Bad Faithfor the institution. And it was also, in part, the apparent
triumph of the rational over the theological.
However, at another level, the leap was not so large or partic-
ularly complex. Before, my faith had depended upon the main-
tenance of a certain certainty. After, my newfound conviction
re-established certainty, just in a different guise. Like a politician
crossing the fl oor of the House, I may have switched parties but
I was engaged in the same debate. ‘How can you believe that?’,
the atheist berates the believer. ‘How can you not believe that?’,
the theist despairs of the atheist. In terms of their convictions,
theism and atheism are not worlds apart: epistemologically they
may well share the same assumptions – that the world can be
understood, that truth corresponds with reality, and that one
can decide for or against God. ‘Science offers the best answers to
the meaning of life,’ says Richard Dawkins. ‘Is there more to life
than this?’, asks the evangelical Alpha Course – and you know
they are not going to say no.
The atheist’s God
To be fair, there are some atheists who are not so sure. Julian
Baggini is one. In his book, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction,
he makes a rational case for not believing in God, or gods, not
because he believes it is irrefutable or because of some militant
need to do so. Rather, atheism is the opinion he fi nds himself
holding and, alongside the non-rational forces that inform his
convictions, he believes he should have reasonable grounds for
doing so. In fact, he opposes militant atheism because it under-
mines his more subtle position:
I think that my opposition to militant atheism is based on a
commitment to the very values that I think inspire atheism:
an open-minded commitment to the truth and rational
enquiry ... Hostile opposition to the beliefs of others com-
bined with a dogged conviction of the certainty of one’s own
beliefs is, I think, antithetical to such values.