Zeal is a bad mark for a cause. Nobody has any zeal about arithmetic. People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true.”
Which makes me think… If my friend were peacefully and perfectly certain that there was no God (aka if he were a confirmed atheist), according to Russell’s perspective, he wouldn’t feel the need to broadcast his zealotry. He’d be as emotional about it as he’d be about the fact that 1+1=2. But when you’re trying to prove that 1+1=3, you have to get zealous about it.
Maybe it’s not that he doesn’t believe in God. Maybe it’s that the God he wants to believe in is not doing all the things he’d be doing if he was god. Maybe this God’s arithmetic doesn’t match.
In Christmas Joy,
Jonas+
Well said. Those who are the least sure of their position or able to support why they have their position tend to use the loudest voice in the broadcasting of that position.
A perfect way of explaining that behavior!