Antitheism

Abstract: I propose that reasons advanced in support of theism serve just as well, or can be modified to serve just as well, as reasons for believing that there exists a wholly evil supreme being (‘antitheism’). Accordingly, I suggest that attempts to justify theism are futile, since all would-be success is neutralized by the corresponding support that is thereby provided for antitheism.

Abstract: These two articles examine whether Sartre’s final interviews, recorded inL’Espoir maintenant [Hope Now] indicate a final turn to God and religious belief throughan overview of his engagement with the idea of God throughout his career. In Part 1,published in Sartre Studies International 19, no 1, we examined Sartre’s early atheism,but noted the pervasive nature of secularised Christian metaphors and concepts in hisreligion of letters and also the centrality of man’s desire to be God in L’Etre et le neant[Being and Nothingness]. His theoretical writings sought to refute the idea of God, but indoing so, God was paradoxically both absent and present.In Part 2 we consider his antitheism and its implications for his involvement with the ideaof God before examining in detail his final encounter with theism as outlined in L’Espoirmaintenant, arguing that it is part of Sartre’s long-term engagement with the divine, butrefuting the idea that he became a theist at the end of his life.

Abstract: According to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, while considering all the differences involving the origin and forms of atheism, agnosticism and antitheism, their common denominator is lack of humbleness. Pride prevents people from encountering God who, in fact, might always be recognized. It is not the faith itself, but lack of faith that is contrary to nature. Therefore, the dialogue with atheism, although carried out of respect for men, demands the full truth to be revealed about the definitive and objective evil of godlessness, which inevitably leads to the culture of death. Contemporary negation of God makes use of philosophical, scientific, psychological and social reasoning, intensely deterministic and marked by moralism, in which only immanent natural and historical processes are taken into consideration. Consequently, men have nothing else to do than to disastrously put the world in order only at their own discretion, bound by sin, to achieve worldly benefits. The result is an irrepressible attack on the Church which calls to conversion, secularism with modern roots and spiritual emptiness (boredom) that fills people with a sense of meaninglessness and hopelessness.