Atheism & Belief

I was listening to CBC's Ideas in the car last night (yes, that's a bit geeky) and they were doing a show on Richard Kearney. I had never heard of Kearney before last night, but the show was talking about his development as a philosopher. At one point in his life he was taught by Benedictines who sort of threw out the usual means of teaching religion in a Catholic school. Apparently they started the students by telling them every reason why God could not exist. All the arguments from Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, et cetera. Only then did the bother to teach the reasons in favour of God's existence. The students were prepared for faith by atheism.

In one of those strange confluences of ideas, this reminded of a Youtube clip that I had seen on Derrida in which he argued that authentic religious faith involves a constant sort of struggle with atheism. His words, "If one doesn't go as far as possible in the direction of atheism, one doesn't believe in God." He presents believers as having to constantly battle with their own radical atheism. The clip is here (I won't bother embedding it, it's all audio).

Likewise, Fulford has been posting on his reading of The Brothers Karamazov and it reminded me of quote by Dostoevsky. In the introductions to one of his books, someone included a quote from Dostoevsky's personal correspondence or notes where Dostoevsky says, "I no longer say I have the faith of a child, my faith has passed through the crucible of doubt."

Again, in The Life of Pi the main character talks about atheists and believers a sort of metaphysical brothers pitted against agnostics who are unwilling to take any kind of stand on these sorts of questions. Quote:

"...atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak, speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

How close is atheism to belief? Does a true believer struggle with their own atheism? Does an ardent atheist struggle with a God that never really goes away? I think that the answers to both questions may require more humility than we sometimes get in these kinds of debates.
Tags: Richard Kearney, Jacques Derrida, God, Fyodor Dostoevsky, atheism.