Posted by Jason on: 01.05.2009 /
I think that it is fair to say that most atheists have reasons for not believing in gods. There are intellectual reasons aplenty for not believing that I will look at in the coming weeks. There are some who do not believe because of the way they were brought up or educated, or because they have simply adopted the beliefs of the culture in which they grew up. The same is probably true of many Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
Other atheists choose atheism because they just feel that atheism is right. The intellectual reasons either escape them or simply don’t matter because they follow their feelings that atheism is the right choice. Perhaps they looked into other faiths and couldn’t decide which one suited them most and so decided on none. Again I strongly suspect that the same is true for many people of faith who hold their beliefs because they just seem right to them.
There is another group though who are labelled as apatheists. Apatheists or people who are apathetic with regards to religion choose atheism as a default option. Rather they don’t choose at all, they simply don’t care one way or the other about or for questions of religion.
I don’t mind admitting that I find the idea of apatheists more than a little unsettling. How can people not care? For me a key event that triggered my own exploration of religion and rejection of many aspects of it was the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. In that case religion was used as a force for evil (and I don’t use the word lightly) to motivate people into attacking the West. The reaction to this from religious groups helped to cement my views. These views though are more about religion than about the existence or non-existence of God or gods. Turned away from religion I explored the matter of existence from an intellectual view point. Finding no compelling reason I am an atheist. For other people 9/11 drew them into a faith a cemented their ties with a religion, perhaps they drew strength from their faith where I saw only division. One thing 9/11 did was to prompt people to decide on faith.
Yet to have people who just don’t care strikes me as callous and more than a little odd. Was 2001 really so long ago that people have forgotten about it? Were the events so far removed from their lives that they’ve been able to dismiss them as unimportant? I do not understand it and I do not feel that it is right. Yet it must be the default position for anyone who comes into this world.
A child is born with no knowledge of religion and is taught all that they later know about the gods or God, about faith and about the organisations that are built on these viewpoints. By my definition of atheism, that it is a lack of belief in God or gods, a child has had no chance to believe or not. They fail to believe because they do not know that there is a choice. These are not atheists but apatheists. Once appraised of the facts they can choose to believe in one faith or none and can choose their own reasons for doing so. To remain uncommitted is not something that makes sense to me.
I should point out that apatheist here is a different stance than agnosticism. An agnostic has explored the ideas of faith and no faith and decided that they haven’t got enough information to choose. The information is not quite compelling one way or the other. They are not indifferent but intellectually honest. Being unable to know in the true sense of the word they wait patiently for a juicy piece of evidence or reasonable argument that may sway them. This is not a lack of interest or a path of ignorance but a balancing act of competing ideas.
Perhaps an apatheist is simply exercising the same lack of interest in God that they see God exercising in them. Now there’s an idea, if a callous one.
Comment by: Seren
1How would you compare apatheism with the view, sometimes expressed by Sartre (particularly in relation to ethical decisions), that it doesn’t matter whether a God exists or not?
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
2I’m not sure that apatheism is that far from atheism, because isn’t the reason apatheists don’t care that nothing compelling has come their way to cause them to care? I.e. no compelling evidence for God has shown up in their lives?
But the existence or non-existence of God/gods cannot be absolutely proven, so, isn’t everyone who admits that less than 100% committed, because they allow for the possibility that they could be wrong?
Comment by: Jason
3Seren, that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure I have an answer. The question of God is different to that of religion though. When Sartre says that we should act as if it doesn’t matter if God exists I think it means that our moral decisions should be made as God has no impact on existence one way or the other. Rather than being disinterested I take this as a positive statement of disbelief. He pushes “God” to the sidelines as an irrelevance rather than ignores the question. How do you see existentialism and apatheism working together?
Helen, atheism only exists because of religion. In a pure sense it is simply a lack of positive belief which makes an apatheist an atheist in a very real sense. For me though they would not self identify as an atheist because that is a positive statement of disbelief and an apatheist is not interested in the conversation enough to make that distinction.
I suppose it is the lack of interest that I find so hard to understand. In my ideal world (where the clouds are fluffy and beer is free) there would be no religion and everybody would be an apatheist. The question of gods would be irrelevant. Similarly positive proof of God would make the idea of apatheists irrelevant as well as refuting any claim to atheism. Atheism and apatheism can only exist in that grey area where we cannot know that god exists at all.
Yes but allowing for a margin of error doesn’t negate the ability to have an opinion. I am less than 100% certain of every single thing that I know simply because of the nature of knowing anything yet I have plenty of opinions. Undoubtedly some of them are wrong but at this moment I believe that they are right and have an opinion on all of them.
For me apatheists are like people who have no opinion about slavery or sex. Religion is so ubiquitous that you cannot ignore it’s presence or influence on life and religion stems form a God belief.
I’m not saying that apatheism isn’t a perfectly valid opinion to have. I’m slightly envious of someone who can dismiss it so easily as irrelevant. All I’m saying is I don’t understand how someone can actually do this given the nature of religion and the opinions of the vast majority.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
4Jason wrote:
Maybe it is irrelevant to lots of people, though. As they get up, get their kids to school, go to work, come home, etc - isn’t it possible that the existence of God is irrelevant? If a co-worker is bugging them to go to church or if their children are being bullied for being atheists then, yes, the belief of others impacts their life directly. But if not, maybe it doesn’t and maybe it truly does seem irrelevant to them.
Belief is an indirect thing anyway - it’s what people do that impact us, isn’t it, not what they believe? And people with the same beliefs can behave very differently, and people with different beliefs can behave very similarly. So, the link between belief and action is complex.
Comment by: Seren
5I don’t see existentialism sitting neatly beside apathy of any sort!! It’s all anxt, anxt, anxt, with a little bit of nausea.
I just think that, for me, belief in God is not a big deal compared with alot of other beliefs people have. If i was making friends with someone, and found out they had a belief in God, it wouldn’t play on my mind nearly as much as finding out that they believed climate change was some kind of scientific conspiracy (or whatever people who don’t believe in it believe).
And, because i don’t believe in God, i don’t think religions or religious systems are any more evil, in and of themselves, than Newtonian physics. Wrong, or incomplete, descriptions of the world, but not the source of evil. People will be perfectly capable of developing institutions that perpetuate small-mindedness and bigotry if/when traditional religious belief and theism diminish. Stalin’s regime managed huge amounts of evil without any (imagined) divine mandate.
I’ve done that thing i always do when i post here, which is write for a really long time, then become unsure about what it is exactly that i’m trying to say.
Comment by: Mike O
6Jason said:
I think I disagree … sort of. But I’m not sure.
I believe Children are born with a bent towards God. Sure, they may not know anything of religion or institutions or the rules of the game … that must be taught. But the tendency to believe is still there. And if/when they come to the conclusion that it isn’t true, it’s actually a change in belief.
On the other hand, when people/children come to the conclusion that there is a God, it’s more of a ‘coming home’ feeling - a feeling that they’re returning to what they originally had. But I say that as a life-long Christian. It’s hard for me to fathom an atheistic-by-default child.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you think back to the first time you realized there was no God, wasn’t it kind of a bummer - almost as if you hoped it were true? In my case, my parents became Christians when I was four. And I distinctly remember a day walking home from my friend’s house thinking to myself that they were Chrstians and I wasn’t - and that was funny to me. I thought I was so clever and that I was fooling everyone. But I also remember the day I “got saved” when I was four. It had nothing to do with my parents, it was just me realizing that Jesus really did love me, and then everything clicked into place. I’ve been a Christian ever since.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7Seren, what you wrote sounds similar to what I think, which is, some people will turn any belief or non-belief system, including religious belief systems, into something good and some people will turn them into something evil.
So it’s not just the belief or non-belief system, it’s what people do with it.
I agree with you about climate change and I think that’s because if someone believes climate change is a conspiracy it’s very likely that means they’ll do nothing to help prevent it. So there’s a direct link between their belief and behavior in that case.
Mike, it seems to me that little children easily believe things and I suppose you could argue that’s because they’re designed to believe in God.
I expect peoples’ experiences vary on how they felt at the idea that there is no God. Anyone terrorized by thoughts of going to hell probably would feel relief rather than disappointment. Maybe it depends what kind of God you’re now questioning the existence of.
Comment by: Jason
8Helen and Seren I do agree with you. I just have trouble with the idea that religion doesn’t impact on a person’s life in some way. If it genuinely doesn’t then apatheism is perfectly understandable. Perhaps I’m looking at it from the wrong angle, from the outside in.
Mike wrote:
Do you mean this in the same way that Chomsky believes that newborns have the structure of language hard-coded into their brains but lack the grammar and lexicon to make use of it? Alternatively could children have a tendency towards believing everything that they are exposed to until they discover contradictory information? At whcih point they must decide whcih is true. This starts them as a “blank slate” that allows them to learn quickly but indiscriminately. From an evolutionary perspective there is merit in the idea of gullibility as a survival trait. A child is more likely to survive if they obey instructions to remain with adults and not wander off where lions and tigers and bears (oh my) can eat them. Obedience to authority figures is certainly trait shared by most people and this seems likely that it stems either from childhood or from a genetic predisposition to obey. See Milgram’s obedience experiment for more information.
Not in my case. I never had any idea that there was a God although I gradually became aware that people did hold to these strange beliefs. There was no moment of realization that there was no God or that there was one. As a child (and still now) I asked questions and pushed for answers. There was never a time where the explanation was “miracle” or “God” but quite often I got “I don’t know, what do you think?” or “Go and find out”.
I think that four is far too young to make an informed decision on almost anything. I remember at around the age of seven or eight I got very interested in mythology, specifically Norse and Greek mythology. I came to understand that the people of the time genuinely worshipped, obeyed and sacrificed for their gods and that they were supplanted by belief in another god. I couldn’t then and still cannot see a difference.
In my early teens I moved to an area with large Muslim and Hindu populations. The only Christian I knew was the son of a vicar. In no way were his views more meaningful than the views of my friends from Hindu or Muslim families. There was never a reason to differentiate between people on matters of faith although I certainly received some comments on matters of race.
I suppose as a child I had no concerns around matters of faith. In a very real sense I was an apatheist although I wouldn’t have known what the word meant. A growing understanding of the world helped me to arrive at my current atheistic view to the point where I have trouble relating to this smaller, less mature view.
Helen wrote:
There is the religious right’s view that global warming is irrelevant. Either God created the world for us and will maintain it or the world is doomed and Judgement Day is nigh, which is strangely a good thing. On this topic religion can strongly influence public policy and opinion. I’m generalising of course, I’m sure that many “fundies” are actually concerned about global issues and the environment.
I was only going to leave a quick comment.
Comment by: Mike O
9I think that’s the case, but I readily admit that I am predisposed to that notion.
Jason said:
So in reference to the previous post I would just add that you’re limiting it to a child’s mental assent towards the information presented. If that were the case, I would agree that a 4-year-old is too young to “do the math” and figure out whether or not there is a God. It was an inner, spiritual thing that happened to me, not mental.
The way I can recognize this now is that it ran completely contrary to the way I was thinking at the time. I actually “thought” there was no God (or Jesus - I can’t remember), but at the moment it changed for me, I was not presented with new information or pressure from parents. It just … changed. On the inside first, and then my brain followed.
I suppose you could take that to mean becoming a Christian is a mindless activity, but that is not what I’m saying. I was 4, and I’m just saying that’s how it happened for me.
I’ve had similar things happen to me as an adult, usually in times of prayer, that help me articulate now what happened to me when I was four. But the best way I can think of to explain this spiritual experience in non-spiritual terms is when you have a sudden change in thinking that runs contrary to the way you normally think. Where did that change come from if not from the information presented?
Interesting article, by the way, on the Milgram experiment.
Comment by: Jason
10A typical four year old does not have the mental or emotional development to consider these kinds of questions. At four you might well have believed in the Easter Bunny, Santa, monsters in the closet and all sorts of things that you dismiss as you mature. Personally I recall a belief in Santa but not the Easter Bunny, a belief in dancing elephants and wombles but not closet monsters and no belief in God. Some I dismissed with a degree of embarrassment, some with amusement ands some with a little sadness. I am particularly sad that wombles don’t live on Wimbledon common tidying up all the litter*.
It might seem rude that I lump them all together but that is because I now use reason and evidence to decide what is real and what is not. My reason tells me that gods are inventions and the evidence always suggests naturalistic explanations. I’m not saying that it is wrong to hold these views, only that, at four, you must accept that you were extremely naive and impressionable. A reasonable position would be to reevaluate your beliefs regularly to see if they still stand up to scrutiny. I think we’ve talked about this before but even if we haven’t I get the impression that you do regularly reassess your faith so I’m not trying to make a judgment of your current views.
Are you talking about an epiphany where disparate ideas come together to form a greater and complete idea? Or are you talking about a complete change in thought processes? The former is not limited to religious thinkers and the latter can be created artificially but can occur naturally with hormone stimulation. I’m sure there are naturalistic explanations. I work with a woman who suffers from wild mood swings controlled by drugs. A “bad” day for her is like working with two completely separate and distinct people. I can only guess what it must be like to be in her head when she has a bad day. A four year old is hormonally very different from an adult but they are still prone to rages and feelings of devotion that are extreme compared with adult behaviour.
*I suspect that Helen will be the only one who understands this reference. I hope you’re singing the theme song like I am.
Comment by: Seren
11Me too! Me too! I’m singing the theme song too! We named all our guinea pigs after the wombles. Our family ebay password is still “tobermory.”
Comment by: Seren
12Mike:
I remember sitting on a wooden bench, outside my bedroom, at night with a sky full of stars. And the strangest thought occurred to me, a lifelong Christian (albeit a liberal one who no longer believed in hell). Sitting there with the stars, a cigarette, the sounds of the night, and my cosy bed nearby, i realised i had no interest in relating to a transcendent deity. Here (in my immediacy) was what i loved, here was what i wanted to occupy my time and my heart with. (i don’t just mean the cigarette and stuff, i mean the whole corporeal)
I had never before contemplated “God” in such a way. All of a sudden it was as if someone had presented the idea of the Christian omni- omni- omni- God to me for the first time, and, in my heart of hearts, i wasn’t interested.
Realising i believed that “God probably doesn’t exist” (as the bus says) was alot less interesting. I was in a bad mood, walking out of the library at uni, and i thought to myself, “A few years ago i’d be spitting chips at god right now.” You know the sort of thing - why is my life so hard? why don’t you make things easier for me? &c. &c. And then i thought, “well, there isn’t a god to whinge to. Oh, i guess i don’t believe in god.”
just to qualify, i’m probably an athiest, but i don’t think i’m a physicalist (materialist). As least, i don’t think the world is described in full by physics. I’m not going to get into it now, i just wanted to add a qualifier to explain that, really, i don’t even think i’m a rationalist.
This is a very long post.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
13Jason, yes, I’m singing the Wombles theme song :)
Comment by: Mike O
14The latter. To me, an epiphany is an assembly of information that sort of click into place all at once. In a sense, it’s calculated.
I’m talking more about something that ran contrary to the inputs - as if there were an error in your thinking and someone corrected it.
It’s more like I have a mentor that helps me adjust my thinking. It’s not a change in mood, it’s a change in logic or maybe even the addition of new information.
In the case I am thinking of, it was conversational. Like I said, I was praying (conversation to a Christian) and saying “I’ve never done anything that mattered.” And it was as if God spoke back to me and said, “You have no idea what you’ve done for me.” VERY encouraging! And it ran contrary to the way I was thinking. New information was handed to me … I had done things that mattered.
I hope that’s not too ooey-gooey, I just figured an example would help explain.