Posted by Jason on: 03.17.2008 /
In this article in Saturday 15th March’s Guardian newspaper John Gray compares the rise in vocal atheism to evangelical Christianity of the worst kind. While he has several points of value I can’t help feeling that the comparison is unfair.
Atheism is not an organisation or a philosophy, it has no core dogma or central body of literature to claim wisdom or worth. Atheism is, in simple terms, a lack of belief in gods. Actually there are two common definitions of atheism:
The first definition is a positive assertion that there is no God, that belief in gods is unfounded. For the purposes of this post I’ll call this strong atheism. The second definition is one that, I think, the majority of atheists would identify with. It says that there is insufficient evidence to believe in God or gods. This weak atheism (for want of a better term) does not deny the existence of gods but simply states that we cannot claim belief without more information. This differs from agnosticism which says that we do not know or cannot know about the existence of gods and so cannot choose to believe or disbelieve.
Strong atheism is where the comparison with evangelism comes from but it is an extreme view of strong atheism. Not only is there the assertion that gods do not exist but there is the additional view that anyone who does not ascribe to this view is deluded. John Gray calls this zealous atheism but the distinction is never made in his article. He lumps all atheists together and then paints a negative picture of them.
Are zealous atheists guilty of doing the same for moderate Christians? Almost certainly. Demonising the worst aspects of religion is an effective method of getting your point across. I can understand why he’d choose to do the same to atheism. I don’t like it and I specifically disagree with Gray when he says this:
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.
It is important to reinforce the point that atheism is not a philosophy, not a word view, and not an way of living. At its strongest atheism could be described as a rejection of another’s way of living but it doesn’t replace it with anything.
Evangelical Christians do try to replace a way of living with their own. This goes further than indicating that someone is in error in some way. Evangelising offers a solution to a perceived problem. Zealous atheism by comparison offers only evidence of the perceived error and allows for a person to decide for themselves how to correct it. Weak atheism doesn’t even do that.
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Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1 03/17/08 6:22 AM | Comment Link |Jason wrote:
But some zealous atheists say the error is ‘any belief in supernatural beings’ and they want to rid the world of that belief as if that will fix the world. Which I disagree with, since not all atheists behave perfectly towards others.
To me what matters is whether someone is a decent human being. In my experience people with a variety of beliefs/nonbeliefs have figured out how to be decent human beings.
But some Christians and atheists are not willing to accept it’s possible to be decent without sharing their beliefs. I’ve heard Dawkins lump all people who believe in God together as if anyone who believes in God might fly planes into buildings full of civilians. I think that’s ridiculous. Most peoples’ belief in God doesn’t turn them into terrorists. Nor does most peoples’ lack of belief, for that matter.
Comment by: Stephan
2 03/17/08 6:43 AM | Comment Link |As a Christian I’ve gotten used to being lumped in with James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and the lot of them. We’re all a bunch of loud, nasty, right wing hypocrites, don’t ya know.
Thanks for your distinction between weak atheists and agnostics. That made more sense than any other definition I had heard before.
I have read some of Dawkins and find that he really does want to replace one way of living with another, so I see him as an evangelical atheist. I would guess that most atheists just want to be left alone in their disbelief, but he and those like him are different.
Comment by: Jason
3 03/17/08 8:07 AM | Comment Link |Helen said:
Exactly, but the problems come about when we do that pesky human thing and measure the worth of a person by how much they are like us. We judge them by our own standards. I can’t really blame anyone for this.
The way that I live my life and the opinions that I have formed are entirely correct for me. It is only logical that they should be entirely correct for everyone else. At least that’s the way we tend to function, at least in simplistic terms. your idea of decent is different from mine which is, in turn, different from everyone else. We make our own standards and, while you might ignore it, some people find religion to be central to how we view others.
Comment by: Jason
4 03/17/08 8:23 AM | Comment Link |Stephan said:
I knew it! I was just waiting for someone to admit it. ;)
I’ve read Dawkins too and I must say I don’t get the impression that he wants to replace Christianity (or any other belief in the supernatural) with anything other than reason. Not that Christians are incapable of reason of course. He has offered a few ideas as to the prevalence of religion across human cultures which make some sense from a purely theoretical point of view.
He does comes across as wanting to curtail belief in things which cannot be proven or reasoned but I don’t recall him ever offering a replacement philosophy. That would really imply that people with faith don’t use reason. While this may be true of a few people of faith (and a few without it) it is grossly unfair to label a group as insane in this way. Despite the title of his last book I don’t actually believe that he sees Christians as medically delusional.
Perhaps the distinction is too little but saying something is bad is different from saying that something else is better.
Comment by: Samuel Skinner
5 03/17/08 9:08 AM | Comment Link |Technically weak atheists are atheist agnostics- but lets not open up the war for the English language!
I take contention with
“But some zealous atheists say the error is ‘any belief in supernatural beings’ and they want to rid the world of that belief as if that will fix the world. Which I disagree with, since not all atheists behave perfectly towards others.”
Yes it is true that getting people to act decently is a good goal, but it is alot easier to get people to act intelligently (which is hard in and of itself). The fact is there are no supernatural beings- and while people such as Christians don’t like being lumped in with the extreme versions of their faith, the fact is their faith is based on faith and not reason or evidence means which the only reason they can give for not being fundies is “it is a distortion” or some other excuse that has no basis in reality- after all, if faith doesn’t need to be verified by the external world, how can you tell if someone is distorting it? You don’t like it?
I’m going to finish of responding to Jason. Dawkins implies that religious people don’t apply reason to their religious beliefs- they may or may not apply it to other spheres. As for “substitute philosophies”… I get this all the time.
Theism is only concern with the belief in God, as is atheism. Although people have connected theism with ethics, morality and purpose, the fact is they don’t connect. You don’t need to offer a substitute philosophy for most people since they use a secular philosophy and morality and justify it with religion. The exception is people who actually follow holy books… in which case I suggest seeing what the mainstream uses. They aren’t always right (see religious complacency), but secular ideals have a much better track record than religious ones (specifically always false vs. often false).
Comment by: Jason
6 03/17/08 10:33 AM | Comment Link |Samuel, there’s a whole range of (lack of) belief. On the scale of zealous atheist (on the right) to agnostic (on the left) I would personally place weak atheism to the right of atheist agnostics. The distinction isn’t really that important though except to highlight that atheism isn’t a single thing but a lack of belief in various degrees.
Dawkins (and other members of the four horsemen) make the point that a foundational belief in the supernatural allows for, and can even encourage, belief in some dangerous things. i.e. a belief in a divine creator is not inherently bad, nor is belief that this god will cure you of an illness. What is bad is putting aside perfectly good medicine and relying on faith to cure an illness. This is going against reason and should be discouraged.
As you say this is a secular ideal not an atheistic one. Perhaps the fact that atheists tend to support secular philosophies (what else are we left with?) means that the two are assumed to be the same. I think if a person believes that their morals are granted by a God then they don’t like to be told otherwise.
Comment by: Stephan
7 03/17/08 11:52 AM | Comment Link |My only problem with this assertion is that it cannot be proven. In order to prove it you would have to find a society untouched by any religion that has developed some kind of advanced morality. As far as I know this has not been done, and given the pervasiveness of religion I doubt that such a society could ever be found.
So similar to an atheist who says they will not believe in God unless it is proven, I will not believe it morality without religion unless it can be proven.
That depends on your definition of “evidence”. If by that you mean something that can be empirically proven and reproduced in a lab, then, no, I don’t have evidence. But if you include tradition, personal experience, testimony, holy books, etc., then there is plenty of evidence. Unfortunately some of the evidence in this case is conflicting, but that has also been true of science at times, and the best you can do is follow what you feel to be the best line of reasoning unless something better comes along.
You take a look at all they say they believe, match it up with how they live, and see if there are any contradictions, for one thing. Someone who says they believe in a loving God, who then goes and kills in the name of that God, is living a contradiction.
Of course, someone can still believe something with no contradictions and still be very wrong, but at least that is one way to look at it.
I could also point out that faith can be verified by the outside world, which makes the question moot anyway. When I look around at nature I see God’s handiwork everywhere, so I see no contradiction between my faith and the outside world.
Comment by: Pseudonym
8 03/17/08 4:36 PM | Comment Link |Jason:
While I agree with the conclusion, I disagree with the premise. (I also think the “four horsemen” tag is arrogant and stupid, but that’s another topic!)
The argument, as I understand it, is that moderate theism, by encouraging belief in the supernatural, somehow makes more extreme forms of theism acceptable.
My intuition (and it’s based on an amateur interest in literary theory and psychology; more on that some other time perhaps) is that the opposite is true: It’s the Fred Phelpses of this world that make the Pat Robertsons look mainstream by comparison, thanks to the Overton window.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
9 03/18/08 5:12 AM | Comment Link |Jason wrote:
But surely Dawkins as a good scientist should examine the evidence for his theory that belief in God leads to dangerous practices. As best I can tell the evidence shows that often is not the case - lots of people believe in God and don’t set aside medicine or fly planes into buildings.
It seems to me that the evidence should matter more than Dawkin’s theory, yet his theory is what he cares about. 9-11 seems to have incited irrational fear in him against any sort of religious belief. It would be rational to oppose what leads to dangerous practices. It’s not rational to oppose all religious belief based on a theory that it’s dangerous, when that theory isn’t supported by evidence.
Also, if someone believes all belief in supernatural beings should be discouraged then I would say yes they are pushing atheism. If a town has three grocery stores (supermarkets) and I discourage shoppers from going to two of them then I AM pushing the third even if I say it’s because shopping there is the only rational choice.
Comment by: Jason
10 03/18/08 6:29 AM | Comment Link |Stephan, if you believe that your morality comes from your God then that’s fine. There are people and cultures in parts of the world that have no contact with Christianity at all. I grant you that these are quite remote parts of the world. There are also cultures that have different faiths that have no integration with Christianity. Does a Hindu or a Buddhist have less claim to morality than a Christian? Or is the religion not relevant as long as a person has the cultural bias to instill the “correct” moral framework into them?
As for evidence I tend to use facts and proofs as evidence, scientific theories and experiments that are repeatable and verifiable. However I am also happy to use the idea of evidence that I picked up in my history classes many years ago. I’ll expand on this in another entry as I think it’s worth going into more detail.
That’s a personal interpretation and one that you are entitled to. I see nature and see that it is amazing too. It doesn’t need a God.
Pseudonym, the four horsemen comment is a bit of a joke. I’d be interested in why you think it is arrogant and stupid. I also don’t know where the label originated. Whether it was from the Christian detractors trying to strengthen the negative view or from the four themselves.
I’d disagree with your intuition regarding moderate theism. I’m pretty sure that we wouldn’t have a Fred Phelps and his anti-gay, anti-American, anti-everything opinions if we didn’t have that base to build on. I’d be interested in discussing this further.
Comment by: Jason
11 03/18/08 6:41 AM | Comment Link |Helen, it is true that not all theists set aside reason but it does seem to occur with disturbing frequency. Perhaps this is simply a human condition that has little to do with religion but I’m not so sure. I’d be interested in seeing a study on this but I can’t imagine the difficulties involved just to get funding for it. :)
You say that it’s
but there is evidence that extreme belief in the supernatural can lead to dangerous practices. i.e. murder bombings, unproven medical treatments, etc. As an analogy lets say that drinking a pint of coke a day was proven to weaken bones. Would you feel justified in campaigning to get coke banned as a dangerous substance? What if it were two pints? or ten?
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
12 03/18/08 6:56 AM | Comment Link |Jason wrote:
Did Stalin and Lenin commit atrocities because of their atheism?
If not then maybe there’s more to extremists committing atrocities than whether they have religious beliefs or not.
Maybe it’s more to do with their personalities - extremists are attracted to extreme beliefs - than the beliefs per se.
Yes, that might be tricky :)
Whether there is or not, most people don’t have extreme beliefs and so we need to consider the practices of most people.
Actually I think this supports my case more than yours :) - because most of what we eat and drink is dangerous if consumed in extreme quantities yet they are not banned. Some people recommend abstinence but most people recommend a moderate approach, because there isn’t strong evidence that moderate quantities are dangerous.
With addictive substances more people recommend abstinence. However I don’t see strong evidence that moderate believers often turn into extremists so I don’t see that a case can be made for religious beliefs being ‘addictive’ in that sense.
Comment by: Stephan
13 03/18/08 7:01 AM | Comment Link |Jason,
While I believe Christianity (as I practice it) is the most right religion, I see all religions as containing truth, and God can speak to people through any and all of them. So I believe a culture that has not been exposed to Christianity may have still been exposed to God and His truth, and they certainly have been exposed to some religion, even if it is primal tribal religion. That is why I say that finding a culture that has developed morality without religious influence would be nigh unto impossible.
When I use the term most right, but the way, I am not saying that I have it right and everyone else is wrong. I am saying that I follow it because I believe it to be right, and the best interpretation of the facts as I see them. I am sure I have some things wrong, but I am doing the best I can, and when I discover errors in my own belief I try to correct them.
As an example, let’s say perfect truth rates 100 on the scale. I would put my beliefs around a 4, Judaism at a 3, Islam around 2.5, Buddhism at about a 2, etc. So while I believe my view of religion to be more true than some others, I know I am way off the mark and have a long way to go. I am somewhat of an agnostic Christian, I guess.
Comment by: Jason
14 03/18/08 10:57 AM | Comment Link |You raise some interesting points Helen. On the subject of Stalin and Lenin I do want to dedicate a whole post to the negative aspects of atheism and denial of atrocities by atheists. If you don’t mind waiting to revisit this in the future? You’re feeding me plenty of ideas. Thanks.
On the analogy of substance abuse we do ban some substances that are deemed bad for us and would probably ban others now if we knew about the harmful effects before they were so widespread. I can easily see tobacco being made an illegal substance given it’s harmful effects. It is only the fact that it is so pervasive in our society that it is not practical to ban it.
Continuing the analogy we campaign and educate people on the dangers of smoking while making it legal to practice the habit. We place restrictions on its use. I think with zealous atheists, like Dawkins, we have a similar attitude. It isn’t saying “smoke my non-harmful cigarettes” it is saying cigarettes are potentially harmful.
Does that make sense? Of course with religion we don’t have proof that it is a harmful belief system. You could very well say the same for atheism. As with any belief system we can only show others what our own beliefs are and allow them to choose for themselves. If a person’s actions become dangerous then we have laws that allow us to remove them from society. We have no mechanism for controlling thoughts and nor should we.
Stephan, your opinion on religion is interesting. I’m sure a Hindu or a Muslim believes that their religion is also the most right just as I view atheism as the most right. Not that atheism is a religion, of course.
When you say
Do you mean that it would be almost impossible to find a culture untouched by religion or do you mean that morality is dependent on religion? I’d agree with the former but argue vehemently against the latter.
Finally, what is “perfect truth”? the only things that I can think of that are perfectly true occur in mathematics. You don’t get perfection in morality or physics or chemistry or any of the sciences. You only get an “as far as we are able to determine” when it comes to science. I wouldn’t even go that far with ethics.
Comment by: Stephan
15 03/18/08 11:38 AM | Comment Link |I mean that it would be nigh unto impossible to find a culture untouched by some sort of religion, and thus impossible to prove that morality can be developed without a religious influence. It may be possible to develop morality without religion, but I doubt that it can be proven. Even if you don’t believe in God and you never have, you still grew up in a culture that was heavily influenced by the church. You can’t avoid that.
I believe there is perfect truth in all things, but that we are unable to attain it because of our finite human understanding. Just like I think I am (at best) 4% right in my theology, we may be only 4% right in physics, chemistry, etc., but that does not mean there is not an ideal that we should strive for. “As far as we are able to determine” will have to suffice in the mean time.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
16 03/18/08 11:43 AM | Comment Link |Jason, feel free to address anything you wish later :)
I’m still not seeing the difference between (zealous) evangelical Christians and zealous atheists that you made in your initial post.
To me they’re both pushing for something unrealistic and unnecessary by trying to convince others their belief should change because its harmful. I see that as replacement in both cases. I don’t think the ‘blanket approach’ of ‘you ALL should change your beliefs because they aren’t mine’ is helpful or reflects the spectrum out there of ways in which people’s beliefs and behaviors are connected.
I’d rather focus on behavior or specific beliefs which are clearly directly harmful - which, imo, neither religious beliefs in general nor atheist ones in general are.
I agree with you about atheism not being a ‘body of beliefs’ and I generally talk about atheists not atheism for that reason. In reality Christianity covers a wide spectrum of beliefs and more or less associated behaviors so it’s not ‘one thing’ either. But I agree that atheism is even less of a ‘thing’ than Christianity, since it’s defined by a negative and doesn’t have nearly as many associated behaviors as Christianity.
I think I’m somewhat agreeing with you but not entirely.
Comment by: Jason
17 03/18/08 4:34 PM | Comment Link |Stephan, it is entirely true that our culture, indeed all cultures that I can think of, have huge religious influence. In fact one religion influences another just as one culture influences another. You only have to look at how Christianity has co-opted many pagan festivals to see that. You also have to accept that, along with the positive aspects, a lot of negative aspects of religion are brought forth into modern society. The idea of sin, for instance, or the attitude of unquestioning obedience and limiting of scientific advancement that was so prevalent in early Roman Catholic doctrine. I suppose you could argue that these are simply human characteristics that the church took on as its own. I don’t know of a way to test the theory.
While I disagree that there is any such thing as perfect truth, I can’t argue that pursuing knowledge for it’s own sake is worthwhile. Even an impossible ideal is sometimes worth aiming for. As a species we should try to improve and build upon what our ancestors created, discarding those parts that hold us back. I think what Dawkins and others see is that religion is one thing that now holds back humanity. Indeed in areas such as stem cell research it does.
Helen, the key difference between zealous atheism and evangelical Christianity is that the latter absolutely says that Christianity is the best way. It offers a clear structure and built in support system in the form of churches. Atheism has none of that. It isn’t as if Dawkins is offering secular humanism up as the ideal. He is simply pointing out things that are wrong, in his view, with religion. He is particularly vehement in attacks against his specialty field of evolutionary biology. When you have instances like ALL the right wing candidates for the US presidency say that they don’t believe in evolution then it is hardly surprising that you get a reaction.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
18 03/19/08 4:54 AM | Comment Link |Jason, I agree that Dawkins goes less far than some Evangelical Christians. But I still think he goes further than is helpful or constructive in various ways. Many people who already agree with him seem to enjoy his approach but it doesn’t seem to be gaining him any respect from those whose beliefs he’d like to change.
And I don’t buy the “he’s not as bad as they are so it’s ok” argument I often hear from atheists (not you necessarily). I don’t think behavior should be relative as if we are excused as long as we can find someone worse than us.
In your post you said John Gray’s comparison is unfair. I don’t think it’s as unfair as you think it is because even if zealous atheists are asking for less change than zealous Christians, I still see them as asking for unrealistic unnecessary changes.
In general I am not particularly sympathetic towards people who complain about vocal atheists, because I would prefer to see them listen anyway and notice anything vocal atheists are saying which is right.
But this might happen more if vocal atheists took a different approach, so I am not especially sympathetic towards them either.
I’m not enamoured with either side, basically, since they don’t seem interested in friendly conversation.
Comment by: Jason
19 03/19/08 9:16 AM | Comment Link |Actually I think Richard Dawkins goes out of his way to be polite to theists. That is unless they make claims that are contrary to evidence, especially when IDers or creationists make certain claims, then he can be quite merciless in his attacks.
I said that I felt that the comparison was unfair. Zealous evangelists try to sell a better (in their eyes) way of life by making claims. Zealous atheists just point at the claims and either correct them or laugh. OK that may not be very helpful and it may not further a debate. I can see how this would turn some people off. However the atheistic view is just that theism isn’t quite right, not that something is better.
It’s as if I were to say that the US republican political system is flawed (I say republican because it isn’t a true democracy). There are other approaches to politics but I’m not saying which is better or even if any are better. Actually it’s more like saying all the political systems in the world have flaws. We aren’t going to completely abandon government and democracy (in all its forms) but we can look for a better solution instead of just hanging on to a flawed one. Now if someone proposes a facist system we’re all going to try to get them to stop.
I hope I’m not going to get in too much trouble for comparing religion to politics. :)
I also have to agree that friendly conversation is the best way to get someone to change their mind or even to accept that your view is just as valid as their view. This wasn’t what Gray was doing in his article.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
20 03/19/08 10:40 AM | Comment Link |Jason I think we aren’t going to agree on how polite Dawkins is to theists but I do agree that John Gray’s approach is not friendly.
Comment by: Jason
21 03/19/08 2:31 PM | Comment Link |Fair enough. :)
Comment by: Ted Goas
22 04/14/08 8:03 PM | Comment Link |Interesting post! Recently I read another blog post (and I’ll be darned if I can find it again, darn!) that laid out this idea in a 2×2 matrix, which I will (badly) recreate here:
Atheist Theist
Agnostic X X
Gnostic X X
In this case, everyone would choose one of the four X’s that best describes their belief system.
Gnostic atheists (or strong atheists) are sure there’s no God. Agnostic theists think there’s a God, but are not 100% certain. And so on. Has anyone heard of this convention?
Despite being an atheist, I am finding that I have a problem with Gnostic Atheists. As a skeptic, I just can’t fathom how anyone can be 100% sure either way.
Comment by: Jason
23 04/17/08 2:32 AM | Comment Link |Ted, as much as I’d like to be 100% certain that their is no God I just can’t find the evidence. In that respect I’m an agnostic atheist. However as far as the statement “There is no evidence to suggest the existence of any form of deity” goes then I’m gnostic or strong in my atheism.
I think it all depends on the question you ask.
“Can you prove that there are no gods?” as opposed to “Do you believe in the existence of gods?”