On Saturday the 17th February 2001, I realised I had no faith in women’s magazines or God.
I was at the hospital – I wasn’t sick – I was visiting my best friend (she’ll be known as Betsy for the purposes of this post). I was in the waiting room, and was flicking through a Cosmopolitain with Cameron Diaz on the cover.* I don’t think I had ever really believed in Cosmo – but I had got pleasure from reading it. But that day, when as I turned the pages I got angrier and angrier. It wasn’t just that I was too young, too fat, too poor, too un-stylish, too un-cordinated, and too apathetic to have that life – none of it was real. There wasn’t a word of truth in the scores of glossy pages.
God was less sudden, maybe more cliched. The argument against God from the existence of evil was covered in my first year philosophy class. However, that day and the ones that followed I knew something I had never really bothered to think about before – that a sort of lazy agnosticism was not enough. I was opposed to the image of God that I knew, a good and powerful God, because a good and powerful God would not have let this happen.
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I think of myself as a relaxed atheist. A while back following Britain’s lead, a group have put billboards up around Wellington “There’s probably no God, so Relax and enjoy life.” And I don’t really understand them. Why bother? Is God that big a deal? Is the idea of God stopping people relaxing and enjoying life? I have never had any bad experiences with organised religion myself (and extremely limited experiences of organised religion at all). So this idea that religion is ruining people’s life has little resonance for me.
I also think it’s important to be careful about the politics of atheism, particularly when you live on colonised land. There are atheists who are perfectly happy with focusing their critical anti-spiritual energy on those with least social power.
On the smaller scale, I can see that some religious practices can be a useful to some people. I can see the value of meeting with people every week, of marking seasons (albiet in a topsy turvey way down this part of the world), of doing whatever people do in their religious practices (OK I actually don’t understand organised religion at all, but this means that I have no problem believing that some of it is useful).
I can even believe that sometimes spiritual stuff (lack of knowledge again breeds vagueness) is a good survival strategy for people. My aunt is an alcoholic who has found spiritual practice useful for her. I can see that some spiritual rituals can create space that some people need. I also know that the mind is a powerful thing, and beliefs can give us strengths in all sorts of ways (Dr Ben Goldacre is great for that).
Obviously, I’m aware of the harm that organised religion can do as well: the homophobia, the misogyny and the extortion just for starters. But I don’t see any of those as necessary features of organised religions – just common ones. Most of what happens in the name of religion doesn’t bother me because it happens in the name of religion – most of what happen in the name of religion happens with other justifications – and it bothers me just as much.
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Someone I used to know has turned towards faith of a sort, and wrote about it here in a zine called “Radicle”. This was the passage I couldn’t forget:
Fortunately, the world is not a generally shitty place. There are amazing people, and forces for good deeper than I can make sense of, that often reward our faith. I want to defend faith, define it and make it less threatening, but the whole point that it cannot be fully explained or logically justified. It requires a leap into the unknown
I don’t know if other readers will catch the bit I object to. The bit where I stop being a relaxed atheist and start being an angry materialist atheist.
Betsy (now out of hopsital) ran into Tracey – someone we both went to school with. After that awkward chit-chat with someone you don’t actually know, Betsy turned to leave. Tracey said “can I pray for you?” Betsy said “Uh sure” to facilitate the leaving process.
Tracey grabbed Betsy, would not go, and shouted: “Jesus Christ, please show Betsy your love and strength so she can let you into her heart and you can heal her.”
Forces for good that reward our faith.
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But in content the statements were disturbingly familiar. Each present a view in the world that contains spiritual forces with some kind of agency. There is a huge difference with “faith is often rewarding” (which I don’t disagree with – I would say there is a prima facie case that anything that large numbers of people do on a regular basis is often rewarding in some sense of the world) and “forces for good often reward our faith”. In the second, the forces for good are rewarding faith – therefore they’re not rewarding not faith.** Like Tracey’s God, these forces are selective about what they reward.
But to me the most grotesque idea, in both formulations, is that a God, or spiritual forces, that are so selective in their rewards are good, or loving. The Greek and Roman Gods (as far as I’m familiar with them) with their limited powers, petty feuds, and complete lack of morality – I can actually see them mapping on to the way I understand the world. I can understand appeasing a God, or spiritual forces, that reward faith, but not believing they are good.
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Another friend of mine was thinking about sending her child to Catholic school (she’s not Catholic). She was talking about why she didn’t mind the religion part of Catholic school: “When I went to school there was Religious Education and it terrified me. The God I learned about there was an angry smiting God, and I was scared he was going to smite me. But this is different – they’re all about how God loves you and looks after you.”
And what happens when God doesn’t look after him? Horrible things happen, and a belief in a loving caring God in the face of the world we live in is as scary as a smiting one.
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On the macro level there are reasons why things happen – why some people get cancer and others don’t, and some live in poverty and others don’t. As a historian, nothing interests me more than the reasons things happen.
But on the micro level, that’s not how the world works – there is no answer to why. We can talk about all the explanations that explain the prevalence of say meningitis – poverty, exchange of fluids, age-based vulnerability. But we will always reach the limit to our understanding. A point where the only answer is luck. And at that point we will be unable to answer Why me? Why not her? Why not me? Why him?***
At this point, the point of ignorance, and randomness, some people place an interventionist God or other spiritual power. A God who heals those who believe, or forces that reward faith. This allows them to control the uncontrollable and to give meaning to that which is meaningless.
I understand that urge, and religion is certainly not the only way people in our society try and feel like they can control the uncontrollable. When Rod Donald died a friend said that he found it really scary if Rod Donald, cyclist, Greenie could of a disease that is so often associated with ‘lifestyle’ then anyone could die – which is, of course, the truth.
[name redacted] told NBC television that when the carnage began she shouted at her friend: “We’ve got to get out of here.” But when they started to move she saw people fall around her as the gunman began silently making his way up the aisle, shooting anyone who was trying to escape ahead of him.
“He shot people trying to go out the exits,” she said.At that moment, [name redacted] stared her own imminent death in the face. The shooter came towards her, saying nothing. The barrel of the gun was pointing directly at her face. “I was just a deer in headlights. I didn’t know what to do.”A shot rang out, but it was aimed at the person sitting right behind her. “I have no idea why he didn’t shoot me,” [named redacted] said.Later, when she was safe, [named redacted] told her mother: “Mom, God saved me. God still loves me.”
Religious beliefs that connect luck with morality are so normalised in our society that even their most horrific expressions stand without comment.
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“I’m an athiest.”
“So’s Mum. Mum and Grandma had big argument over religion. Mum asked Grandma what she believed and Grandma said when she’d been little she had been really poor and had no school bag and everyone teased her. So she prayed for a new school bag. And then the next day someone from her church gave her one, so God listened to her prayers. And then Mum said that what about all the other children? why doesn’t God answer their prayers?”
“Yeah, that’s what I would have said”
Then we throw another stick for the dog. Apparently that’s all the questions for today.
* There were two magazines with Cameron Diaz on the cover on the ward that month. Both had the same picture, but her top was a different colour. This was long before features exposing photoshop were common-place and seeing those two photos side by side with a different colour was disconcerting in a world that didn’t feel particularly safe or stable.
## I had a quote from the article here. I’ve removed it as someone pointed out (and I agree) that the I used it was racist in exactly the kind of way I was trying to problematise and avoid.
The common argument for atheism, when looked at from the perspective of a pagan, is… quaint, almost. That’s because, I think, the vast majority of atheists in the western world (if that term is to still have any meaning) are reactionary. Their point of origin was in all likelihood some form of Christianity that left them wanting. So the average atheist’s reasons for rejecting All Theism Everywhere are really just their reasons for rejecting Christianity and the Christian concept of god. And the simple fact that most of these atheists sort of forget that this idea of an omniscient, loving, creator is a pretty alien concept to the old pagan religions.
Your nod to the Hellenic deities was nice, but the use of “evil” as exhibit A in the case against the existence of god is simply laughable. The Christian God, maybe, but not definitely not my gods.
L, you seem to ignore the possibility that some of us atheists did try paganism, only to find it laughable. And you forget that paganism is no different from any other faith in its total failure to present any evidence to back up its grandiose claims.
Even if some religions were “right” about some or all of their holy books and edicts and all that…the fact that it’s pretty universally corrupted into an organ to control other people’s behavior…has me disavow all organized religions.
I still have spiritual beliefs. I believe about karma and not doing harm and how it might/will come back to you, and how good might/will come back to you, except not necessarily in this incarnation. I believe about reincarnation, probably never as the same exact soul (in as much as a soul could be an assembly of many parts, only one of which you keep forever), and the eternal existence of souls (and not at all in physical or spiritual places called Paradise/Heaven or Hell…though if we’re going to philosophize about it, you make your own heaven and your own hell through your actions throughout your eternity – mainly how your soul feels about them – …it just doesn’t have harps and angels, or boiling lava and brimstone).
I guess bringing gods into this is just unnecessary. I’m agnostic, and I believe in a sort of higher power, but not one that is able to make decisions, or even one that created anything.
@Mokele: I never said “all atheists everywhere” did anything. I was simply critiquing a very tired set of arguments constantly being leveled at theism as a whole when it is not by any means relevant to the entirety of religions and spiritualities whatsoever. Contrary to the image that atheists are constantly trying to put forward, it still has its fair share of laziness and ignorance.
If you, personally, have tried a bunch of different things and still found them lacking, then I wasn’t talking to you, was I?
I’m not sure I understand where the OP made that argument for atheism. She didn’t say, “The Christian God doesn’t make sense therefore all religions are wrong.”
It is true that most atheists you run into from Christian countries started on the path of atheism due to rejecting Christianity. That’s a starting point, and a sensible one because Christianity is the religion most of us are raised in. Most of us then go on to realize that magical thinking is all pretty much the same. There’s no evidence of magic or gods, so unless that changes, we declare ourselves atheists. There’s no need to come up with separate arguments for why “paganism” is wrong and Islam is wrong and Buddhism is wrong and Hinduism is wrong and Christianity is wrong and Deism is wrong and “luck” is wrong, and we certainly don’t have to spell them out every time we want to write a blog post about how fucking offensive it is to say that person X lived and person Y died because God was looking out for person X and not person Y.
L – Actually the person who wrote the article I quoted (about forces of good that reward our faith) was deeply influenced by pagan beliefs when I knew them (their beliefs may have changed since then. The idea that good spiritual forces reward people is not limited to Christianity (although I do think that it is an idea that was developed by christians)
My goal wasn’t really to prove atheism (that’s a philosophy exercise not anything else) – my goal was to say “this is when I think atheism matters politically”. I think people’s religious/spiritual beliefs aren’t really my business – unless they uphold unequal power structures. For those who don’t believe what I outline – I’m happy to live and let live.
Schala – Your expression of Karma is exactly the sort of spiritual belief that I think perpetuates oppression. The idea that my friend Betsy, or the woman who was shot in the theatre, or a kid without a backpack – had some kind of karma involved is pretty messed up.
I think that giving spiritual morality and meaning to the luck and unluck that people experience is abhorrent.
Karma also has fundamental flaws in terms of intent and time. If I do something with the best of intentions, but it turns into a colossal cock-up that hurts lots of people, do I get good Karma for my good intentions, or bad for my bad effects? What about the reverse, where I do something evil but accidentally help people (If I run down a random pedestrian out of spite, only for it to turn out he was a serial killer who’d’ve killed dozens more before being caught)? What if the bad effect is purely temporary, and it yields a net benefit over the long term? Or the reverse? Does my Karma account change over time with regards to that action? What if it doesn’t have a good effect until after I’m dead?
To quote Marcus Cole from Babylon 5: ” I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’ So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. “
I pretty much started out an angry materialist atheist and remain one to this day, but that’s largely a result of not having grown up a protected atheist.
I’ve had people that I never talked to in high school come up to me in the years after and admit they didn’t believe in god either, but they knew admitting that would be a social and possibly literal death sentence. (This was a public high school in the late 90’s in Alabama)
I’ve always been an atheist because of the complete and utter lack of evidence for religion, which applies evenly across all religions. None have any more evidence than any other. No other argument is needed, as far as I’m concerned.
Am I above saying I might have done something shitty 200 years ago in another life? Can’t say, I don’t remember it.
However, I don’t think all that happens “is deserved”, as apparently some people think. Who am I to say that being trans is even a punishment or a reward anyways? Its difficult circumstances, not necessarily bad ones – though it sure isn’t normative.
I do good, because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t do bad, because it’s the right thing to do. Not because I could be rewarded or punished some day.
I’m far from believing the world is a just place to be. Heck, the top-people who have the most power typically are rewarded disproportionately for being aggressive step-on-everyone-else-toes leaders, who give in to the rich people’s demands (through corruption and lowered income taxes, lack of prosecution of tax evasion), while screwing up the poor, with the reasoning that they don’t pay enough to be helped (or helped more, in places they are helped) – while, even with working, they tend to have shitty wages and extras like insurances, if any at all…and that’s in the first world.
Empathy is a liability for people on top. What a good world to be in, no?
@Denise: Thank you for putting words in my mouth. I never said there weren’t good reasons for disbelief, I simply said there are bad reasons. And–for the third time–pointing to “evil” as primary evidence against the existence of any higher power is absolutely ludicrous. In my tradition, all the gods are good /and/ evil– though mostly indifferent, because the forces of nature are indifferent. It really is that simple. Not sure why you’re turning this into more than it is.
@Maia: Then you and I mostly agree. I think achieving that goal is something that definitely requires the help of interfaith work… and yes, that means atheists having open (and respectful!) discussions with theists. Just like discussions should happen along all other socio-political axes between disparate groups. Dismantling power structures doesn’t mean shaming and belittling spirituality altogether, just like how it doesn’t mean dismantling the concept of gender, the concept of borders and countries, and everything else that might fit with the lyrics of Imagine. (God I hate that song.)
L,
I think the reason you’re feeling like people are putting words into your mouth or, at the very least, misinterpreting what you posted is because you wrote:
“The common argument for atheism, when looked at from the perspective of a pagan, is… quaint, almost. That’s because, I think, the vast majority of atheists in the western world (if that term is to still have any meaning) are reactionary.”
When you use phrases like “the common argument for” and “the vast majority” you set yourself up for others calling out the assumptions you’re making about that specific group. The common argument for atheism is that there is no evidence for the existence of god or gods, and there’s nothing at all reactionary about it. So right away you simultaneously set yourself up as an authority and reveal that you don’t really understand the subject upon which you are commenting. That’s going to rub people the wrong way.
Perhaps you were not trying to make any statements about atheists as a whole. Perhaps you were only talking about a few atheists that you know. That would be cool if not for the fact that you qualify your statements by referring to “most atheists” and then ascribe to them qualities that don’t fit most atheists.
To give another bit of anecdata, despite growing up in majority nominal-Christian countries (UK and Canada), my parents’ having had different faiths in a very turbulent sectarian time in the UK led them to eschew ANY religion for my sister and I. We were each allowed to attend any faith we wanted; I tried a couple, but found it dull and silly, and stopped trying. My sister tried for longer, but also gave up eventually.
Neither of us is atheist as a reaction against anything; we were raised that way, though by choice in each of our cases.
More than most raised by religious folks can say, we had a choice.
By no means are all, or even most, atheists atheists because of active rejection of a or some religion(s). This is a common theist belief, but is not supported by any particular evidence; it fits comfortably with a belief that we are all innately spiritual. Many of us simply reject religion/spirituality as a concept.
I’m sorry to disturb the conversation, but the link to the Douglas Adams article is wonky.
Now I’m off to read the comments in earnest and resume thinking things over.
Hmmmm, I sometimes think the only real insight I’ve had in my life is that almost any good idea can be taken too far.
“I think that giving spiritual morality and meaning to the luck and unluck that people experience is abhorrent.”
The funny thing is that I normally find myself on your side of the debate (like when the horrific “Secret” book was making the rounds at my work). But when you put it like that I think you’re taking it too far. Isn’t it possible that there is an idea of karma or putting good things out and getting good things back that is real, but that doesn’t rule *every possible event* in one’s life?
I think it is possible to believe in the truth (?) that having a good attitude in response to adversity makes you better able to adapt, and that putting good stuff out there lets you have good opportunities that might not be available otherwise, AND that if you were like that and Jewish in Nazi Germany you still might end up getting killed in a concentration camp AND that you didn’t deserve it. The problem isn’t that any of those things aren’t true, but rather that none of those modes of analysis completely control every situation.
You can believe in karmic resonances or whatever you want to call them, but still believe that because of the strong pull of the stream of history that you’re living in, a good black person in 1870 is going to have a harder time than a bad white person.
It is only when you try to totalize insights that they get ugly. Libertarian and socialist insights are good too, and when people try to totalize them things get ugly fast.
Now I don’t think for a minute that this is a slam dunk defense of any particular belief. I’m not saying that you have to buy into it. I’m just saying that noticing something is silly when people take it as the only important truth isn’t the same thing as saying that it is silly when balanced with lots of important truths.
The entire concept of religion is just “people arguing about which set of made-up shit is right.”
Atheism doesn’t require any Christianity. It only requires an ability to observe and distinguish between real and not-real.
There’s not always a “respectful” way to discourse with theists, because many atheists, at heart, believe that theism is not materially distinguishable from a belief in unicorns and flower fairies: cute in children, and off-putting in adults.
As opposed to interfaith discussions where both sides, at heart, believe that the other person is committing blashpemy or worse? (Not saying that’s true of all interfaith pairings, of course. Just pointing out that the barrier isn’t necessarily lower there).
I’m not an atheist, but because I believe that morality is a social construct and does not derive (nor should it be tied to) any supernatural/spiritual origin, I tend to have more in common with atheists than with most theists and spiritualists that I talk to. I find my ability to be respectful to people depends more on whether I make an effort to be respectful to them, rather than on whether I find them off-putting.
There’s not always a “respectful” way to discourse with theists
There is always a respectful way to discourse with anyone who is willing to engage in mutuality; respect one another, then discourse. Done!
What you mean is, there is not always a “respectful” way to discourse with [X], while simultaneously holding the views of X as being contemptible and stupid.
Whereas if you start from a position of granting respect, then that holding cannot take place or must at the least be put in abeyance.
Parallel (and true) example: I am inclined to think that socialistic economic ideas are stupid. I also respect Ampersand.
For Ampersand and I to have a discourse in mutual respect, I cannot both respect Ampersand and automatically dismiss his ideas as contemptible and stupid. I am obliged, by my respect for him, to think “well, I don’t see how this could possibly work or be true. But good old Ampersand does. So rather than dismiss his ideas out of hand, I shall engage with him, question his premises, and attempt to expand my own understanding of what HIS understanding is. And then perhaps I will be in a better position to analyze.”
I was raised by atheists, who were themselves raised by atheists. My father’s mother was also an atheist, as was her mother. I’m not saying this to try and show off how I’m more atheist-than-thou, I’m trying to show that atheism not only doesn’t necessarily come from rejecting a religious upbringing, sometimes it’s the exact opposite.
Robert: I stifle my disrespect all the time, but it’s hard or impossible with theists. After all, the discourse you talk of is one that contains some logic: “question premises” and “analyze” and all that. Theism is, by definition, not subject to that. If I smile and take a deep breath and start questioning premises, it’s not as if I’ll get a reasoned answer; I just get more made-up shit. Dig as deep as you want; talk to the people who are most knowledgeable… it’s still made up.
To take your lingo:
Am I obliged, by my respect for Tom Theist, to think “well, I don’t see how this could possibly work or be true. But good old Tom does. So rather than dismiss his ideas out of hand, I shall engage with him, question his premises, and attempt to expand my own understanding of what HIS understanding is. And then perhaps I will be in a better position to analyze.”
I don’t see how I can hold that obligation, unless I’m prepared–in theory–to acknowledge that made-up shit is equivalent to reality. Oh, perhaps I’m obliged to give Tom the occasional benefit of the doubt and confirm that he’s actually arguing about made-up shit and that he doesn’t have reality-based arguments. But that’s a quick threshold.
I’d be more than happy to be convinced of the existence of one or more gods, unicorns, angels, or little green Martians. But I’m not willing to put aside the value of reality in the convincing process. Even as a gesture of respect that’s asking too much. Theists have no right to demand that of me, or anyone.
If I smile and take a deep breath and start questioning premises, it’s not as if I’ll get a reasoned answer; I just get more made-up shit. Dig as deep as you want; talk to the people who are most knowledgeable… it’s still made up.
Or, as it has been memorably put: it’s turtles all the way down.
Theism is, by definition, not subject to that.
Certainly, by referring to any non-atheistic belief as “theism” you beg the question in that regard, assuming that belief in the existence of (a) supernatural being(s) is not only central, but indispensable, and not subject to discussion any further. But if your goal is to shortcut all that boring discussion bullshit and cut directly to “I’m right and you’re a deluded idiot” it’s certainly handy.
I find the comments about “made-up shit” very weird. Laws are made-up shit, but nobody argues that only a fool would try to adhere to the principles set forth in the Constitution because it’s made-up shit. Nobody says it’s a waste of time to discuss Shakespeare or Harry Potter or graphic novels because they’re made-up shit.
And I know, you’re about to say “But nobody believes those are true!” Actually, there are rather a lot of people who talk about Natural Law or the inherent Rights of Man (re the Constitution), or who believe Faerie exists. (There are far fewer who believe wizards and magic are real, of course, but then HP is recent.)
Sure. Like most students I’ve taken Comparative Religion class, and studied the Bible. There’s plenty to talk about w/r/t religion so long as you stay on the playing field.
The issue of “why do adherents of your religion believe that they are obligated to avoid consumption of ____?” can be explained without leaving the field. The “why do you believe that?” isn’t dependent on them being right.
The issue of “why should people in general avoid consumption of ___?” is different: it contains both the on-field question and the greater “is your religion right?” question.
I wasn’t. but i’ll say that if you want…
Yes. And just as w/r/t religion, they are equally deserving of our universal contempt, in the appropriate context.
@Bear: Unless you can provide solid data that contradicts my anecdotal evidence, then you’re going to have to take my “many”s and “majority”s for what they are: accurate approximations based on the reality of my interactions and exposure to atheists.
@Hugh: I imagine you’re an interesting exception to the rule, but does anyone know if there are statistics out there that might point to how many people there are in the different generations of atheists in the US? I think third and fourth gens are probably going to be very rare.
@gin-and-whisky: You’re an adorable creature the likes of which I’m just going to have to lump in with the rest of the most acrid religious fundamentalists. I cannot have any kind of discourse with someone that has no respect for me as a human being.
I don’t see how I can hold that obligation, unless I’m prepared–in theory–to acknowledge that made-up shit is equivalent to reality…I’d be more than happy to be convinced of the existence of one or more gods, unicorns, angels, or little green Martians. But I’m not willing to put aside the value of reality in the convincing process.
What empirical evidence existing outside of your own conceptions, perceptions, and intuition do you have that you have a comprehensive or accurate understanding of reality?
What empirical evidence existing outside etc. do you have for believing that your sensory and analytical apparatus (which are all biological structures) are equipped to accurately measure/perceive/track gods, unicorns, etc.? In your answer to this one, you will want to reconcile the explanation with the proven scientific fact that much of what we perceive is not “real”, it is added by the brain as an enhancement of what our senses provide. (Things in your peripheral vision, for example, are usually brain-imposed HUD-type information, rather than actual tracked photons across the retina.)
What empirical evidence do you have that the apparently well-defined and to-be-vigorously-relied-upon “reality” which you assert exists, exists? (That you perceive it? I perceive that Jesus loves me. But Jesus, pace G&W, is made-up shit. So why isn’t your perceived reality made-up shit?)
What empirical evidence do you have that an obviously extremely limited, biology and physics-based, self-evidently fallible cognitive and sensory apparatus is competent to collect data about “reality” (whatever that is) in a way which permits accurate conclusions about the *nature* of that reality to be drawn? (About how it works, I know there’s evidence. Trees fall, gravity pulls, spheres orbit. Not the how; the what.)
I’m not going to get into the weeds with you on this one, because I’ve never seen anyone have any kind of successful discourse with a person holding your sophomore-philosophy-major version of atheist about this kind of question. But I’m hoping the questions I raise for you, if not answered with sophistry, might lead you to understand the profound variance between the level of your understanding and your perception of its level. You’re a guy standing on top of the tallest pine tree which grows at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, yelling “top of the world”!
I’m not significantly higher than you in any sense, but apparently enough pine cones have fallen onto my head from the mysterious Above that I’ve grown dimly aware that there’s more Up to be found.
L, the problem isn’t one of statistics (purely on demographic grounds, I suspect most US atheists are indeed former Christians), it’s a problem of you stereotyping a group and willfully ignoring the numerous personal examples given that contradict your generalizations. Not all atheists are “reactionary”, and the perception of us as such is purely one of bias – our society treats religion as the default and it permeates much of society, so those who do not believe, regardless of philosophical or psychological motives, wind up being seen by those in the majority as “reactionary” simply because we don’t buy into something that’s both common and deeply-held.
Frankly, your comment is no different than dismissing gay folks as “reactionaries” who’re just rebelling against the heterosexual default. Merely by existing, a minority can challenge the assumptions of society, and in doing so be branded as “reactionary”. Look at what the folks currently branded as “extremist atheists” have done to earn this title – write blogs, write books, give talks, say mean things, and maybe even start some 1st amendment lawsuits. Compared to the actions necessary to get one branded “an extremist (insert faith here)”, that’s pathetically mild. But the threshold is lower for us because we challenge the universal assumption that *everyone* believes in something supernatural/mystical/etc. There’s a reason we’re the most hated group in the US.
Additionally, your condescending tone (evident in all of your posts, but especially the first and latest) is not appreciated, even when I agree with your POV (as in your last comment to G&W).
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Robert, the thing is that while that concept is useful for knocking people off their high horse (as in G&W), it doesn’t actually lead anywhere interesting.
If we cannot trust anything we perceive, we have no knowledge at all, since even the laws of deductive reasoning were produced by inductive processes (we noticed that if A=B and B=C, then A would always equal C, thus defined it as law). While philosophically valid, it doesn’t actually lead to any sort of understanding other than a level of humility, and thus isn’t useful in any real way.
Given what you’ve said, the only thing to do is tentative accept the input of our senses, while always trying to verify that input by alternative means (literal or cognitive tools, etc.), eventually constructing a worldview based on repeated, careful observation and continuous revision – aka science.
The barrier between “supernatural” and “natural” is illusory – anything that affects the physical world is, by necessity, natural, and anything which does not is irrelevant. If gods exist and they interact with the natural world (as all religions postulate in some form), their effects should be detectable and their existence eventually uncovered (though this may be very difficult to do, much as we have a poor understanding of ball lightning since it’s so rare and cannot be created in the lab yet). If gods exist but do not interact with the natural world, their existence is a moot point.
I’m not saying “science disproves god” or anything so assinine, just that demands for empirical evidence are not out of line.
This sort of discussion always ends up reminding me of an argument my mother and I have been having since I was about two years old. I don’t like the color pink. I also don’t like a lot of traditionally girly things, like makeup and fancy clothes, but I don’t think this has anything to do with me not liking pink, since I do like plenty of other girly things, like crafts and cooking and dolls. Anyway, my mother thinks that, with my hair and skin coloring, I look really good in pink, and she’s always been disappointed that I wouldn’t wear it. She’d try to argue that pink things don’t HAVE to be girly, and that it’s fine to wear girly stuff sometimes, since I am a girl, but I wouldn’t have any of it. I didn’t like pink, and that was that.
Fast forward many years. I’m about 25 or so. We’re browsing around a store. I notice a display of those pewter comb and mirror sets, with some inlaid fake jewels. The one with purple jewels looks pretty, and I pick it up to look at it, saying, “oooh.” Then I notice the one with green jewels, and that’s even prettier, so I put down the purple one and pick up the green one, and say, “Ooooh, that’s pretty.” My mother, who I hadn’t noticed behind me, says, somewhat bewildered, “You really don’t like pink, do you?” See, there was also a set with pink jewels, and I had completely ignored it. She couldn’t say that I was ignoring it because I didn’t like girly things, because these things in any color were totally girly. But she was right — the green and the purple had caught my eye and drawn me to take a closer look, while the pink hadn’t caught my eye at all, because I just don’t like the color.
Trying to explain why I believe in G-d feels a lot like trying to explain why I like green and not pink. Looking at green things makes me want to take a closer look, and decorating with green things or wearing green clothes feels right to me. Looking at pink things makes me think “ick” and want to pull away, and decorated with or wearing pink things feels totally wrong. And I can’t explain it any better than “It feels right” and “It feels wrong.” Looking around, experiencing the world, and thinking “There is a G-d,” feels right to me. Looking around, experiencing the world, and thinking “There is no G-d” feels wrong and icky and makes me want to pull away from the thought. And me trying to convince someone that they should feel the way I do, or someone trying to convince me that I should feel differently, seems as pointless as my mother and me arguing about the merits of the color pink. (Most recently, she was horrified when I said that, if I have a baby daughter, I would not dress her in pink, for what seemed to me to be the perfectly logical reason that looking at pink makes me think “ick,” and I don’t want to look at my baby and think “ick.”)
I think there’s only one good argument for theism left.
gin-and-whiskey @25: Not really sure what you mean by ‘playing off the field’ with that example. Really, I get that you think the choice is “atheist” or “deluded fucking Cro-Magnon”, but it is possible for people who follow a particular religion to believe things for more than one reason. (For example, that murder is wrong because it takes life from another person and because God forbids it.) It’s also possible for religious people to believe that their religion’s rules apply to them and not others, or apply in certain situations and not others, or that following those rules is between them and their god(s), not something for co-religionists to force compliance.
On the issue of reactionary atheism: Every philosophy, every belief system has adherents who got there out of a rejection of an opposing framework, and very often those people are quite loud and angry in that rejection. It would be astonishing if atheism was the exception to this (and it isn’t) – particularly, as the atheists here have taken pains to note, how pervasive religion is in most people’s culture. And of course reactionary beliefs (of whatever nature) tend to be dogmatic and shallow, precisely because they’re adopted in a reactionary fashion.
Mythago, I disagree that reactionary beliefs tend to be more dogmatic and shallow than any other beliefs. You might as well argue that since the French revolution was a reaction to the monarchy, Liberte Egalite Fraternite is dogmatic and shallow.
So, let’s see:
Mythago: broad generalization qualified with the phrase “tend to”.
John: that isn’t true! I note this specific counterexample where it is NOT true!
John, I think your grasp on the meaning of “tend to” may be a bit shaky.
Grace
John, you don’t think that supporters of the Terror were dogmatic, or that the effort to create a new, weird ‘religion of reason’ was shallow?
I’m capable–as are you–of having a discussion with pre-arranged boundary lines. That’s the field of play.
One can have a discussion regarding “what does the Talmud imply regarding kashrut?” or “is the proper translation of Jesus’ birth include Mary being a “virgin” or a “young girl?” without reaching a conclusion that the Talmud or New Testament are made-up shit, or not.
I don’t think that religious folks are deluded Cro-Magnons.
I just think that when Ruchama says Looking around, experiencing the world, and thinking “There is a G-d,” feels right to me. it should be treated precisely in the same manner as if Ruchama said Looking around, experiencing the world, and thinking “we are surrounded by shape changing human-appearing interbreeding aliens who are taking over the planet” feels right to me.
ETA: I realize that conflating those two seems intellectually offensive to people who believe in God but not aliens. I’m actually sorry about that. But differentiating those two is also intellectually offensive to people like me.
Of course. I believe all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons.
Sure. I distinguish between “we are surrounded by little green invisible aliens” and “we are surrounded by little green invisible aliens and therefore you must ____.” The second one is worse.
Arguably the first one doesn’t always matter at all. If I believed in little green aliens and never mentioned it in my post, you might not care. But if it started coming up in conversation it might be relevant. And if you had cause to think that my positions were influenced by the aliens–most little green aliens are pro-patriarchy, or so I have heard–then it might also be relevant, yes?
I don’t think that religious folks are deluded Cro-Magnons.
Well, you can probably come up with whatever equally colorful metaphor you wish to express your contempt; you don’t have to use mine.
I mean, look at your comparison to Ruchama; you didn’t simply compare belief in a God to belief in invisible aliens, but went on to add “who are taking over the world”. That’s not parallel; it’s an extra factor that implies there’s a threat, an urgency, a need for action not simply by alien-believers but by everyone. That might be a sensible comparison to someone who, say, expresses the belief ‘I believe Jesus is Lord and He will bring the Rapture soon’. As you present it, it’s just an inflammatory dig at Ruchama, but I’m sure you knew that.
@Grace, it’s not even a broad generalization in the sense that I’m not labeling anyone who has ever rejected a prior, opposing belief system as “reactionary”. Deciding that the religion one was raised in makes no sense, and that atheism makes sense, is not in itself “reactionary”. What is reactionary is rejecting belief system X and adopting an opposing system precisely because it is not-X rather than on its own merits.
OT – I feel compelled to point out that “Cro-Magnons” refers to the earliest anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens in Europe, with recent genetic work confirming they were, in fact, modern humans.
Referring to a person or group as “Cro-Magnon(s)” is an extreme form of calling them their own grandfather – nonsensical, inaccurate, and only really effective as an insult if the person doesn’t actually understand human origins.
Mokele, I feel compelled to point out that colloqualisms and insults are sometimes, perhaps even usually, not strictly and scientifically accurate. We don’t puzzle over the fact that “go fuck yourself” is, strictly speaking, ordering someone to engage in an act that is improbably if not impossible, and most people would understand that this is an expression of hostility rather than a literal instruction to perform some kind of penetrative masturbatory activity. Someone who says “that guy is a moron” is not, we presume, assuring us that That Guy literally has a mental age of a preadolescent child.
Similarly, people who are not painfully literal-minded and/or trying to pretend they’re doing something other than making passive-aggressive remarks probably understand that “Cro-Magnon”, like “Neanderthal” or “from the Dark Ages”, is not meant to precisely describe the exact characteristics of a given evolutionary stage or era, but is meant to say that the subject is antiquated, obsolete and has not caught up with the modern state of things.
L:
Nobody has to provide you with any “solid data” to expect you to have a conversation that is not filled with condescension and unfair assumptions of what positions atheists actually hold. As you yourself said, “I cannot have any kind of discourse with someone that has no respect for me as a human being.” It is time for you to put up or shut up and provide the same respect for atheists as you expect from them.
That’s something that infuriates me. Conservative governments and the neoliberal private school system here in Australia have colluded to push the idea that the public system is broken, failing, and generally makes you associate with icky people. In the popular imagination in the suburbs where we live, Catholic schools are more affordable than public schools but have Discipline!. and Uniforms!. and aren’t, you know, public! So you get all these parents kind of pretending to be Catholic when they aren’t. My own in laws did this b/c they couldn’t afford the more privileged Girls Grammar type of school which they would really have preferred. It disgusts me, really. [/OT]
“@Hugh: I imagine you’re an interesting exception to the rule, but does anyone know if there are statistics out there that might point to how many people there are in the different generations of atheists in the US? I think third and fourth gens are probably going to be very rare.”
Glad you find my lived experience “interesting”.
I’m not in the US.
Bear @36: Does that mean you believe gin-and-whiskey is incorrect in saying atheists understandably needn’t show respect to non-atheists?
From a theological point of view, there are religious people who believe that you aren’t rewarded for your faith. They believe in free will and see God as distant. I can’t remember the title, but I read a book about religion in America that classified religious beliefs in various ways and one was whether or not someone saw God as personal or distant.
On a purely practical level, I remember that a study found that you are better off (happier or healthier) if you pray, but not prayers to get things.
Anyhow, you can be a theist and believe that God is not going to reward you for your prayers.
My thinking is that parent has to let their children grow up and control their own actions. When they do, they can make the wrong decisions. God could either control us all so that we would never really grow up or we end up with a world where sometimes people do evil things, maybe horrifically evil.
mythago at #39: Sorry I completely missed this. I think both atheists and theists have a responsibility to show the respect they wish to receive. Both groups are, at times, lacking.