On Atheism
Friday 12th February
It’s one of those mornings, my brain is doing a lot of whirring and a thought (or ten) struck me.
Militant Atheists. What should we call them? They go beyond atheism in, what I think, is an unreasonable way. I shall elaborate.
There are several degrees of religious belief, which are simplified beyond measure below:
1. Militant Religious – Following a faith to the exclusion of local laws and science. This is where your creationists lie, taking the (often contradictory) word of the bible as hard fact.
2. Religious – Following a faith, but being open and accepting of other faiths, science, reason and so on.
3. Agnostic – Take or leave.
4. Atheist – Does not believe in a god, but is tolerant of faith.
5. Militant Atheist – Does not believe in a god, and believes that no-one else should believe in a god. Rejects all forms of religious dogma.
It’s probably far more complicated than this, but for now this will do.
What got me thinking is that people often call group 5 “Darwinists”, but that’s not fair on the members of groups 2-4 who also fully accept that evolution has taken place, and that ’science and reason’ are a valuable asset to the world. Group 5 stands against anyone in groups 1-3, but that’s not fair on groups 2 and 3 who may see religious texts and cultures as a valuable asset to the world. Note also that the word “Muslim” often implies group 1, especially in the tabloid press. That is not fair on the group 2/3 Muslims.
Here’s a bold statement which is followed by explanation.
It is unreasonable for anyone with any level of intelligence to claim that god does not exist.
Have you gone mad? No. Substitute the word ‘money’ for ‘god’ and hopefully you’ll begin to understand where I’m coming from.
Even if you do not believe in a ‘Great Architect of the Universe’, you cannot deny that ‘god’ exists as a moral framework. Sure, he was invented by people, but so was money.
“But”, I hear you say, “money is real. You can touch it and feel it.”
I disagree. There are manifestations of money, coins, notes and so on. But look at any big banking and none of the money exists. There is an ethereal cloud of ‘money’ which is pushed around electronically or on paper. So… money is an invisible concept that makes the lives of people more convenient, giving them a set of rules as to how they can interact with each other, and what they’re worth as a result of their endeavours. Is that not, kind of, how god works? Even if you don’t believe that he ‘actually exists’.
Militant Atheism, just as blind communism attempts to rid the world of money and private posessions, seeks to rid the world of that which feeds spiritual needs. This is pretty dangerous. If you take Darwinism to its extreme, that we came about from cells which happened to duplicate and happened to turn into fish and then happened to walk on the ground etc., then there is no point to being here.
The hope of religion gives us all a point to being here, and even if you don’t believe in a god, I think it would be very foolish to remove that hope. The opposite, taken to extreme, would lead to complete anarchy where, for example, murder is acceptable because the person you’re murdering is only a bunch of cells that came together by chance (or the product thereof).
The militant atheists explain “how” we are here, but not “why”. Even if you don’t think there is a “why”, I believe it is necessary to have one.
I’ll go into the creationists and their view next time! Lucky you!
Yanno, this popped into my head the other day too. Really what we have in many places is /anti/theism: the active rejection of religion. I passively reject most religion and actively resist intolerance, which means that I end up coming down fairly strongly against “evangelical Darwinism”.
I heard Richard Dawkins talking on the radio for the first time last week and I was surprised how mild his manners are. Maybe it’s just the baying mob of “converts” that make him seem so anti-churchy. I don’t spent too much (any) time investigating the details.
I heard a story where he saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said “Richard Dawkins is God!” and he said “oh dear! that means I don’t exist!”
sweavo
12 Feb 10 at 11:09 am
The point about anarchy and murder doesn’t get accepted by my Dawkinsian friends, because they say there is an evolutionary reason for altruism. But they’re missing the point. I think religious thinking IS woolly and DOESN’T add up… but I also think that same woolly thinking is vital as a sort of damping effect on society as a whole. Any system that is unboundedly effective will use up its fuel and die in zero time. All systems need to be inefficient in order to sustain.
Fortunately societal pressures mean that anarchy will always be suppressed while there are agents with influence who stand to benefit from order… in other words, while there is money to be made by rich people, and the anarchy that already exsists at the top of the financial food chain means that there will always be money to be made!
sweavo
12 Feb 10 at 11:15 am
I think I’m somewhere between groups 3 and 4 (depending on my mood), and I get irritated equally by members of groups 1 and 5.
I’m not convinced that god exists, but if he does, I like the idea of a lazy sysadmin god.
Why would you spend all your time fiddling around creating each and every organism individually, when you could work flat out for 6 days writing a script to do it all for you. You then get to take the next few billion years off!
He’s probably up there bitching about all these lusers who aren’t reading the documentation properly.
Paul Seward
12 Feb 10 at 11:49 am
And to back up your money is not real thing: not just is a lot of money only electronic, but even the paper money isn’t money – it’s a promise. British notes say ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of XXX’. It’s just a handy way of dealing with a complex barter system.
Far be it from me to bring Star Trek into a religious discussion, but I like the idea of the DS9 concept of having gods who are a different form of life. In that case I think they were supposed to be some kind of conscious energy, but they didn’t understand the concept of linear life and weren’t constrained by time. I see how such a being could be believed to be a god, and in fact to take it to extremes it could even be possible for a being outside of our scientific understanding to have managed to cause our existence to come about in some way.
I guess what I’m saying is that I like the idea that perhaps religion and science could both be right. However, I don’t think could work for religion when it comes to believing every word that is written down – I think that religion could only be ‘right’ (in science terms) if you take into account the fact that any religious text was written with the understanding of the time and with personal interpretation of meaning.
I don’t necssarily think that the concept of ‘there is a god and he created the world’ is at odds with science; I don’t believe it though.
Me
12 Feb 10 at 12:36 pm
I’m with Paul on just about all he wrote – with the exception that it took him a few goes to get the script right, which would explain a lot of weird things.
Roger
12 Feb 10 at 12:53 pm
I disagree. I fall between groups 4 and 5. Rather than put people into groups, I would suggest a sliding scale where people fall within various points on that scale from utterly religious, to utterly atheist. Actually… Dawkins talks about this very topic in The God Delusion. I recommend reading it just for that.
I don’t believe in God, and I don’t think anyone else should… but if you do we can still be friends. I’m not *that* bothered.
I also don’t think that the hope of religion gives us all a point to being here. Quite the opposite. Religion can also be an excuse, a way out of taking responsibility. Quite apart from atheism bringing anarchy (really? when has that ever happened?), religion has brought death and destruction. Murder is accetable when done in the name of God.
And as for the why – well that answer is kinda simple in my mind. “Why not?”
Kouros
12 Feb 10 at 1:09 pm
Cor! What a great and insightful post.
I’ve wondered for some time why there are as many people getting all het up about why other people shouldn’t believe in a god/religion as there are getting all het up about why other people should.
I think basically I’m sort of midway – a sciency sort of fellow who thinks people should be nice to other people and religion can form a framework or principles for doing that.
Rich
12 Feb 10 at 2:23 pm
I agree with Kouros – sometimes it’s a cop out.
I can also see it being used as an extra variable in the equation of life to explain our way out of things. We are logical creatures and (in general) have a hard time dealing with chance, statistics and things we cannot see or touch. God provides people with some wiggle room.
I also wonder how militant Aethists can complain that religion cannot ever prove that God exists, and use that as an argument that he doesn’t exist….how can they really show that he doesn’t exist?
We will basically never know one way or the other with any complete certainty, so it’s not worth arguing over.
Matt
12 Feb 10 at 2:25 pm
God does not exist.
But I don’t have any level of intelligence, so that doesn’t detract from your argument.
SimonG
12 Feb 10 at 2:25 pm
I’m with Simon!
God cant be disproved, but humans’ misuse of religion certainly can: Belief/Faith has been an excuse for much evil, but it can provide a moral framework. Whether a moral framework actually needs a god, I am unconvinced.
I want one of those T-Shirts!
lordhutton
12 Feb 10 at 2:47 pm
Matt, the way I see it is that I can’t prove God doesn’t exist, but the evidence doesn’t back it up.
Can anyone prove that there isn’t a pebble on Mars with your name, date of birth and date of death on it?
Right now you couldn’t. The evidence would suggest that there can’t be, but one day it may be possible categorically prove it that there is… or that there isn’t.
I’m that way with God.
Kouros
12 Feb 10 at 6:29 pm
I’m a bit simple but I don’t understand your argument Kouros – “The evidence would suggest that there can’t be”. What evidence is that then?
Rich
12 Feb 10 at 7:55 pm
Rich, good point well made. The lack of evidence would suggest that there can’t be, rather than the evidence suggests that there can’t be.
Kouros
12 Feb 10 at 9:39 pm
Surely the ‘lact of evidence’ would suggest that no conclusion or hypothosis can be drawn at the time.
Susan
15 Feb 10 at 12:26 pm
I agree, Susan.
The “lack of evidence” = “evidence of non-existance” is very unscientific, especially since it’s generally people of a scientific type who are trying to use the argument.
You’ll notice also, K, that I said “simplified beyond measure” on my 5 groups. There’s not a lot that can be catogorised into 5 groups while retaining all the nuances and variations possible.
Stu
15 Feb 10 at 12:35 pm
Susan, you are right of course. However, I may have misunderstood Rich’s earlier point, as I was referring to any evidence towards the rocks on Mars which I had just made up. Of course there was no evidence against those.
There is the weight of non-empirical evidence against God. Infinite regress springs to mind. As does my fairly poor idea of destiny rocks on Mars. This is a sword which cuts both ways of course, but someone could undoubtedly mention others against mine.
But I’m afraid as far as I can see there is insufficient reason for me to believe that God exists. In addition, I fail to see why the impetus is on me to prove that he doesn’t. As much as the “lack of evidence” = “evidence of non-existance” reasoning is flawed, so is the “you can’t prove He doesn’t exist, therefore he must.”
As I said before – I’m actually not *that* bothered. If somebody believes in God because of their faith, then OK. I disagree, but OK.
As to your second point Stu, I know but it is worth reading at least that section from Dawkins book.
Kouros
16 Feb 10 at 6:55 am
K, I can see both sides of the arguement and that is why it is up to each individual to decide what they believe in and weather there beliefs sit with a religious faith.
However, I personally feel that thories and dieties need to be dissproved. Hence in my opionion god (by various names), Aliens, ghosts an angels probably all exsist
Even if we are an evolved species, I don’t think we are currently evolved enought to understand everything but hopefully one day we will… but then what would we do.
Susan
16 Feb 10 at 12:45 pm
I don’t believe in God. Mostly since my brother told me, when I was 5 years old, that God doesn’t exist and even though, going to church for the next 7 years, they told me he did exist.
Saying that, I do try and follow a fairly Christian moral standard. I try to do good things, I try not to do bad things.
I am open to the idea that he might exist (I have seen no evidence to suggest he/she does, but then he/she could be very mysterious). So I would have to say I’m Agnostic.
Luckily the God I don’t believe in is Christian and a forgiving God, so if I ever get to meet him, he will forgive me for being a muppet and lacking faith and let me into his little gang of angels anyway!
I’m just edging my bets…
rollasoc
25 Feb 10 at 11:09 am
You see, I think that’s a good place to be, rollasoc. There are those who would say that “god (who doesn’t exist) is forgiving, so I can do what the hell I like now and he’ll still forgive me and let me in.”
The “trying to be good, but not getting too worked up about it all” is, I think, probably the best way for the world to go.
Stu
25 Feb 10 at 11:13 am