Andrew writes:
The idea of an atheist ‘movement’ “on the march” is not, I confess, something that fills me with great joy.
Especially when its leaders march under such idiotic banners as the British bus ads: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
What genius came up with this copy? It is stupid on several fronts.
First, it associates non-belief with hedonism, a misperception spread by believers such as Michael Novak:
Think of the burdens that slide off one’s shoulders just by becoming an atheist. It’s a helluva temptation.
None of the moral challenges that confront us—how to be tolerant and generous; how to fulfill our duties towards our parents; how to balance the responsibilities of work with those owed to our families or community—lessen with the disappearance of God. These are human dilemmas, answered always by human judgment, even when we ventriloquize our answers into a supervening God.
The bus ads suggest a utilitarian reason for skepticism: you’ll enjoy life more. The only touchstone that I can possibly imagine for deciding whether or not to adopt any particular belief is its truth, in this case: Does the evidence of human experience support the claim that we are attended to by a loving, personal God? Even if the conclusion that we have no “Friend” in the sky leads inevitably to melancholy or dissatisfaction, it is better to live unhappily in truth than happily in delusion, in my view. (As I have written before, however, I am puzzled by the claim that life would be meaningless without God. Schubert wrote some 600 songs, nearly every one of them a gem of lethal beauty and exquisiteness. You want something more?)
(The societal question is perhaps more complicated: if religious belief has irreplaceable utility on a societal level, but is nevertheless false, are we then to recommend it to others even though we as individuals cannot subscribe to it?)
If today’s believers are going around wracked with Calvinist worry over the ultimate fate of their souls, they are sure hiding it well. If anything, God today seems to provide a refuge from worry. Maybe there’s still a lot of terrifying fire and brimstone in America’s churches, but it is at least no longer eliciting the tortured illogic of predestination doctrine to reconcile believers to their own responsibility for a fate wholly outside their control.
I think any kind of “atheist” movement is quite silly. The concept of “atheism”, which I identify with, is non-theism. In other words, a non-movement. I quit religion because I do not want to be a part of anyone elses movement, not to join another movement.
I think most “atheists” would agree with me here.
Getting atheists to join a movement, is a bit like herding cats, kurt9.
Heather,
Schubert wrote some 600 songs, nearly every one of them a gem of lethal beauty and exquisiteness. You want something more?
Yes, Georg Friedrich Händel
Ms. Mac Donald, the person who came up with the copy on the UK atheist bus ads was Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer who wrote a comment piece for the Guardian’s CIF (Comment Is Free) web section.
http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/faq
I don’t know why you didn’t take the extra 30 seconds to do a web search and find this information yourself.
There has been quite a lot of worldwide press coverage as atheist groups around the world have started similar campaigns (and, not incidentally, uncovering an alarming number of cases of official government discrimination against atheists airing their views, which may turn into lawsuits to protect the rights of atheists). You could have found this out by a simple web search, too.
But you know, Ms. Mac Donald, you are the type of atheist I could do without. You criticize atheists who are actually doing things to advance the rights of atheists, and you deliberately write out of ignorance instead of doing even minimal research on a subject.
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>are we then to recommend it to others even though we as individuals cannot subscribe to it?
No. We are to resign ourselves to the apparent reality that only those civilizations that can inspire their intellectual elites to actually believe in the religious mumbo-jumbo will continue to exist for any length of time.
Atheism seems to make people not want to have 2.1 babies per female. And it is thus, within any given community, tribe, culture or nation, a self correcting problem.
I don’t like it any more than you do.
Agreed that it’s a stupid atheist movement, like every other atheist movement I’ve seen.
Here are some more examples:
The key word here, I guess, is “us.” “Us” is apparently not confronted with certain specific moral challenges: to refrain from sex outside of marriage, to remember and keep the Sabbath, to love your enemy, to maintain a strict vegetarian diet, to fulfill your sacred obligation of jihad, etc.; all depending on the particular religion, of course. If “us” adheres to one of the modern liberal God-wants-whatever-you-want religions which you later alluded to, then sure, none of these apply. But Novak apparently wasn’t talking about those.
Another example:
Well, yes, religious people, like the rest of us, do want a lot more. They want some meaning for their child’s accidental death, or for the prosperity and happiness of the crook who cheated them, etc. They get some satisfaction just from knowing that there is some meaning, without knowing what it is.
Let’s take one more example:
Now, there’s one atheist whom people on this site do their utmost to ignore or escape, and that’s Friedrich Nietzsche. He had some things to say about this unquestioning attitude towards truth by “freethinkers” like those who post to this site. (Sorry for the sneer quotes; their Nietzsche’s, not mine.) There are lots of possible reasons to try to believe something which you don’t think is true. See above, for instance.
It might be interesting to see some real questioning on this site, along with all the cheer-leading for atheism. Till then, it’s just “freethinkers.”
Saying that being religious means you don’t enjoy life is one interpretation of that statement. But it’s not the one I came to.
I actually liked it. It’s a statement apart from what you might get from Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher, who seek to ridicule believers. I’ve even seen it described as somewhat agnostic, though I’m not sure about that. But it does take a non-combative attitude, which is what I liked about it.
I don’t know about groups or movements but, it seems an atheist movement ia similiar to the concept of “rules for anarchists.”
Einstein was once asked about black holes – he said “black holes are where god divided by zero.”
My opinion is that it takes as much faith to be a comitted atheist as it does to be a committed believer.
Voltaire said that “doubt is uncomfortable, cetainty is ridiculous.”
From my life experience, the only intellectually honest answer to the existential question is “I don’t know. Don’t have a clue.”
My opinion is that it takes as much faith to be a comitted atheist as it does to be a committed believer.
…
From my life experience, the only intellectually honest answer to the existential question is “I don’t know. Don’t have a clue.”
I think that most people who one might describe as a “committed atheist” are, in fact, actually agnostic. Take Dawkins for example.
I think any kind of “atheist” movement is quite silly. The concept of “atheism”, which I identify with, is non-theism. In other words, a non-movement. I quit religion because I do not want to be a part of anyone elses movement, not to join another movement.
I think most “atheists” would agree with me here.
I wouldn’t. I see no conflict between atheism and a movement (which, after all, is nothing more than the social action of a group.) The objection I have to theism is to its factual claims, not the fact that it is has a social organization. And, indeed, nothing requires that the atheist movement to be organized or hierarchical. The movement could consist of a group of independently-acting atheists working to spread the word that atheism is a true, functional, moral and satisfying way of life, in the way those individual atheists are capable of doing. Some write best-selling books. Others post light-hearted signs on busses. And others comment on blogs. Everyone has a role in the movement.
You are probably puzzled by the claim of meaninglessness without God because you have never sincerely thought about it. The very idea of meaning itself is a transcendent notion. It ascribes some supernatural quality to something that is apparently only material. If atheism is true, then the universe is made up merely of matter, space-time, and energy. We, as humans, are obviously part of the universe, so we simply cannot be anything more than those things either. We therefore cannot judge that something should be other than it is. This is not to say that an atheist cannot live morally, but, if he chooses to, he certainly is not living consistently.
It is obvious that your attempts at being both moral and an atheist are symptoms of living in a post-Christian civilization such as ours. You do not yet see that that theology and morality cannot be separated. Most people, however, do see this at least implicitly. This is the reason for the bus ad. We still think it is sensible to espouse the loftiest claims of morality while simultaneously laughing away their only real source.
Edward, the twelfth century called, it wants its philosophy back.
First, the meaning life has is that which we choose to give it. You choose to give meaning to your life by serving a fictional character. Others don’t.
Second, to say that an atheist cannot live morally and consistently is one part bigotry and one part ignorance. The assertions you make have been refuted in so many places and in so many different forms that you are either purposefully ignorant of those reasons or discount them without reason solely to reinforce your prejudice. Which is it?
Am I the only one who is getting the distinct impression that a bunch of Christian theologians are specifically targeting this Secular Right website for harassment?
Or is it part of a general ignorance of Darwinian social theory?
I am so glad I have found this site. Finally, someone who knows the Truth.
Oh, but wait, don’t those other guys know the Truth also?
>Am I the only one who is getting the distinct impression that a bunch of Christian theologians are specifically targeting this Secular Right website…
The mix of comments and commenters here changes a lot from week to week. Recently, Heather had a much-read post which was widely interpreted as a specific request for religious believers to explain their views, and which was linked by and for many unbelievers as well. So as not to seem churlish or inhospitable after such an overture, and to give newcomers a chance to have their say (and because the sheer volume of comments started getting hard to review), I think the site tended to relax some of its earlier efforts to discourage pointless and repetitive discussion (and, alas, incivility on both sides as well). This would make a good moment for posters of all views to reflect, before adding to threads: 1) has the point been made already? 2) could it be made more politely and respectfully?
And thus I have been refuted by a man who offered no argument whatsoever. I do not hate atheists. In fact, many are my friends. I would just like to submit that it is not I, the theist, who is asserting claims predicated upon nothing more than the chronological snobbery of modern man. This poster said that the only thing that matters about a claim when deciding to believe it is its truth. Maybe you should listen to her. Whether something was said in the twelfth century or the twenty-first has no bearing upon its truth value.
When you say that the meaning of life is that which we choose to give to it, you are making a metaphysical claim that needs justification. I obviously do not believe that, and you have given no rational explanation of your existentialism. In fact, you are proving my point. Only something with intellect and will can ascribe meaning to something, the universe cannot. The very concept of meaning transcends the physical universe in which you live.
Finally, the only reason I ever posted on this site to begin with is to assert that there is nothing conservative or “right” about secularism or atheism. This site espouses liberalism and nothing but.
Edward, If you say that atheists have no basis for moral behaviour.
What about the work of Robert Axelrod? All the studies in co-operative behaviour? Games theory? The entire body of sociobiology?
Even the economic arguments? The comparative advantage of trade leads you to co-operative behaviour. And trade can be in all sorts of things not just goods. Services of all kinds.
Genes are selfish. People are not. Darwinism can explain that.
And once you have even the most elementary social and cooperative behaviours, some people at least are going to start developing moral philosophies based on that.
It doesn’t have to be religion at the foundation. Societies will evolve in their theoretical understanding of moral behaviour. They generalise from the elementary structures that arise spontaneously.
I think that there is a difference between explaining moral behavior and justifying moral behavior. A man may say that he steals because he wants something for himself. Is he therefore right to steal something because he wants it? Most people would say no, but they would not grant that he is wrong when he says that he is stealing because of his desire to possess. Descriptions of human behavior cannot intrinsically lead to normative, meaning prescriptive, judgments of behavior.
The question, then, becomes not whether a mother’s love for her child, for instance, is grounded in biology, but whether it is in fact real. If it is merely biological impulse then I do not see how you can say that a mother ‘should’ love her child. All you can say is that most do.
Whether something was said in the twelfth century or the twenty-first has no bearing upon its truth value.
The deepest problem with 12th century thought is that it has no conception of Man or Human Society, as an evolving system.
That is why modern minds have such trouble taking it seriously. It is pre-evolutionary thought.
The point of moral philosophy, though, is to say that some actions are more preferable than others. What you are essentially saying, though, in your explanations of moral development is that all morality is actually false.
All of human history tells us that man and human society is not, fundamentally, an evolving system. Things are not always improving, humans are perennially flawed beings. You are projecting a narrative upon history that neither is nor was ever actually there.
The question, then, becomes not whether a mother’s love for her child, for instance, is grounded in biology, but whether it is in fact real. If it is merely biological impulse then I do not see how you can say that a mother ’should’ love her child. All you can say is that most do.
Merely biological impulse Edward? There is nothing in your entire brain that is not merely biological impulse.
Edward, I guess my biggest problem with that view is that I don’t see how moral justification is supposed to automatically flow from God. Perhaps we do have infallible access to a God-given absolute moral law. Why ought we to follow that? Why is God-given moral law any more of a proper basis for morality than the axioms of utilitarianism? I think it’s a worthwhile point that atheists have to struggle to justify, rather than to just describe, things they like, but so do theists – theists just sweep the difficulty under the rug and say that, well, of course we ought to do what God says. I’d almost say that they’re only able to do this because of a sort of ‘chronological snobbery’; it’s taken for granted at this point that theism can ground things like morality and truth only because theism has long been thought to do just that.
You can’t have a moral reason outside of yourself for adopting a code of morality. That decision is necessarily subjective.
So then it is settled. Morality does not exist. I have nothing to which I can appeal in order to justify why one behavior is better than another. But a question: How do you know that what you think is true if it is ‘merely’ biological impulse? Truth or falsity is not inherent in physical things. In other words, your biological impulses are responsible for your idea that man is nothing but a set of biological impulses. Hoe then, do you know this to be true?
Gotchaye
I would politely suggest that you are using a straw man argument. There are indeed many theists who resort to some sort of theory of divine command, Islam, for example. Christianity, though, does not. It teaches that God is the Word, the Logos, rationality itself. He is, so to speak, the author of human nature. God is not arbitrarily commanding man to behave in a certain way. There is a discrepancy between what man is and what he should be. This is what Christianity refers to as sin.
An aside: One of my favorite refutations of the idea that what is good is simply what God commands is in Plato’s Euthyphro.
No Edward. You must prove the existence of your spooks.
Nature is here. I see it every day.
Daniel, I think it is clear that you have not taken my argument seriously. I said nothing of God in my response. I asked how you justify distinguishing between true and false when you yourself admitted that our brains do not serve such a purpose. An organ, however complex, cannot detect properties that are not present in nature such as validity and falsity.
I am not returning to this website.
To call this Secular Right is a joke.
I do not mean to ruin anyone’s fun. I shall respectfully leave. It has been a good dialectic, though.
Edward, that’s fine, but there’s still a question of how we’re supposed to draw meaning from that. So now we’ve got a big metaphysical framework for defining truth. So what? Even granting that theism coherently posits something that can be meaningful, how can we subjectively take meaning from it? To draw on Nietzsche, as someone did earlier in the thread, what’s the value of truth or morality? It seems to me that you’re assuming that truth is valuable and meaningful and are happy as long as there’s some ground for it, but that doesn’t seem sufficient.
Also, on what I mean when I talk about an absolute moral law from God: I don’t necessarily mean that God is dictating morality. That’s one option (and one which a lot of Christians, in my experience, accept in day-to-day life), but I’m just as happy talking about God as an interpreter of morality, or God as issuing commands the goodness of which flow from his essence (or something like that – I’ve never quite understood how that was distinct from the other two). The problem is with taking any moral system as meaningful. It’s always going to make sense to ask “well why ought I to do that?” and you obviously can’t justify the adoption of a particular system of valuation by reference to that very system.
An organ, however complex, cannot detect properties that are not present in nature such as validity and falsity.
You are ignorant of the work of Claude Shannon.
Kirchoff’s Laws of electronic circuits are isomorphic to Boolean Logic.
That’s why digital computers work.
I think talk about secularists versus religious on the Right hides the real division: fanatics versus rationalists. One can be fanatically atheist or fanatically religious.
Daniel, I think Edward’s probably gone, but, for what it’s worth, I think it doesn’t quite answer his objection to say that we have reason to believe that the brain can evaluate statements as true or false. He’s calling into question our ability to recognize what truth and falsity are.
However, that seems to me to just be an instance of the skeptical hypothesis. Yes, we could be deceived. At the same time, the theist’s God could actually be an evil trickster who merely appears to theists as omni-benevolent and who takes steps such that what we believe is precisely the negation of truth (all the way down to logical truths and the cogito, even). Atheists believe that the brain evolved to evaluate truth correctly in most cases and theists believe that God isn’t tricking them.
I also think we’re using ‘truth’ to mean different things here. The theist’s ‘truth’ is somehow transcendental in ways that have never made much sense to me, but the atheist’s ‘truth’ is not. I imagine that most atheists would suggest that truth is just a property that we ascribe to certain kinds of thoughts, based on our observations of the world. Exactly what circumstances are sufficient to establish something as truth is a bit unclear, but that’s a big part of what modern epistemology is trying to work out, right?
Gotchaye, It always comes down to the same darn thing. We can’t know the ontological meaning of things, but that doesn’t prevent everything from working just fine empirically.
Evolution is an empirical process, trial and error by genes.
Science and technology is at heart an empirical process.
Everything works, no-one knows what space or time or truth or existence are. We only know how they work.
God explains nothing since he is ultimately unexplained. So it just mystifies without explaining. Theologians don’t know the truth any more than the rest of us. They fake knowledge and call it “faith”.
All of human history tells us that man and human society is not, fundamentally, an evolving system.
And what in the end are we to do with this kind of blank assertion?
He knows this how? He defends this how?
All I can say is that this is not in accord with our current scientific understanding. It would require hard, verifiable, evidence to establish this assertion.
I appreciate Heather’s openness to discussion.
The origin of the concept that “the meaning of life is derived from God” is the Judeo-Christian premise that a Personal God Created us in His Image to enjoy Him forever.
The corresponding premise of evolution is that all life is the result of (1)chance, plus (2)genetic defects that result in biological improvements over (3)time. This seems to give life the “meaning” of throwing dice.
Another premise of evolution is “Survival of the Fittest” and “Natural Selection.” Our “kindness and morality” are counterproductive to Darwinism. This is the message of Nietzsche, Ubermensch will leave these weak concepts behind.
“Enjoying Life” like the bus ad says, allows atheists to enjoy a life of sexual promiscuity, etc. that being a Christian interferes with.
I have found that my life has much more meaning after 28 years of marriage and a family I love, because I can see God’s design. My friends who are “enjoying” their divorces and bitterness are really missing out. They can’t understand why their spouses don’t understand how to “enjoy” life.
Monogamy is pretty much limited to the New Testament. Maybe Heather and our secular bus ad friends feel we should abandon it with the other Christian ideals.
JoeS
Man is not the only monogamous species.
Do Canada Geese read the Gospels?
I should say Man is not the only species capable of monogamy.
Even societies that tolerate polygamy legally, are, I believe, usually monogamous in practice for most people. Wikipedia cites Murdock, G. P. (1981). Atlas of World Cultures. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. that 80% of marriages in cultures that tolerate polygamy are in fact monogamous.
Heather, we are in accord.
<blockquote?”But you know, Ms. Mac Donald, you are the type of atheist I could do without. You criticize atheists who are actually doing things to advance the rights of atheists”
Brian, what are you talking about? What “rights of atheists” need advancing? As an atheist you can do everything that a christian can, does having an adolescent bus-ad somehow grant you greater “rights” then you had before? Atheists and Agnostics are (in a strange way) actually Gnostics. We have secret knowledge that the unwashed and laughably ridiculous masses do not have. If you’re the kind of atheist who needs a large movement to belong to then perhaps you’re the kind of atheist we could do without.
“Brian, what are you talking about? What “rights of atheists” need advancing?”
For just one example, the rights of atheists to advertise on government-owned public transportation to the same extent that religious speech is allowed.
“As an atheist you can do everything that a christian can, does having an adolescent bus-ad somehow grant you greater “rights” then you had before?”
It has been useful to illuminate where atheists CAN’T do everything a Christian can; atheist speech is being muzzled by governments where Christian speech is not. Just SAYING atheists have equal rights is nonsense if they are prevented from actually exercising their rights.
“If you’re the kind of atheist who needs a large movement to belong to then perhaps you’re the kind of atheist we could do without.”
Since I alluded to incidents like the above in my first comment, it seems you are another person who doesn’t even bother to try and find out what has been happening. Do you know which cities have refused to run atheist ads? Do you know which government officials have plainly stated it’s because they just don’t like what atheists want to say?
How can a site devoted to atheism sustain its vibrancy, its essence, without occasional protagonistic input and ensuing good faith dialogue? What skills or ideas do you hope to hone by only conversing among your own herd? Yes, of course your lives would be a joy without the existence of theists, but then your “world view” would be irrelevant.
In this spirit it is a shame that Edward felt compelled to move away gracefully. If you cannot bear the likes of him then it seems your site is destined (pre-destined?) to eternal dullness.
The site can do what it likes Hannon. It is me who is tired of it.
I would be interested to develop conservative political thought from the non-religious perspective. But far too many threads are now being consumed by arguments about the existence of God.
Truth is, this is fast becoming a theology website. It doesn’t look like it will ever escape from this trap.
Daniel Dare: “I would be interested to develop conservative political thought from the non-religious perspective. But far too many threads are now being consumed by arguments about the existence of God. Truth is, this is fast becoming a theology website. It doesn’t look like it will ever escape from this trap. ”
Good point. The issue for the site is – are we trying to convert believers (or as it sometimes seems, to embarrass them with the absurdities of their faith) or, what I think we should be doing – making common cause with them against endlessly encroaching liberalism, a far more destructive force than religious belief?
Bill, note this comment here:
Finally, the only reason I ever posted on this site to begin with is to assert that there is nothing conservative or “right” about secularism or atheism. This site espouses liberalism and nothing but. – Edward
See the problem? The religious right cannot conceive even the existence of a secular conservatism. The fact that family values, national security, economic rationalism, individual liberty, could easily be defended from a secular and particularly Darwinian viewpoint doesn’t occur to them.
Dare, by the way I was fully aware in that other thread– which looks poised to potentially go on forever, as your prophesied– that you were not the owner since you had to remind another poster of same much earlier in that thread. Some writings just have the distinct appearance of “ownership” while others are obviously visitors. I felt we had got beyond atheism/theism per se and had moved into the pragmatic aspects of what an “atheistic world” might entail.
Anyway, I have thought also about the idea of a non-religious conservatism, since I am not absolutely convinced that there need always be a matrimony between the two in order for traditionalism to carry on in health. *However*, this is nonetheless skating on thin ice, at least for the present. Christianity and traditionalism have been and continue to be synergistically connivent and this bothers me not in the least. Left, Right and Christian are found in all combinations.
I think you have a major stumbling block where conservatism– a sort of deliberate holding on to– meets naturalism and its evolutionary urge to “progress”. Biology is dynamic, while more or less “static” principles of culture can work quite well for long periods. Religion has historically held them in place. What else could? It seems that rationalism would dictate one flavor of politics, and in so doing it would favor the state or the individual. This is why I strongly favor the political strength of local and state powers, regrettably gutted since our Civil War.
There is no evolutionary urge to progress. There is only an evolutionary urge to adapt. To survive in whatever environment we find ourselves.
Progress is an idea that emerges from the enlightenment. The rise of science.
It could be argued that there is an evolutionary urge to expand territorially. But that is a corollary of the urge to survive and breed.
Biology is dynamic, while more or less “static” principles of culture can work quite well for long periods. Religion has historically held them in place. What else could?
Hannon. I disagree. Evolutionary biology is deeply conservative. Whatever works is retained and built on. Parts of our genome go back to structures that are around three billion years old. The most conservative thing we have is our ancient genome.
In fact the only thing we know that can survive 3.5 billion years without change is some of the information coded in DNA. Even mountains are eroded far faster than that.
I meant an evolutionary tendency to progress– by progress I mean to advance, or adapt. And I was speaking of all biota, not just H.s.
“Whatever works is retained and built on”. Would you say this principle applies, in Darwinian fashion, to your “family values, national security, economic rationalism, individual liberty”? These values you cite, generic enough to be agreeable, even still they are relentlessly attacked by the Left. So if they can smooth talk and claw their way to hegemony, against these principles– which is the case now throughout the West– how is this bedrock assumption working for us these days? Perhaps it is just part of a wave cycle that will turn in our favor again– hopefully before some ruinous end?
I think our “ancient genome” is probably conservative in every sense of the word. But another philosophy is working for liberals and we are not effectively advancing our case politically or socially.
Another good example is the backbone whose origins are believed to go back to early chordates – wormlike creatures with a stiffened spine & dorsal nerve cord – something like modern Amphioxus.
Aspects of the chordate morphology were retained through the fishes and land vertebrates that evolved from them. Say half a billion years give or take. Is that conservative enough for the GOP?