Atheism 11 - Why Atheism?

I had initially intended to stop creating new posts after "Closing Arguments" and just wait to see what questions might be posed by readers that we could explore together.  However, since several weeks have gone by and no new questions have been posed, perhaps it's time to start posting on some of the questions I had anticipated might come in.  I shall begin by examining the question "why atheism?"

Why choose atheism over religion?  Does atheism represent an improvement in human philosophy over theology?  Is atheism the inevitable belief of the mentally superior, those with greater acumen in abstract reasoning than the "ignorant masses?"

For years I believed that there were only three reasons why someone might choose to be an atheist: (1) something traumatic had occurred in their younger days for which they blamed God and the only way they could think of to get even was to no longer believe, (2) a belief in God implies a belief in sin and a belief in sin implies a belief in consequences and accountability, which makes them very distressed, and (3) they are sufficiently narcissistic so as to be uncomfortable with the idea of anyone being bigger than themselves.  And, in case you're curious, I actually placed myself in all three categories.

I refer to such belief in the past tense because, in more recent years, I've added a forth reason: originally an agnostic, one may sometimes encounter such a wall of vilification from a very vocal minority of Christians (who seem to be the only ones who ever show up in the media) that one is completely turned off to the whole idea of religion.  And, of course, in modern film and television, characters specifically identified as "Christian" always seem to reside somewhere on a spectrum that ranges from delusional to sociopathic.

In the first three cases, the individual can be held responsible for his own confusion.  In the last case, it is the atheist who is completely blameless, and the Church who must be held accountable.  And, for what it's worth, as a believer addressing an atheist, I must say that I don't blame you one little bit.  That turns me off as well.  Not only is it completely counterproductive, it's also completely contrary to the teachings of the very Christ these folk purport to represent!

Let us begin our examination from a historical perspective.  But first, let me remind the reader of one of the requests I made in my first post, namely that we keep an open mind.  A really open mind.  Growth requires openness and openness, in turn, requires allowing ideas to penetrate deeply into some pretty dark places within our minds.  Places of which we're both so repulsed and so enamored that we become defensive if a question happens to brush against them.  We're about to go there, and it's going to be uncomfortable in many different ways.  You have been warned!

There's nothing new about atheism; by definition, it's been around longer than religion.  Three thousand years ago the psalmist referred to a person who says in his heart "there is no God" (Psalms 14:1).  As long as there has been a belief in God, there has been disbelief as well.  In that regard, nothing much has changed.  What has changed - or so it seems to me - is the malevolence exhibited by the "New Atheists."  Perhaps this is in response to the previously mentioned group of vocal Christians, perhaps it is the larger, more immediate media platforms available.  I'm not sure.

2006-07 was a banner year for atheism in America.  That year saw the publication of no less than 3 scathing theses on religion (Christianity in particular): Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.  These works collectively argue that, far from being the noble institution it claims to be, religion has been the single greatest destructive force throughout human history.  They argue that the First Amendment should not be interpreted to mean a freedom of religion so much as freedom from religion.  They are acrid in their critique of the Church in general and modern American Christianity in particular.  So, what are their arguments?  What breakthrough evidence is contained in this New Atheism?  What makes the New Atheism new?

First, let me reiterate a point I made several paragraphs back:  there is a grotesquely vocal minority of Christians nowadays in the west - and in America particularly - that have invaded all the media to not only dump gasoline on this fire, but fan the flames afterward!  Like Charlemagne before them, they seem to think that the way to reach converts is through conquest and legislation.  If, as an atheist, this group represents your only knowledge of the Gospels, then I not only sympathize with your position, but agree that I personally wish they'd shut up.  However, as we will examine in future posts, this is not really a very good position for any of us to take, for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it makes us all into hypocrites.  As my granddaddy once said, "if yer havin' trouble toleratin' the intolerant, well, there ya go."

That aside concluded, let us get back to the question "Is New Atheism new?"

Malcolm Muggeridge once noted that all news is nothing more than new people experiencing old things.  Just because something is new to one's own experience doesn't make it new to all experience.  And so it is with most of what I read from the New Atheists.  Much of their argument is simply a re-hashing of the same arguments I used during my days as an atheist, and likely the same arguments used by that guy to whom the psalmist referred.

There are a few distinctions, however.  When I was an atheist, most of my peers were well aware of their place as a definite minority.  We were a small but dedicated group and we knew how difficult it would be to get a place at the table.  Nowadays, this is no longer the case.  Not only are there a lot more atheists in America now than there were then (some estimates range as high as 10% of all Americans self-identify as either atheist or agnostic), they have a much larger platform than we had, namely the Internet.

Perhaps from a perspective of "safety in numbers," New Atheists seem a good deal more brazen and downright hostile than their predecessors of a generation ago.  Back in the 1970's - when I was an atheist - we really just wanted to live our heathen lives in peace, free from social condemnation, much like any minority group within any society.  In a number of atheist circles today, conversely, there appears to be a desire to go well beyond this idea and try to elect officials who will fight to eradicate religion from society altogether (see Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris).  This idea seems to stem from a deeply-grounded belief that religion is the source of all evil rather than the institution upon which a society relies to define the very word.

And herein lies my issue with the direction atheism as a social and political movement has taken.  Classic atheists, if you will, such as Nietzsche, Freud and Marx seemed to mourn the death of God.  They were well aware that without God we inhabit a cold, dark, pointless universe.  They knew and wrote that a lack of religious belief undermines Western society (or any society for that matter).  New Atheists, by contrast, celebrate the death of God.  They seem to think that life will be improved once society has "outgrown" its need for God.  They seem to believe that each person has not only the right but the obligation to define concepts such as ethics and morality for him/herself, and that no outside influence is needed nor tolerable, apparently oblivious to the fact that the English language provides a word with this very definition - anarchy!

Much of this stems from an apparent belief that somehow over the course of the last several centuries - and the last 50 years in particular - religion (which is defined as "faith alone") has been supplanted by science (defined as "facts alone").  I call foul.

First, as a theist who has shared his tuna sandwich with a research scientist (and fellow theist) for almost 40 years, I can assure you that the whole science v. religion argument does not exist outside of the minds of a small number of theologians who do not understand science, an even smaller number of scientists who do not understand religion and a much larger group of laypersons who do not understand either.  Pitting science against religion is rather like juxtaposing grammar against mathematics.  They are separate subjects, aimed at different disciplines and designed to achieve different, albeit complementary, ends.  Science is in the business of searching for answers to the question "how?"  Religion is in the business of answering the question "why?"  From time to time, the two may have cross references, but there is no logical reason at all for them to ever have cross purposes.

Second, science itself involves a great deal of faith.  Albert Einstein once remarked that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.  By this, he meant that science relies on certain assumptions about the natural universe, namely that it is orderly and knowable and that our minds are capable of grasping that order and knowledge.

As any good scientific observation must, this raises another question: how far can we trust the machinations of a mind that randomly evolved from previous, less trustworthy mental processes?  Darwin himself wrestled with this dilemma. "The horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.  Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (from a letter to W. Graham)

To assume the superior intellect of the human mind based on nothing more than a human's ability to ask the question is to be as anthropocentric as the far right Christians at whom the atheist scoffs for their anthropocentricity.  It is to render atheists the very hypocrites they accuse others of being.

To say "I believe in science" - and to mean so unequivocally - is verging on the oxymoronic.  Science is ever-evolving. Scientists understand this, and they accept that to "know" something today is to correct oneself tomorrow.  Every answer simply brings forth another question.  This is not to say that the scientific knowledge of yesterday was necessarily wrong, it is simply to say we've learned more today, as we will continue to learn more tomorrow.  That is why very few hypotheses become theories and even fewer theories become laws.  Almost nothing in science is considered "certain."  To assume a philosophy of materialism or humanism as a priori scientific is, well, quite unscientific, not to put too fine a point on it.

Now, there will be certain Christians who will respond to this with "See?  I told you!  Science is often wrong!"  That assertion simply misses my point entirely.  The one so asserting is advised to read back over the preceding paragraphs a bit more carefully.  I am not saying that science is wrong, I'm simply saying that science, like religion, requires a certain level of faith to be accepted.

Finally, my point is this: often, both believers and atheists think of themselves as having the moral high ground over the other.  The problem is, this is an assumption on both parties' part, and is therefore ultimately a matter of faith.  In that regard, the first point goes to the believers, having readily admitted that their belief involves faith.  On the other hand, as we will examine next, that point is deducted when the assumption is compounded by the belief that my faith must, of necessity, be your faith as well.  Stay tuned.  It ought to be fun!

Pax