Today's sermon is on intolerance: [View all]

[guillaumeb]

Our reading is from the Gospel according to C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity, and it deals with intolerance.

The late, ex-atheist, C.S. Lewis once wrote:

“ If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.”

C. S. Lewis (1960). Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan)

What Lewis is referring to is the many paths argument. That there can be many paths to God, and many paths that result in a good life. Each person might have their own personal path, and that path might contain elements from a number of belief systems.
But if some atheists must, as a function of their beliefs, reject all other paths as false, what does that say about these atheists?


Now, if this definition by C.S. Lewis of what it is to be an atheist is correct, does this mean that atheists are sui generis intolerant of all forms of religious belief? Before we consider that, it would be good to consider another source which defines what it is to be an atheist. To help me, I went to the American Atheist site.

WHAT IS ATHEISM?
The reason no one asks this question a lot is because most people have preconceived ideas and notions about what an Atheist is and is not. Where these preconceived ideas come from varies, but they tend to evolve from theistic influences or other sources.
Atheism is usually defined incorrectly as a belief system. Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

www.atheists.org/activism/resources/what-is-atheism

So C.S. Lewis defines atheism as believing that all religions, and all believers, are mistaken.
The American Atheist site rejects the word belief when describing atheism. I cannot speak for them, but perhaps their idea is that the word belief is too loaded with religious connotations.
But no matter if one believes in a god or does not, neither belief is provable. The concept of atheism can no more be proven than can the concept of a god. Theism, or non-theism, is a belief system.
We believe in things like religion, or philosophy, or political things, even though we cannot demonstrate that what we believe is provable in a scientific sense.

And the point of all of this, this sermon on intolerance, is that intolerance is a very human failing. It is not limited to certain groups of people, it is universal. We can read of centuries of Christian intolerance for non-Christian belief systems, but we can also read of the intolerance for theism that was and is demonstrated by the non-theists who govern in Russia and China.

And we can see the obvious intolerance, expressed as condescension and mockery, that people like Richard Dawkins exhibit when referring to people of faith. The condescension that is referenced by C.S. Lewis in his book. The idea that people of faith are simply wrong about their faith because Dawkins has come to the conclusion that there is no God. And because Dawkins has arrived at this conclusion, he apparently must go out and preach the Gospel of anti-theism. In my mind, this makes Dawkins every much as intolerant as any theist who denounces all other beliefs as sacrilege.

In conclusion, we must always remember the words of Jesus from Mathew 7:5 when he said:

First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.

Go in peace brothers and sisters.