{"id":1626,"date":"2009-02-21T14:55:48","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T22:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2009-02-21T14:55:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T22:55:48","slug":"non-believers-we-can-do-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/non-believers-we-can-do-without\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-believers we can do without."},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The idea of an atheist \u2018movement\u2019 \u201con the march\u201d is not, I confess, something that fills me with great joy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Especially when its leaders march under such idiotic banners as the British bus ads<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s probably no God.\u00a0 Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.\u201d
\nWhat genius came up with this copy?\u00a0 It is stupid on several fronts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, it associates non-belief with hedonism, a misperception spread by believers such as Michael Novak:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Think of the burdens that slide off one\u2019s shoulders just by becoming an atheist.\u00a0 It\u2019s a helluva temptation.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

None of the moral challenges that confront us\u2014how 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\u2014lessen with the disappearance of God.\u00a0 These are human dilemmas, answered always by human judgment, even when we ventriloquize our answers into a supervening God.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bus ads suggest a utilitarian reason for skepticism: you\u2019ll enjoy life more.\u00a0 The only touchstone that I can possibly imagine for deciding whether or not to adopt any particular belief is its truth, in this case:\u00a0 Does the evidence of human experience support the claim that we are attended to by a loving, personal God?\u00a0 Even if the conclusion that we have no \u201cFriend\u201d in the sky leads inevitably to melancholy or dissatisfaction, it is better to live unhappily in truth than happily in delusion, in my view.\u00a0 (As I have written before, however, I am puzzled by the claim that life would be meaningless without God.\u00a0 Schubert wrote some 600 songs, nearly every one of them a gem of lethal beauty and exquisiteness.\u00a0 You want something more?)<\/p>\n

(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\u00a0others even though we as individuals cannot subscribe to it?)<\/p>\n

If today\u2019s believers are going around wracked with Calvinist worry over the ultimate fate of their souls, they are sure hiding it well.\u00a0 If anything, God today seems to provide a refuge from worry.\u00a0 Maybe there\u2019s still a lot of terrifying fire and brimstone in America\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew writes: The idea of an atheist \u2018movement\u2019 \u201con the march\u201d 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:\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s probably no God.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,38,175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1626"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1631,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions\/1631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}