There are many people who are unable to seriously deal with theological arguments - either in the sense of creating and defending their own or in the sense of addressing the arguments offered by skeptics, critics, and atheists. So what do they do? They make up a way to dismiss atheists out of hand and pretend that atheism can just be ignored.

Ramaja Indie (his "healing name") writes:

My wife was reading from Rudolf Steiner tonight -- a highly recommend author in case you don't know him -- and she came across a very interesting passage. Now, in many cases, advanced spiritual writers will simply make statements without passing any kind of judgment about a person, but those who still think that pointing to a spiritual fact is the same as making a spiritual judgment suddenly jump on the writer.

[H]ere's the passage, which I think rings true for those of us who look to the Divine in life:

"Atheists are simply human beings in whom something organic is out of order. It can be a matter of a very subtle structural disturbance, but nevertheless, atheism is an actual illness. ... If our organism is completely healthy, then its various parts and organs must function together in a way that makes us sense our divine origin."

This is very similar to how some Christians say "the fool says in his heart, there is no God" and imagine that they can avoid taking responsibility for the insult by insisting that they are merely quoting the Bible.; Here, "Indie" tries to say that this is a "spiritual fact" and, therefore, isn't a "judgment." It's supposed to be a neutral observation and no one should take offense at it.

But where is the evidence that it is a "fact" at all? Where is the evidence that people who don't bother believing in any gods has an "organic" disorder? An organic problem is physical, empirical, and testable. It should, therefore, be possible to provide evidence in defense of claim — but "Indie" doesn't and he doesn't suggest that Steiner does, either.

That would make the statement a (thus far) baseless claim. It's not a "fact," but definitely a judgment: atheists don't believe the same things that Rudolf Steiner and Ramaja Indie do, therefore there must be something wrong with this. This relieves Steiner and Indie of the burden of having to construct empirical or logical arguments in defense of their beliefs or of having to address the arguments offered by atheists.

This claim allows Steiner and Indie to pretend that they are superior merely by virtue of holding a particular type of belief without ever having to do any work to support their beliefs. It's a rhetorical trick that anyone could use — I could say that there is "something organic" that is out of order for people who believe in Reiki and that those who think they "practice" is are actually suffering from an illness.

Would Ramaja Indie simply accept this or take it as a baseless insult? I think that the latter is more likely — and he'd be right. Unfortunately, he is unable to apply the same standards to others; he is unable or unwilling to give others the same consideration that he would demand for himself. If that's what it means to be "advanced spiritually," I never want to be spiritual at all.

 

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