Right-brained atheism

J. E. Holman, over at the Debunkers, has penned a tearjerker about the death of his dog. His excuse for this is, he says, to show s that unbelievers have feelings to. They aren’t clones of Mr. Spock.

It’s often amusing to compare and contrast a man’s self-image with his public image. Holman labors under the self-indulgent conceit that just because he regards atheism as a rational outlook on life, Christians will second his self-image by regarding the average atheist as a hard-hearted rationalist.

This is, of course, a classic case of projection. We don’t view the average atheist as a clone of Mr. Spock. To the contrary, it’s quite obvious that many unbelievers reject the Christian faith for emotional reasons. Their own testimonials document that subjective incentive.

It would be more accurate to say that atheism is a left-brained philosophy for right-brained unbelievers. That’s the point of tension.

And this is what is unwittingly illustrated in Holman’s tearjerker.

Holman had a pet dog. He formed an emotional bond with his dog. As his dog got old, she was in pain. Holman decided to put her out of her misery. But it was messy, gut-wrenching experience for dog and owner alike.

Now, let’s put on our atheistic spectacles at view this event through the “clear” and “corrective” lens of atheism.

A dog is just a meat machine. And a dog owner is just a meat machine.

We can form an emotional attachment to our pets. This is a carryover from evolution. It confers a survival advantage to bond with our own species—especially our mate or our offspring.

And this same genetic conditioning has a spillover effect when it comes to household pets. It’s is a side-effect of our evolutionary programming.

But this is nothing more than biochemistry. A chemical reaction between the brain chemistry of a dog and the brain chemistry of its owner.

It’s not any different than other forms of chemical dependency, such as an addiction to chocolate ice cream. And the withdrawal symptoms are the same.

Moreover, even if his pet dog felt a sense of betrayal at the last moment, yet once it’s dead, it no longer feels betrayed by its master. Once it’s dead, it no longer feels a thing. It doesn’t remember how its master put a bullet through its brain.

Furthermore, the whole business about feelings is just a quaint and antiquated relic of folk psychology.

Remember, I am a meat machine. And my dog is a meat machine. My brain is the byproduct of a purely physical process of natural selection and genetic drift.

There is no soul. There is no “person” behind the eyes, like an observer staring out the window.

Consciousness is an illusion. Society is just one big necropolis.

The mausoleum may be “occupied,” but no one is home. There isn’t any one “there,” because there isn’t any there there to begin with.

The dog is a zombie, and the owner is a zombie. There appears to be an emotional bond, but that’s a trick of the “mind” generated by our smart genes. A survival strategy.

So Holman is at war with his own worldview. His heart tells him one thing, but in becoming an atheist he’s undergone a brain transplant.

Now let’s remove our atheistic spectacles and put on our Christian spectacles. Why do we become attached to our pets?

To begin with, Holman’s reaction is a natural reaction taken to an unnatural extreme. It’s really rather decadent to get quite that carried away over the death of a pet dog.

From the way he writes you’d think he lost a child to cancer. Let’s retain a sense of proportion.

That said, love is a theological virtue. For this reason, God has instantiated love throughout the world, in many different forms and occasions.

In their varied and finite ways, they exemplify the attribute of divine love.

They exist to remind us of a greater love, as transient tokens of a higher good.

They serve as a means to an end, but they are also good in their own right.

Life is like a shipboard romance. You fall in love, yet you must leave the beloved behind when you disembark.

But this also raises the question of whether, in the world to come, there will be a restoration of all we lost.

The answer to that question has not been fully disclosed. There will be a general restoration, but not a universal restoration. There will be a partial reunion. And there will be compensations.

For a Christian, every good will be better in the world to come. Here we see the shadow, there we see the sun. The best is yet to be.

You can’t take it with you. But nothing is lost to God.

Yet what-all that amounts to remains to be seen. Heaven is full of surprises. Pleasant surprises.