A Kinder, Gentler Atheism

Is saying , “I don't know” so I’m an atheist, humble? I read an article this morning by Penn Jillette linking his atheism to his libertarianism. Apparently, Mr. Jillette was on CNN being interviewed and peppered with questions about why he doesn’t believe in God and why he doesn’t want the government using tax dollars to help poor people.  His approach was to parlay uncertainty into a virtue.

“I don’t know” is not an apology. There’s no shame. It’s a simple statement of fact...I like to think I fit in somewhere between my friends Harold and Richard. I don’t know. I try to remember to say “I don’t know” just the way they both did, as a simple statement of fact. It doesn’t always work, but I try.

What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe. I don’t know exactly how we got here, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we’ll get more, but I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I’m not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I’ll wait for real evidence and then I'll believe.

Wouldn’t “I don’t know” fit more with agnosticism? To be an a-theist you have to know absolutely that there is no god. It’s in the alpha privative. He says if he does not know, he does not believe.  Would that philosophy work in other areas?  I don’t know how a combustion engine turns gas into a moving vehicle, therefore I do not believe it has a manufacturer.  What’s interesting to me is this line:

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

How does he know that voting for our government to give money to poor people is immoral? By what standard? Just ’cause he says so? This I know, for Penn Jillette tells me so?

I know that his statement is correct because the Bible tells me so. (2 Thess. 3:10, for example) But how does he?

He’s acting on faith.  He believes that the nanny state is wrong, so he acts on it and votes accordingly.  Just as, by faith, he believes that there is no God, so he lives like there is none.  We are finite creatures, as he acknowledges in the article.  Science does not provide 100 percent certainty on anything.  Life is full of “I don’t know.”  By nature we act on presuppositions to deal with that uncertainty, and Jillette reveals his here.

“I don’t know” so I’m an atheist sounds humble, but it really puts man in the center as God. Besides, Penn Jillette knows. He just refuses with a grin to bend his knee and acknowledge it. (Psalm 2:1ff, Psalm 19:1ff)