"Atheists reject Christianity not because it is unreasonable, but because they don’t want it, or theism more generally, to be true"
Here is one of four answers regularly offered by Christians (and others) for the failure of atheists to recognize the reasonableness of Christian belief (the other three, as well as a continuation of this one, will be blogged later). Edward Feser gets special mention: (i) Atheists reject Christianity not because it is unreasonable, but because they don’t want it, or theism more generally, to be true. Those attempting to explain atheist non-belief as a product of wishful thinking sometimes quote atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel, who in his book The Last Word , says: It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. [i] But is this the view of most atheists? Surely the Christian message is one of hope. It provides numerous attractive reassurances, especially about death and justice. In particular, it promises that w