Why atheism is a faith.

Well, it has been rather a long time since I last posted on my blog. And my hope is to have a bit more time to do this in the next few months! Over the last year I've managed to do several talks, debate with the Head of Promotions of the British Humanists and fine tune a presentation on why it makes sense to believe in the God of the Bible.

It has also been interesting to meet and chat with local atheists and find out what underpins their beliefs. Of course many atheists would not claim to have any beliefs, simply to accept the conclusions of science. In our discussions it has become apparent that certain lines of evidence are dismissed on the basis of Ockham's razor (accept only the simplest explanation) or that only scientific knowledge is reliable.

But one has to have faith to do science. By faith I mean a trust in a particular assumption that is not demonstrable by the discipline itself.

There is faith that scientists themselves observe things rigorously by the scientific mehtod, so there is the belief that humans can be biased and prejudiced and that scientific method can free people from this.
There is the faith that we can understand what scientists say - so there is belief in truth, real reality not illusory reality.
There is faith that experiments reveal the true picture of reality.
There is faith that the history of science and peer review help reveal truth.
There is faith that there are no other explanations at higher levels than those of science, a claim to know that some knowledge is not knowledge - namely history.

So this is self contradictory.

When the views of atheists are boiled down to their essence they believe that science is the only true source of knowledge - they are committed to scientism. There is the pretence that they are accepting only those things that can be scientifically verified, but in reality they are also accepting history (for scientific knowledge is historical) the humanities (for scientific knowledge is acquired by people) and faith (for it is easily demonstrable that science arose out of Christian culture both in terms of the world view of scientists and the interest generated by this world view).

The claim is that atheism is practical, it accepts only that which is verifiable by ones own senses. But in reality this is an illusion. Science itself has beliefs and history which cannot be elucidated by science. Science points beyond itself.