Chris’s atheism

This was mentioned on another thread, but I didn't want to hijack the thread for another lengthy exigesis there, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

 

So it's said that in the novel, at any rate, Chris maintains her atheism despite what she has seen.

 

I think this is a good opportunity, then, to clarify what I think is a misconception about atheism, skepticism, and the scientific viewpoint.

 

These things, and I'm going to lump them together as synonymous just for the sake of a less verbose argument, are not fixed positions— they're an attitude.  A state of mind.  A way of thinking.

 

Let's say we didn't live in our real world where the laws of physics are immutable and constant throughout the universe, but rather in the fictional world of The Exorcist.

 

If we were good skeptics with a scientific mindset about things, and if we experienced what Chris experienced, and if we absolutely exhausted all possible explanations of the natural world, and if we had no choice but to come to the inevitable conclusion that something supernatural occurred, then the scientific mindset would demand the concession to the possibility that the supernatural exists.  On the basis of evidence, science adjusts.  As it is said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  If you experienced what Chris experienced, then you would be within your rights to consider that extraordinary evidence to the extraordinary claim that the supernatural exists.

 

The only problem is that here in the real world, claims of the supernatural are always debunked by natural explanations.  Always.  There is no evidence that UFOs have ever visited us, there is no evidence that homeopathy works any better than a placebo, there is no evidence that an e-meter will help you clear your reactive mind so you can attain personal growth, there is no evidence that anybody has ever been possessed by a demon, there is no evidence that ghosts really exist, and, I'm also very sorry to report, but virgins do not give birth, people do not walk on water, which, in turn, never turns into wine.

 

Isn't the real miracle (in the metaphorical sense) that we live in an orderly universe with predictable physical laws?  Isn't a wonderful thing to have confidence that the power of gravity will demand that the sun will rise and set today, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future?  Isn't the real miracle that people actually don't walk on water, that virgins really don't give birth, and that demons really don't possess people?  Isn't the real miracle that we live in a universe whose enigmas are actually knowable, discoverable, posing a great challenge to humanity and offering us great meaning as we meet those challenges?

 

If there is extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claim that the supernatural exists, then the scientific mindset would concede its existence.  The problem is that nobody has ever produced this extraordinary evidence.  As someone once said, “It annoys me whenever anybody says that science doesn't know everything.  Well, of course it doesn't.  If it did, it would stop.”