{"id":44081,"date":"2011-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/two-philosophers-admit-that-they-did-not-want-to-believe\/"},"modified":"2011-06-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T00:00:00","slug":"two-philosophers-admit-that-they-did-not-want-to-believe","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/two-philosophers-admit-that-they-did-not-want-to-believe\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Philosophers Admit That They Did Not Want to Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his article titled &quot;Unreasonable Doubt,&quot; Jim Spiegel quotes two contemporary philosophers who have resisted belief in God for personal and not just intellectual reasons. Thomas Nagel, an atheist who authored a popular introduction to philosophy titled <em class=\"citation\">What Does It All Mean?<\/em> wrote: &quot;I want atheism to be true &hellip; It isn&#39;t just that I don&#39;t believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I&#39;m right about my belief. It&#39;s that I hope there is no God! I don&#39;t want there to be a God; I don&#39;t want the universe to be like that.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>The 20th-century ethics philosopher Mortimer Adler (who was baptized quietly at age 81) confessed to rejecting religious commitment for most of his life because it &quot;would require a radical change in my way of life, a basic alteration in the direction of my day-to-day choices as well as in the ultimate objectives to be sought or hoped for &hellip;. The simple truth of the matter is that I did not wish to live up to being a genuinely religious person.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3402,3450,4186,4394,4525,4772,4900,4929,4992,5037,5038,5092,5115,5202,5211],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-44081","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-agnosticism","tax_ctp_tags-atheism","tax_ctp_tags-humanism","tax_ctp_tags-lostness","tax_ctp_tags-naturalism","tax_ctp_tags-rebellion","tax_ctp_tags-secularism","tax_ctp_tags-self-reliance","tax_ctp_tags-skepticism","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-blindness","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-bondage","tax_ctp_tags-stubbornness","tax_ctp_tags-surrender","tax_ctp_tags-unbelief","tax_ctp_tags-ungodliness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Philosophers Admit That They Did Not Want to Believe - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/two-philosophers-admit-that-they-did-not-want-to-believe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Philosophers Admit That They Did Not Want to Believe - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his article titled &quot;Unreasonable Doubt,&quot; Jim Spiegel quotes two contemporary philosophers who have resisted belief in God for personal and not just intellectual reasons. 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