David and the Doobie Brothers
by Stephen Foster
I don’t know what anyone really believes; because I cannot read minds. Let me repeat that. I don’t know what anyone really believes; because I cannot read minds.
What I would like to do is pose a question to which I have a personal answer: who believes that the fool has really said in his heart, or mind, that there is no God?
I truly do not know who really is convinced that God does not exist. I am aware that many people who claim not to believe in God do so literally for the sake of argument. That is to say that they are not sure, but are countering the dogmatic beliefs of people like me; for example.
They are in effect playing the role of ‘devil’s advocate’ to make the point that, since there is no quantifiable, falsifiable, empirical evidence of God’s existence, one should not act or sound or be so sure of something that one can’t prove. I get that, and I respect that.
To be perfectly honest, I do not believe that anyone who has participated on this site (that I have read anyway) really believes that God does not exist. Oh, I can think of a few individuals who like to get a rise out of whomever they can; and will say things that would lead most to conclude that they don’t believe there is a God. There’s no doubt about that.
But I don’t think a rational atheist would waste their time with the delusional. A true atheist would seem to understand that “what a fool believes, he sees;” and that it is fruitless to attempt to disprove the existence of the Unprovable.
On the other hand the psalmist David dogmatically declares that “the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” That is one unambiguous statement, if ever there was one; it seems to me.
My question is do we believe that it is in fact a true statement? Is it true that what a fool does not believe, he does not see. Personally, I believe that it is true.