Occasionally I get to bump into an atheist—even in Texas!

Here’s how I remember the conversation, though it probably wasn’t this smooth 🙂

Me: So, where are you on your own spiritual journey

Atheist: Oh, well I’m an atheist.

Me.  Cool!  I’ve hardly ever met a real atheist.

Atheist:  Well, congratulations, I guess.

Me:  So, can I ask you a question?

Atheist:  Sure.

Me:  So how do you absolutely positively know that there is no God.

Atheist:  Well, I don’t absolutely positively know that there is no God.

Me: Oh (very disappointed and crest-fallen), then you’re just an agnostic.  Well, which kind of agnostic are you, open or closed?

Former Atheist: I don’t know what you mean.

Me:  Well, an atheist knows there is no God.  An agnostic doesn’t know whether there is a God or not.  The closed agnostic says that if there is a God we can’t know because He is so beyond us we couldn’t grasp His existence anyway.  In this sense the agnostic is closed because the system is closed.  An open agnostic says that he just doesn’t know if there is a God or not.  The open agnostic doesn’t insist that God’s existence is unknowable, but rather that it is unknown to him

Former Atheist: Well, I’ve got to catch my plane.

Me: OK, have a nice day.

Well, it didn’t happen quite this way…I for sure didn’t look so ‘clever’ and he didn’t look so anxious to leave; but don’t you get the point?  Their is an innate arrogance in most atheism which really amounts to FAITH.  The atheist BELIEVES that God doesn’t exist…perhaps based on evidence, but really taken more as a matter of faith.  We too can offer our evidence, but it really comes down to a matter of faith.

Perhaps, all of this explains why I think open-agnostics are pretty cool—hey, they are honest.  What a refreshing thing to encounter; a person who doesn’t know and admits it!  I think we should celebrate these folks and invite them to consider why God’s existence makes sense to believe…but plese remember, it is ALWAYS an INVITATION.  We aren’t going to talk people into believing in God, but we can sure invite them.

I’ve always thought of golf as a great metaphor for ‘evangelism’ as such.  Basically, when you play golf, you play the ball where it lies.  Sometimes you use an iron and sometimes a putter.   And, yet, you are always simply trying to move the ball closer to the hole.

Isn’t that a better way to go?  Helping an atheist move to an agnostic is a BIG move!  Of course, I’m not really ‘moving’ anyone…just inviting them to consider things in a fresh way.

We all can do that as opportunity arises.  True?

God bless,

Fred Lybrand