January 14th, 2009
Here are some things that bother me about how some athiests think and behave:
1. Some athiests seem to think that the problem with religious people is they aren’t or can’t be logical. If only they’d give their heads a shake and think a little, they’d see how obvious it is that there is no God! This is silly because clearly plenty of religious people are very logical, very smart, and very thoughtful. It may be that you can’t prove the existence of God with logic, but you can’t disprove him that way either. Logic is not the (or the only) issue. (Also, there are plenty of illogical athiests out there too. Membership to the club isn’t by examination.)
2. Some athiests seem to think that religious people are less than athiests somehow – this ties to point 1. They are illogical or sheep-like or stupid or needy or brainwashed and therefore we can roll our eyes in contempt at them. Not only does this demonstrate a terrible lack of understanding of the nature of other people (they’re all stereotypes for starters), but it entrenches an us versus them perspective that is an impediment to compassion and peace. And as in point 1, it can easily be wrong. Or applied to athiests.
3. Some athiests seem unwilling to admit the value and importance of religion in many people’s lives. They act as though becoming an athiest is no big deal, like nothing would be lost. They can’t or refuse to see that, logic be damned, faith is sincerely and deeply meaningful to many religious people. Sure there are televangelists and charlatans and warmongers – but that’s the tiny minority. This says nothing about whether religion is right or wrong, but is merely a statement of reality.
4. Some athiests think we can make progress towards a more secular society by mocking the religious. This is not only mean spirited but enormously counterproductive. Best case scenario: religious people feel ashamed and go underground. They come to hate athiests and perhaps (by association) the logical process that underpins athiesm, which undermines science and secularism as a whole.
Faith versus religion is often framed as a logical puzzle, and therefore the realm of discussion has become the debate: “I will prove why you SHOULD / SHOULD NOT accept God!” But this is erroneous. People don’t become religious after careful consideration of the facts. The proper domain of discussion should be not “is religion real” but “what is religion?” Note:
-All societies of humans anywhere and at any time of our history have had religion, be is an animistic or ancestor worship form right through to and including monotheism. Why?
-Religions demand sacrifice (of time among other resources) for uncertain or absent gains. This is counterintuitive on its face to an evolutionary perspective. Why?
-No secular ideology has ever successfully replaced religion in a people. People die for -isms but the -isms don’t become entrenched and distributed throughout a population the way religions do. Why?
-Religions all over the world and throughout history share certain characteristics, denoting commonalities in, for example, source or function. Why?
Recent research on the evolutionary bases of religion has been proposing some absolutely fascinating and exciting hypotheses explaining the ubiquity of faith from a naturalistic point of view. I’ll summarize in one sentence: the elements that comprise religion are all drawn from cognitive “modules” that were naturally selected for to solve problems common in the ancestral environment.
In this way we can see religiosity as a natural phenomenon that, while it was not selected for itself, piggy-backs on systems that were. This means that it is “natural” for us as this evolved species to be religious. It probably also means we will never be without religion. Which means we better learn ways to work with it, between faiths and from outside them. We can start by ceasing to treat religious people like lesser people.
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(If you are interested in these topics, read In Gods We Trust by Scott Atran, Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer, and Breaking The Spell by Daniel C. Dennett. For some background in the science of evolution for nonscientists, try Darwin’s Dangerous Idea also by Dennett, and especially Evolution for Everyone by David Sloan Wilson.)
Faith can be an important part of people’s lives, and honestly make them feel better and live more positive lives. Yeah, there’s some fanatics, but I’ve known some very nice Jehovah’s Witnesses and we have some Mormon’s playing L5R with us now in Chilliwack, not to mention a good portion of devout Christians that also play with us.
These people have strong faith but don’t try to force it on me, so I leave it alone. I don’t agree with them, but I don’t condemn them for it either. Trying to force atheism on someone would be just as bad as them trying to force religion on me.
You make some good points.
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I think Andy Rooney’s quote on today’s Free Thought of the Day sums my opinion up nicely:
“I’d be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn’t believe it, if I thought it made people nicer to each other but I don’t think it does.”
Dennett is one of my favourite thinkers. Have you ever read his essay “I couldn’t do otherwise, so what?”, or “Freedom Evolves”?
Both quite good.
There’s some really good ruminations on Faith in Kierkegaard’s work too.
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Not reliably. Sigh! I wonder what would?
No, I’ve only read Dennett in book form. Which honestly I find hard work – I don’t know if it’s because I’m not trained in philosophy or I’m not at his level of smartness … well, obviously I am not, but it would be nice to be at the level of smartness he assumes in his audience! Which is why i have stuck with books – they’re more for a lay audience than articles which I assume exist in academic journals, written for people in the field, and therefore beyond my ability to meaningfully read them. I don’t know the technical vocabulary or concepts etc. Anyway he is brilliant and fascinating. But as a general rule I tend not to read much old stuff – not much interested in Kierkegaard. I’m content to read summaries by modern folk for the most part, particularly because religion is just a hobby of mine and not something I’m seriously into studying. Anyway I’m rambling. It’s late and I wore myself out responding to Puck!
The nice thing about articles though is that they are usually in smaller, more digestible chunks. Obviously, I have no idea what will be meaningful for you or not, but that particular essay was pretty clear, if I recall.
I bring up Kierkegaard because he has an excellent answer to the whole reason/faith issue, which seems to be an integral part of the current discussion. If you’re interested, I can summarize, at some point.
No, better than learning to work with religion is to learn to work without it. Just because it is natural does not make it better, and by better I mean better for Planet Earth and everything on it. We don’t live in the society where religion helped us to survive as a species anymore. Our technology has outgrown our biology. Our minds were design for a world we left behind. We HAVE TO CHANGE OUR MINDS IF WE WANT TO SURVIVE NOW. Or, we go back to pre-industrial world. Being in a world with mythology* _and_ atomic bombs is not an option, and can only go on for so long.
Not to say there aren’t more productive ways to convert religious people to atheism than mocking them, but I would rather be seen an asshole for calling people out on their bullshit than be dead.
*(specifically, a “your god is the enemy of my god + I’ll live in paradise when I die but you’ll go to hell + all of nature was created by god for us to exploit” mindset)
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