La Fe del Ateo

My friend Jose (on Bede's discussion group) has translated some interesting passages from his fellow atheist, the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno. Who sometimes is even more Catholic than the Pope.

It is from Bueno's latest book (La Fe del Ateo (The Faith of the Atheist), Temas de Hoy, Madrid, 2007):

"Sometimes 'rationalist' fundamentalism, in the shape of atheism, is presented as the prior, necessary, and even sufficient condition for the advancement of the nations, while religion (in general) is deemed responsible for backwardness and barbarism in human societies. This is purely idealistic naivety, a throwback to the Enlightenment mentality of the 18th century, which not only traditional Christian philosophers have responded to, but also Comte's positivists, Marxists (especially Lenin), and other critical movements such as the Frankfurt School led by Horkheimer and Adorno, wuth their renovated criticism of the Enlightenment.

Tertiary religions in general, and Christianity in particular, cannot be regarded as an irrational antithesis to the development of science and culture, as so many of those who espouse scientific fundamentalism (i.e. atheist 'radical rationalism') would have us believe. On the contrary, tertiary theology, and especially Christian theology has, thoughout its history, built a doctrinal edifice which can be seen as one of the most refined examples (when it comes to cultural development) of propositional science in the Aristotelian sense.

Anyone who is familiar with the Thomistic doctrine of transubstantiation cannot help but admire the refinement and subtlety of the theological theories, which have in turn often paved the way for ulterior philosophical or scientific concepts or ideas, even materialist ones.

We have no alternative but to heap scorn on those who speak, in general, of the 'crudity' of theological reasoning and its backwardness, and who, in their naive adolescent idealism, believe that once religion is removed and atheism established, progress, welfare, peace and happiness will naturally follow."

Jose doesn't quite avoid to mention a certain set of new atheists (or El Nuevo Ateo, I presume) in this connection.

However, as Bueno does not, we will leave it to the reader's imagination.