Atheism: a couple of neglected points

In the wake of the books by Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, it might be thought that there is little more to be said about atheism.

Here, though, is a distinction that has rarely been noted: the difference between "cradle atheists," those raised with these convictions; versus those, probably a majority, who have adopted atheism as adults, having been previously brought up in religious households. In my experience, individuals in the latter group have a tendency to go hard core--to be "angry" and "pissed off," as a recent book has it. They also sometimes carry over aspects of their religious training, showing a missionary zeal to convert others. Some even attend quasireligious retreats, where catechisms are recited and atheist baptisms are practiced.

The cradle atheists are a mixed lot. Some may join the angries, while others just take the unbelief in stride and devote their energies to other things. Then there is a group of people who become apostates, some, like one of the sons of Madelyn Murray O'Hare, becoming fervent Christians. I confess that I was a cradle atheist, and was briefly tempted in adolescence to join the ranks of the believers. Instead I am an agnostic, a view often confused with atheism, though it is different.

Another consideration is this. Atheism, we are told, means that one is no longer burdened with useless illusions. By definition, one can then become a more effective person. Since cradle atheists have had a longer experience, they should be, on average, even more effective than those who have adopted atheism in adulthood. I don't know if there is any research on this question (even assuming, as is dubious, the point that atheists as a whole are more effective than theists).

Some atheists are simply indifferent to the God question. They consider it irrelevant and have moved on. But not all feel this way. Why are some atheists militant?

Their objection seems to be broadly cultural. In their view, theism is too influential in public life, leading to illiberal consequences. Yet the examples of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King show that religion does not always entail regressive consequences.

At all events, it seems to me that the militant atheists of this type have come to indulge in a category mistake. They confuse identifying the noxious effects of some believers in public life with the cognitive assertion of the nonexistence of God. One or both of these statements may be true, but they belong to different realms.

I have dealt at length with the negative effects of organized religion as most of us experience it at my allied site of Abrahamica.blogspot.com.

UPDATE (March 24)

I am told that today will see a rally of atheists and secular humanists in Washington DC, the largest in ten years, even though rain seems to be coming. Perhaps that event makes it appropriate for me to examine further a crucial discontinuity in the arguments of contemporary atheists. That discontinuity appears as we assess independently two different issues: 1) the evidence, or not, for the existence of God; and 2) the harmful effects of organized religion (especially the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) in the world as we know it. The mashing together of these two issues into a single purported whole is at the root of the category mistake I noted above.

The possibilities are more complex than is usually realized. Consider these four positions:

1) God exists, and he does more good than harm (the general view of Jews, Christians, and Muslims);

2) God exists, and he does more harm than good (Satanists and believers in the doctrine of the Demiurge);

3) God does not exist, yet believers in this nonexistent being do more good than harm (secular admirers of religious art and music; some ethicists);

4) God does not exist, and believers in this nonexistent being do more harm than good (most modern atheists).

Pondering this array, one can see that in addition to the usual contrast of positions one and four, there are two others.

One problem that I have with many atheists and secularists is that they seem to have very little aesthetic sensitivity. They do not have (or so it seems) any appreciation of the many beautiful settings of the Christian mass from Palestrina and Bach to Haydn and Mozart. In the visual arts, Chartres Cathedral and Michelangelo seem to hold no interest for them. They find no poetry or uplift in the Bible at all. Instead, these nonbelievers focus almost exclusively on a vast roster of injustice collecting, from the medieval inquisition and the execution of Michael Servetus to the Holocaust and the intolerance of modern evangelicals.

It takes a very steady gaze (one that I have not always achieved myself) to bring these positive and negative panoramas into a common synoptic view. But unless this synthesis is attempted, one's assessment must remain partial.

A BIT MORE

Greta Christina is a blogger popular in atheist circles. She has just published an ebook “Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless” (March 18, 2012). Going straight to the point, the first chapter is entitled “A Litany of Rage,” and it offers a long list of atrocities, mainly those committed by Christians, though some Jewish and Muslim ones appear there as well.

After pondering the matter somewhat, I asked myself “what do these atrocities have to do with God?” A strange question you may say, because the one seems to follow the other as night follows day. Just a minute, though. In contrast with the combination “false belief in God + atrocities,” one might posit, as some Satanists and believers in the Demiurge seem to do, that indeed God exists, but he delights in tormenting humanity. Conversely, one might say that of course God does not exist, but the illusion generates as much good as harm, as seen in major contributions to social change (think Martin Luther King) and the vast profusion of religiously inspired works of painting, architecture, and music. (Apart from Richard Dawkins, most of the current crop of atheists seem deficient in the realm of aesthetic response.)

My sense is that in works like that of Greta Christina, we are confronted with a category mistake, in which by a kind of sleight of hand attention shifts from the cognitive issue of whether God exists to the cultural and historical questions pertinent to the behavior of believers.

In terms of the history of ideas, these are indeed two separate discourses. The first began with Anselm’s Ontological Proof of the existence of God, first enounced about 1078. As far as I can tell, this preoccupation with such proofs is a specialty of Western Christendom during the last millennium. It has no real counterpart in Eastern Christianity, Judaism, or Islam--not to mention Buddhism and Hinduism.

The second discourse starts much later, with such 18th-century Enlightenment figures as Voltaire and Edward Gibbon, who hoped to prepare the way for a better society by exposing the mass of error and superstition that they believed Christianity had engendered. Voltaire and Gibbon were not atheists, but deists.

In my view, writers like Greta Christina do a disservice by simply fusing these two discourses. To be sure, Christina has some well taken complaints that are very contemporary: that atheists find it hard to get their organizations recognized in the military and in schools, that in some cases parents can find the custody of their children threatened because of their beliefs, that substantial majorities of voter say that they would never vote for an atheist.

This complaints, which are legitimate, indicate that atheists need to organize to achieve equality. Here they should take a lesson from the gay and lesbian movement, where the appeal is to all persons of good will to recognize the need for equality. Despite claims to the contrary gay men and lesbians never sought to “convert” straights to homosexuality. All too often, however, atheists come across as proselytizers, viewing the conversion of the majority of theists as essential to the achievement of their rights. This perception does not help their cause.

I would be perfectly OK if the level of religious observance in the US would plummet to the level that it has sunk to in Western Europe (even though this is unlikely). Couldn't militant atheists, though, profit from attending to the Rodney King principle: "Can't we all just get along?" Instead, they seem to insist on trying to dislodge theists from their faith. In this way, they are imitating the more hardcore religionists themselves, who insist that we all should be believers.

Some should, if they wish, be believers; others, if they wish, should be nonbelievers. But it is time for a moratorium on efforts on either side to pulverize the other.

Grayling's folly

As a teenager I conceived the idea that I was an atheist. This was not much of an accomplishment, as my parents were atheists too. Their atheism was grounded in a far-left political movement, which I came to reject. And so, feeling the need for some independent rationale for my antireligious views, I sent away for a packet of atheist literature (long since lost, I fear). Among the trouvailles that came in the mail was a stirring hymn: “Onward, Atheist Soldiers.” This ditty follows closely the text written by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865, and the music composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1871.

I laughed out loud.

Like an old-fashioned photographic negative, all too often atheism seemed just a blanket reversal of theism. It was parasitic, without it seemed to me any ability to generate distinctive thought patterns of its own. Then what about, some will say, thinkers of the calibre of Friedrich Nietzsche? Well, Nietzsche was the son of a pastor, and much of what he says about God has this secondary, parasitic character I noted. Besides, Nietzsche clung to remnants of classical paganism, which was scarcely characterized by any uniform rejection of the gods. Atheism should forbid the belief in gods (plural) as well as in God. And Nietzsche strongly identified with Dionysus.

The composer Frederick Delius honored Nietzsche with his “Mass of Life,” a work of some merit. Yet today’s atheist summer camps seem much less elevated in tone. Some of them feature rites of debaptism, as recorded by one visitor to such an event in Westerville, Ohio in 2008. The ceremony began with some words from the Acting President of American Atheists, Frank Zindler: “Do you agree that the magical potency of today’s ceremony is exactly equal to the magical efficacy of ceremonial baptism with dihydrogen monoxide, and do you agree that the power of all magical ceremonies is nonexistent?” Everyone responded with a booming “Amen!” No baptismal pool was need. All that was required was a blow dryer — in this case, the Blow Dryer of Reason. Then the newly dechristened individuals adjourned to a table to partake of atheist communion wafers, some made of peanut butter. Not clear was what one might do to desecrate this host.

Apparently, a good time was had by all. By comparison I fear that I am not a fun person. Elsewhere I have subjected the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to a searching and detailed analysis (abrahamicalia.blogspot.com). Suffice it to say that I have found them wanting. But this experience has not made me an atheist once more. If anything, atheism is sustained, all too often, by a self-righteous sense of certainty that parallels the dogmatism of the Abrahamic religions themselves. For this reason perhaps it should be regarded as the Fourth Abrahamic Faith.

Far better to adopt agnosticism, as indeed I have. Since we do not know for sure whether god(s) exist or not, why not leave it at that? One can then pass on to other subjects, where there is a better chance of achieving some certainty.

I was reminded of these reflections when I chanced in a book store on a weighty tome by the British philosopher and atheist A. C. Grayling: “The Good Book: A Humanist Bible.” In some respects, atheism is a big tent, and some who so describe themselves have lamented the lack of a definitive statement of belief. Grayling seeks to address that concern. More particularly, the question is this: is atheism simply a negation of theism; or is it, rather, a broader philosophy addressing key matters of ethics, the pursuit of happiness, and world view?

Grayling has adopted the latter course. But he has sought to pursue it in a peculiar manner, producing a kind of scissors-and-paste job juxtaposing “gems” from various traditions, rewritten in a ponderous pseudo-Scriptural style. As one reviewer harshly remarks, the result is “a cheesy imitation of the Bible. . . . The passages feel hollow and trite and are every bit as tedious to read as the Bible.” The items are even numbered in the manner of the King James version. There is no footnoting to indicate the sources of Grayling's purloinings.

As regards content, Grayling assimilates to atheism political views that are personal and in no way required by rejection of belief in God. There is nothing incompatible with atheism in being an anarchist or libertarian. But Grayling will have none of this; he is an outright statist. Note these passages from “The Lawgiver,” Chapter 2:

"3. For people cannot act against the authorities without danger to the state, though their feelings and judgement may be at variance therewith.
...
6. For instance, supposing a person shows that a law is repugnant to reason, and should be repealed;
7. If he submits his opinion to the judgement of those who, alone, have the right of making and repealing laws,
8. And meanwhile acts in nowise contrary to that law, he has deserved well of the state, and has behaved as a good citizen should;
9. But if he accuses the authorities of injustice, and stirs up the people against them,
10. Or seditiously strives to abrogate the law without their consent, he is merely an agitator and rebel."


A. C. Grayling is the author of a score of books, many of them, apparently, exhibiting the same self-regarding certainty as his “humanist” writings, of which “The Good Book” is one.

Grayling’s cornerstone principle is something he calls “human flourishing.” On several occasions I had the opportunity of discussing h.f. with my lately deceased friend “Gay Species” (Stephen Heersinck) of San Francisco, who was an advocate. In vain did I point out that “human flourishing” simply repackages Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia. While he was not a conventional devotee of the Twelve Olympians, there is no doubt that Aristotle was a theist (of the unitarian variety). The very term “eudaimonia” contains within it the noun “daimon,” a supernatural being. Thus the origins of this virtue are not merely the outcome of human reflection, however sustained, but represent a gift bestowed by some external power, one greater than ourselves. It is not a product of unaided reason tout court.

I miss Stephen almost every day. What a pity he is not here to argue with me. Fortunately his website, gayspecies.blogspot.com, is still up and running. There you will find further discussion of the criterion of human flourishing.


PS. Why do I put the term “humanist” in quotation marks? Properly, this designation should be reserved for the learned Italian movement of the Renaissance, where such figures as Ficino and Pompanazzi were not atheists, but clung to a kind of religious syncretism, much influenced by the legendary Hermes Trismegistus.

Genuine atheism did not come along until ca. 1700 with the precursors of Baron d’Holbach in France.


UPDATE (July 24): Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan's Dish site, I reproduce the following astute comments from Joseph T. Lapp:


" Even most religious people will agree that the Bible is not literally true in all its detail. The general atheist position appears to be an assertion about the fundamentalist God. So what? Everyone thinks fundamentalists are off their rocker. It's my experience that most Americans these days believe in more amorphous, less tangible forms [of] God - forms that I find hard to argue with because little is claimed with certainty, or because the fuzzy beliefs are compatible with the world I perceive, even if they wouldn't survive Occam's Razor (which only selects pragmatic theories, not truth).

" In my opinion, many of these modern amorphous, if contradictory, visions of God are potentially compatible with the universe I see. I don't find them useful, but I have no basis for concluding their falsehood, and who knows, one of these visions might possibly have some element of truth in it. It's for this reason that I prefer to call myself an agnostic. I find that most atheist can't allow themselves to acknowledge that any notion that anyone calls "God" could have any chance of harboring truth."

ADDITIONAL NOTE (August 7)

Despite its awkwardness, the following term has gained some (limited) currency. Ignosticism or igtheism [ugh-theism?] posits that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological assertions. The word "ignosticism" was coined by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism.

Ostensibly, it encompassing two related views about the existence of God:

1. Ideally, a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Yet if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. (This view was anticipated many years ago by the British logical positivist A. J. Ayer.) It may be, according to igtheists, that the concept of God itself is not meaningless, yet the term "God" is considered meaningless.

2. The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first, asking "What is meant by 'God'?" before proclaiming the original question "Does God exist?" as meaningless.

The fact that these distinctions are somewhat hard to grasp accounts for the relative obscurity of the ignostic trend.

At all events, an ignostic maintains that one cannot even say whether he or she is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth.

Ignosticism is not to be confused with apatheism, a position of indifference toward the existence of God. Apatheists may regard the statement "God exists" as trivial or insignificant; yet they may also see it as meaningful, and perhaps even true.

John Gray on militant atheism

In an opinion piece in The Guardian (UK), John Gray, the political thinker, has superbly articulated the reservations that I (and some other nontheists) have about the current wave of militant atheists. The piece is a preview of a forthcoming book, which promises to be a definitive statement on the issue.

Here is one of the key paragraphs (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan):


"Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living - their own, suitably embellished - is right for everybody. To be sure, atheism need not be a missionary creed of this kind. It is entirely reasonable to have no religious beliefs, and yet be friendly to religion. It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion."