Atheists speak out shock-horror
This is rather depressingly stupid, in a predictable conformist unthinking way. Same old thing – atheism is shocking, offensive, in need of explanation, rude, violent, extreme, naughty, whereas theism is just fine, natural, as it should be, nothing to question, no problem, nothing to see here folks go on home. Why is theism the default position while atheism is something to draw a crowd of open-mouthed horrified finger-pointing gawkers?
[T]he fact is that in the waning months of 2006, a kind of militant atheism was making itself felt across the land. There were two best-selling books declaring belief in God to be a kind of mass delusion, and a harmful mass delusion at that…
Uh…yes; and? Is it so blindingly obvious that belief in God is not a ‘kind of’ mass delusion? Not to me it’s not. Actually I would say that the belief that belief in God is not a mass delusion is, in fact, a mass delusion.
…occasioning a vigorous and often angry response from many people who believe the repeated announcement of the death of God to be wrong, spiritually deaf and dangerous.
What the flock does ‘spiritually deaf’ mean? Deaf to what? Deaf to what ‘spiritual’ noises? Chirps? Barks? Grunts?
But of course empty jargony meaningless decorative burble about spiritual deafness is precisely how mass delusions are dressed up as something Deep and Special and Reverent and Not To Be Questioned By Those Horrid Militant Atheists. It’s amazing what magic the right kind of jargon can do.
Atheism is nothing new, of course, and perhaps not even the militant, proselytizing atheism of the sort taking place just now.
Oh my god – militant, proselytizing atheism – can you imagine. The arrogance and, you know, proselytizing militancy of some people – it’s staggering. Militant, proselytizing theism, of course, is perfectly all right and normal and nothing to make a newspaper fuss about, but militant, proselytizing atheism is an outrage.
But at least a few atheists are now actively, angrily, passionately trying to persuade the religious to their point of view, none more conspicuously than Sam Harris,…whose book Letter to a Christian Nation portrays Christianity as a kind of malign nonsense. Harris is engaging in no polite parlor discussion, showing due respect to the views of others.
Yes, and? So what? Why is that a problem? But Bernstein is either so stupid or so habituated to this way of thinking that he (apparently) doesn’t even realize there’s anything to explain – it’s just self-evident that atheists are not allowed to try to persuade people to their point of view or to fail to show ‘due respect’ to the [religious, and religious only] views of others by not questioning them in any way.
Atheism as a necessary attribute of civilization – religion as the opposite of civilization – that argument is being stated more assertively and is being welcomed in some quarters more warmly now than at any time before. What is going on?
What do you mean, what is going on? What is all this foolish wondering? Why are you taking it for granted that theism is perfectly reasonable and sensible while atheism is bat-loony and calls for explanation?
This kind of fatuous unthinking is precisely why some atheists feel a need to do some persuading.
The best-sellerdom of books like those of Harris and Dawkins shows that there is a market for militant atheism, but the market for religious belief is bigger. I wouldn’t imagine any candidate for office winning on a platform of disbelief in God.
Well nooooo kidding, bub. And that’s one reason atheists are getting restless. It has to do with not wanting to live in a theocracy! Or even in a thought-world where theism is taken for granted and atheism is treated like a visitation from Mars.
The two movements are almost entirely dissimilar, of course, with Christian fundamentalism engaging in no violence or threats.
I beg your pardon??? Christian fundamentalism engaging in no – oh the hell with it, the guy must live under a rock. He wrote a not-bad book a few years ago, but maybe something has gone wrong since then.
Surely you didn’t think you could mention “proselytizing atheism” without me contributing the link I sent you?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkWasKRns8Y
I could not get beyond the first page of this drivel. Thank God there is you, OB, to read so we do not have to.
These folks are certainly shaking in their boots at the spectacle of militant atheism on the march, but then they’re always quaking at something. Their religion is basically fear; in fact they really seem to get off on it. The end of the world is nigh; won’t it be a splendid sight!
They’re like horror film fans, except that they have horror films playing in their minds all the time, it seems.
My condolences! It must be so hard living under a THEOCRACY, where THREATS and VIOLENCE attend your profession of atheism.
Yes, it might almost get to the extent that someone would give you a RAISED EYBROW of disapproval… or speak up with a PATHETIC RATIONALISATION of belief.
apropos, Arts & Letters Daily offers you this link: http://www.culturecult.com/sandall_dec06.htm
“Fate however made some of us differently, and the difference may be in our genes. Awaking at dawn to find the herd has departed we breathe a sigh of relief. The fact is (speaking personally) I never saw a herd I liked. “
I see angelo beat me to it, but I think it’s worth quoting the two passages that struck me most in full (since OB didn’t):
What is going on? One conclusion is not so far-reaching. It could be simply that there’s a market for just about anything in this country — whether atheism or psychic channeling.
and
Books no doubt do sometimes change people’s minds, but more often they help to foster a sense of solidarity among members of an existing group, whether believers in alien space abduction or disbelievers in God.
Good God! Those crazy atheists/psychic channelers/alien abductees! Where on Earth do these people come from, with such ridiculous notions? Maybe if we ignore them, they’ll go away..
Well, that is interesting – books as agents of darkness? Where have we heard that before?
This article strikes me as pathetic. Are you sure this is not just an editor playing the audience for suckers by provoking reactions? This is the festive, oops I mean slow-news season after all.
Of course, when I went to check the context I discovered that the above quote was actually well put, pertinent and fair. Bernstein puts the new books in context for an American audience which includes, you tell me, a lot of people who won’t tolerate atheism. He points out the continual best-selling status of Dawkins’ book, which is itself a strong hint that it is good and that atheism is a popular view.
And best of all, from a secularist viewpoint, he forsees a 2007 head-to-head between the religious and the secular. This can only benefit the secular if they are willing to put the case clearly and appropriately.
Its just disappointing that he didn’t also mention Why Truth Matters in the article.
It would balance putting atheism and alien abduction believers in the one sentence, which surely he intended would provoke OB herself to smite him from Her heaven with at the very least the lemon meringue pie of logic!
And the venue – IHT is not your Kansas daily newspaper. This had to be silly-season provocation.
Like Ophelia, and several previous correspopndents, the bit about – ….”with Christian fundamentalism engaging in no violence or threats.” – had me fuming.
I believe several atheists and memebers of the US ACLU have been threatened and killed by the xtians.
The writer has obviously never heard of Ireland, either …….
And the “mililtant atheism” is nothing of the sort, it is merely pointing out, very publicly that the emporer of religion ahs no clothes (see PZ’s blog passim) – followed by a very loud & public blaming of the messenger for daring to say so.
The one thing that does seem to be correct is that is a reaction.
Like many people, I was content to be a quiet agnostic, maybe even a vague theist, minding my own business.
But I encountered Hizb-ul-Tarir when I did my mature MSc in Engineering, 12 years ago, and the US-backed fundie christians moved into a semi-derelict building round the corner form here, and the muslim believers started to kill people (well before 11/9/2001).
And now, having been forced to think about the subject more clearly, I’m a fairly militant atheist – because these murderous blackmailers, whether they be christian or muslim, won’t leave people in peace, to mind their own business.
Angelo
“comparisons between atheism and psychic channeling and between atheism and alien abduction”
Yes, and I have recently seen a trashy US cable ‘crime with a spooky twist’ type show which blurred atheists and satanists (basically some twenty-somethings who like hanging out in an abandoned farm, daubing the walls with pentagrams, listening to heavy metal and ritualistically killing people)
The supposition being that if they don’t believe in God, they must be evildoers of SOME kind. OK, it was only banal trash tv, but this is a new development as far as I can see – atheism as cultish and obscure ??
GT – your last para nailed my experience too… which is why Bunting et al get so right up my nose.
Stewart,
Your comment reminded me of a remark attributed to Richard Burton: the fact that ‘missionary’ is not synonymous with ‘martyr’ speaks volumes for the tollerance of primitive peoples.
Never could track down the source, so it may be apocryphal.
Stewart:”One cannot doubt, of course, that historically, to the extent that true violence in the name of atheism has ever existed at all (and I think it hardly has, because ideologies that are like religions but reject god really shouldn’t count)”
Sorry, but I think this is a “true Scotsman argument”. As OB has pointed out before, defenders of religion have called its nastier manifestations false religion, so it wouldn’t be fair to do the same with atheism.
Andy,
I can’t agree, because there’s a difference between a thing and a non-thing. Where a “true believer” might claim a “false believer” had somehow perverted the creed, there’s still something there to pervert. There is no atheist creed. Whatever the personal beliefs of Hitler or Stalin (the two most trotted-out examples) none of their acts were ever committed “in the name of atheism” the way Allah’s name gets screamed out by self-detonating suicide bombers. To chalk up Hitler and Stalin to (or against) atheism – where does that leave Nazism and communism? If you had to describe either of those two, would the first and main attribute you listed be lack of belief in god? What are racist theories and anti-capitalism, chopped liver? How about Democrats and Republicans? I don’t know whether every political movement that ever existed took a stand on the existence or non-existence of god; that’s why it’s called politics and not something else. Unless a movement’s defining characteristic is its atheism, how can it be balanced to attribute its deeds to atheism?
To refine one point a little, looked at in the cold light of day, apart from the fact that it’s inaccurate history to claim that the Nazis did get rid of god, why did Soviet Russia really treat religion as it did? Because god occupied a place another ideology that had taken power wanted to fill and which therefore needed to be vacated. A scientist today who is an atheist because religion only aggravates the questions instead of answering them as science tries to do ought not to be compared to anything in a society that is godless because the state ordained that it be so. And didn’t science flourish in the atheist USSR? One name in particular comes to mind: Lysenko.
As a further example of
Because there’s no atheist creed, then the only thing that matters when defining atheists is their non-belief in god. Atheists can be downright cruel, stupid and dictatorial, but they’re still atheists. Those of us who are atheist need to have other beliefs as well if we’re to be decent human beings. The most important aspect of Fascism (not Nazism,as you pointed out: you could be ‘a believer in god’) and Communism wasn’t their atheism, but it was essential if, as you again point out, they were to replace religious authority.Your atheist scientist and totalitarian state can be compared because they are both discarding god, but the difference is one is doing it for the sake of knowledge, the other for power. I hope you’re not gonna get Foucauldian on my ass by saying that’s the same thing ;-)
Not at all a propos this interesting discussion, and indeed shamelessly irrelevant to the topic, but I notice that the BW News today has a link to the seemingly sensible Sense about Science group. But is all as it seems? Am I alone in finding the former LM/Living Marxism/Revolutionary Communist Party crowd a bit spooky. According to the website Lobbywatch.org “Sense about Science” is one of the organisations “colonised” by the LM network in order to promote an apparently extreme libertarian ideology. George Monbiot has written articles about this for the Guardian. But what do I know? Not much. Looking forward to reading Why Truth Matters BTW.
Oh, is it? Sense About Science is part of the Institute of Ideas, Spiked crowd? I didn’t know that, I must say.
Trouble is, they have some good stuff – Spiked and so on. I link to them occasionally, despite odd history.
WRT Sense About Science, I did a few bits of sniffing around and I feel the same thing.
?
Are we sure Lobbywatch has this right? The trustees include Onora O’Neill, Simon Singh, John Maddox, Dick Taverne…hardly unadulterated Inst. of Ideas, at any rate.
I’m more than happy to be wrong, but the current lobbywatch review of SAS puts me off them.
And it has people like Peter Atkins and Colin Blakemore and Raymond Tallis on its Advisory Council.
Who or what is this Lobbywatch?
Hang on! It’s an offshoot of GM Watch! And it’s Monbiot.
GM Watch. And Monbiot. Come on, guys…
There is some very, very weird stuff on that site – Lobbywatch. They give a long list of groups with this contorted and evasive introduction:
“They have also been accused of setting up front groups. Among the groups that have been viewed in this light are:”
That could just mean ‘accused by us’ and ‘groups that we have viewed in this light’! It ain’t worth much!
And this is interesting…
“UKC = individuals known to have studied or taught at the University of Kent at Canterbury where Frank Furedi is based. UKC has been a key recruiting ground for the RCP and the ‘Furedi network’.”
There is this whiff of paranoia…
Just some telegrammatic comments on SAS and ‘Spiked’:
(1) ‘Spiked’ is a curate’s egg — sometimes slickness without substance; tends to be dogmatically libertarian (rather than ‘default’ libertarian, that is).
(2)But SAS is absolutely top rate — pro evidence-based approach (does one have to spell that out? — yes, one does) and AFAIK it is the ONLY website in this domain that actually explains what peer review means — see here.
I’m surprised that Monbiot has indulged in such a ‘guilt by association’ attack on SAS. Must take a closer look.
I don’t know who Lobbywatch are – though the idea of piercing the veil of grand-sounding lobby group names to disclose commercial interests and/or particular ideologies and connections sounds v. important and useful in a democracy. Ditto Lobbywatch itself. Whether they are right about SAS, or anything else, I don’t know. I’m coming to this completely cold: it just seems fishy but I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise. There is no doubt that some of the allegations on the lobbywatch website about people with LM connections are extreme, and they do go in for tarnishing various individuals with the same broad brush.
Ah. Yes, well of course it’s always worth looking at lobbying groups and PR groups of any kind. But GM Watch – well it’s one of the ones it’s worth looking at; it has an irrational evidence-free phobia about GM crops. And Monbiot can be silly.
Curate’s egg is just about it. Spiked may have loony people involved with it, but it has some good articles.
Trawling Ben Goldacre’s superduper ‘Badscience’ website, found this posting dated yesterday from a Dr. Aust:
Sense About Science are a long way from Spiked and the Living Marxism crew, and to elide them in this way is pure conspiracy theory. I have had some dealings with Sense About Science over the homeopathy business and they seem fundamentally sound to me. The money to run the show has to come from somewhere, of course, but then you can’t run a charity easily on just tin-rattling unless you’re the British Heart Foundation or Cancer Research.
I have no great knowledge of Spiked Online, although I have heard the mutterings about its origins in Living Marxism.. All I can say is that while I don’t buy everything on Spiked Online, some of what it runs strikes me as interesting and often sensible – Michael Fitzpatrick may be an ex-RCP member, but he has writen by miles some of the best reportage and commentary on the MMR vaccine / autism business. Have a look and judge for yourself.
And the critique of Sense About Science advanced by Sourcewatch basically comes down to “everyone has some sort of vested interest so we must mistrust them all”. How very postmodern.
For the record, as far as I can see Sense About Science’s vested interest is that it would be better for people to put their faith in evidence-based science, and evidence-based advice, than in cults, woo, snake-oil and celebs selling you nonsense. If that’s a vested interest, then as a professional scientist I plead guilty to having one too.
I think that about sums it up.
Thanks, Cathal. As a strong believer in the importance of evidence-based rationality I can see the sense in all that. However as far as I can see Monbiot’s claim is not that SAS is bad per se, but rather that it has been infiltrated by “LM”, which he views as an organised network with an extreme agenda, and thus that SAS is capable of being/has been manipulated. I’m not saying that’s right – I really know very little about any of this – but to be fair his case does not rest on a general accusation that everyone has some kind of dubious vested interest as Dr Aust says. Monbiot is making a specific claim. But he obviously needs very strong evidence if he’s going to make such a sensational conspiracy theory stick. Melding the two topics of this thread together, I’m wondering whether to buy a new book called Debating Humanism which has been published by the Institute of Ideas; it has the kind of LM connections Monbiot describes (e.g. an article by Frank Furedi which is no doubt stimulating in itself) but also articles by A C Grayling and Simon Blackburn. Anyone read it?
Well some of Monbiot’s claims aren’t specific at all; the ones I quoted for instance. “They have also been accused of setting up front groups. Among the groups that have been viewed in this light are” – that really really really won’t do. Accused by whom? Viewed by whom? Monbiot? That’s just a classic anonymous unaccountable smear, and it makes me more suspicious of Monbiot than it does of the LM crowd. Besides, Monbiot says some deeply silly things himself at times. And there is the GM Watch problem. In short, if that’s the only source, I think it’s fairly worthless.
Monbiot was involved with Respect until 2004.
Bleah.
Andy,
Anything but Foucauldian :)
Briefly, we all do or refrain from doing certain things and we all believe or don’t believe certain things. I simply think that if we’re examining beliefs or their absence, it’s relevant to ask whether a particular belief or lack of same is integral to or incidental to the carrying out or refraining from the carrying out of those acts.
To get silly about it, it makes no difference if I believe in god or not when I bend down to tie my shoelace; I’ve never heard of a believer who instead opted to pray to god to do it for him. On a much larger scale, a lot of politics has to do with the way things in society are ordered and a lot of different models could be conceived in which the existence or non-existence of god would not alter things radically. If you consider Islamism fascist, you’ll be able to see the religious roots of the politics with no difficulty, but I suggest it’s often far from being the main point. Religion and politics can mix, as we all know (and hate), but politics can have a separate existence. And a political system isn’t automatically “atheist” (in the sense so often brought up) just because it doesn’t assume the existence of a god. One could only make that kind of statement if such religious questions were always necessarily integral to politics.
Monbiot has been on a crusade against LM/Spiked since god knows when. In any event, I’ve been quite fond of them ever since they still had the magazine going: seems they were a breath of fresh air through a none-too-fresh Left. Though on the other hand I must agree with Cathal’s assessment: I find their ‘line’ (it’s all about the ‘culture of fear’, lack of confidence among the capitalist states, disengagement of a belief in humanity/progress) a bit too predictable at times. Though right more often than not.
Anyway, I see Lobbywatch forgets to mention another sinister LM front, naively linked through from this, at first sight, bona fide site – the German magazine Novo.
What I meant was that Monbiot’s allegations are specific to certain groups and individuals. The evidence backing up the allegations is no doubt wanting but to this admittedly less than well informed observer it’s not entirely without interest. Anyway, I’m interested in people’s views on this, so thanks for the input.
For an article which gives both sides’ point of view, see http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/653/9/
Stewart,
I accept your point that for certain regimes religion is irrelevant, so we shouldn’t describe them as atheist because they aren’t essentially anti-God. However, I maintain that the Stalinist regime did do violence to religious people precisely because they were religious and, as such, a threat to its authority. Thus I would describe Stalinism as necessarily anti-god and therefore atheist.
My original point was that you seemed to be saying that atheist regimes that are like religions – i.e. dogmatic and irrational – shouldn’t be described as atheist. I got the impression that you were saying that atheist was synonymous with rational and undogmatic. I don’t agree with this. Atheism is just a disbelief in god. The grounds for that disbelief and what you do about it afterwards are irrelevant to the definition. Because of this, I was suggesting that as an atheist I have to accept that Stalinism is one expression of it. You need more than bare atheism to be decent.
Even if all forms of communism are anti-religion, we all know that atheists are by no means synonymous with communists. The fact that one can have atheists of every political stripe does weaken an attempt to make one particular movement identified more with atheism.
“I was suggesting that as an atheist I have to accept that Stalinism is one expression of it”
Could you imagine a state that functioned just like Soviet Russia, with the sole difference being that god, rather than Marx or Stalin, was the source for the orders to arrange society in that way?
Of course, I agree that “You need more than bare atheism to be decent.”
Andy,
At the risk of nit-picking, ‘…Stalinist regime did do violence to religious people precisely because they were religious and, as such, a threat to its authority.’ is correct but the key point is ‘a threat to its authority’.
A cohesive group with strong loyalties to something other than the CP was not to be tolerated. I doubt that Stalin was thinking of freeing the human mind from superstition and unquestioning obedience but rather that he was getting rid of a potential political rival.
Not so much anti-god as anti any group which did not accept his ultimate authority. It is interesting to speculate whether, had the dreams of Hitler or Stalin panned out as planned, they would eventually have aquired divine or semi-divine status. After all, Kim Il-sung is ‘immortal president’, is he not? Maybe these regimes were just aborted religions?
Stewart,
Yes I can imagine such a state. The commissars would be high-priests, interpreting the sacred texts of dialectical materialism as it was revealed to the prophets Marx, Lenin and Stalin. That would have served the purposes of Uncle Joe just as well.
Don,
Stewart’s point leads on to yours that the issue is threat to authority rather than its type. For the Machiavellian despot, it doesn’t matter if the authority is religious or secular so long as it is absolute and in their hands.
Thanks for setting me right on this point. I now have another argument to use against atheist-bashers!
Don wrote:
“At the risk of nit-picking, ‘…Stalinist regime did do violence to religious people precisely because they were religious and, as such, a threat to its authority.’ is correct but the key point is ‘a threat to its authority’.
“
Unfortunately the key point is not about the threat but rather the word “as such”. We have to ask ourselves what is it about a religion that would make Stalin see it as a threat. It is solely the fault of Communism that as an atheistic dictatorship its authority had to be maintained by repression of religions. If it not been a dictatorship it would have had to oppress no one. Its atheism part-defined who it would oppress. It had to attack everything that was not adhering to its self-defined orthodoxy.
Atheism in its usual form is indeed simply the absence of a belief in any deity. Atheists are therefore rather like all the people in the world who do not have red hair. Such people come with all sorts of personalities and characteristics, as do atheists.
Paul,
As I’ve come to see through the course of this discussion, Communism had to be maintained against anything that stood in its way, religious or not. If the Orthodox Church had said that Marx was the new gospel then it wouldn’t have been suppressed. It’s the dictatorial aspect of Communism that is essential, not its atheism.
Sorry Andy, that’s a sort of “Heads I win, tails you lose argument”. Communists did and do see the atheism as essential. They could have been neutral on the question and left religion per se alone, but they did not. Indeed they could not because theirs is a totalitarian ideological system which can leave nothing alone.
Another point: even if they did not see their atheism as essential, whatever you allow them you must also allow to religious adherents. Not all relgions promulgate war at all times, so you can not hold religious violence against them either for the same reason – it is not essential to the faith.
I don’t expect Communists to be neutral on religion, but they aren’t dangerous to the religious because they’re atheists, but because they’re totalitarian. If Dawkins set up a political party and won and election, do you think that Rowan Williams would end up in front of a firing squad?
Religion, like Communism, is particularly prone to violence because it’s supporters tend to assume that non-believers are acting out of evil intent. That’s why both types of belief have historically been very bloody, and that’s one reason why I’m opposed to the two.
Communists did and do see the atheism as essential.
Of course, they sometimes dissembled and put on a show of religious tolerance — until they came to power.
If you happen to have a subscription to the online library ‘Questia’ (approx. $100 per annum — worth every cent), I recommend you read (or browse thru) Daniel Peris’ Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless (1998).
The Communists were not only ‘scientific atheists’– they were militant atheists.
They also considered the teaching of religion to be equivalent to child abuse: Imparting religious instruction in state or private educational institutions to children or minors, is punishable by forced labor up to one year. (Article 120 of the Criminal Code of the R.S.F.S.R., Moscow, 1923.)
Andy writes:
Religion, like Communism, is particularly prone to violence because it’s supporters tend to assume that non-believers are acting out of evil intent. That’s why both types of belief have historically been very bloody, and that’s one reason why I’m opposed to the two.
The comparison is not quite accurate: there is such a thing as a tolerant religion; but tolerant communism is a contradiction in terms. Communism can no more be tolerant than Nazism can be philosemite.
I’ll accept your point that the religious can be more tolerant than Communists. Anglicanism of the sort espoused by Rowan Williams is a prime example of this gentler sort, and Buddhists are generally very tolerant. But what about those Communist parties in France and Italy and India that have taken part in their respective countries’ electoral systems? The willingness to work with others might be the result of pragmatism rather than principle, but isn’t that the case with religion these days? Perhaps Christianity in Europe is rather like the domestic cat: centuries of breeding have produced a manageable descendant of the sabre-toothed tiger. Communist parties now are more like trained circus lions: they do the tricks, but, given the chance, they’d still eat the ringmaster.
Andy wrote: “I don’t expect Communists to be neutral on religion, but they aren’t dangerous to the religious because they’re atheists, but because they’re totalitarian”.
I’m afraid you cannot split them out like that. That Communism is atheisitic means religion is an enemy. That Communism is totalitarian means religion is oppressed.
As you yourself wrote “If the Orthodox Church had said that Marx was the new gospel then it wouldn’t have been suppressed. “. In this scenario nothing about Communism itself would have changed – it would have been as totalitarian as ever. So by your own argument its totalitarianism cannot alone explain why it oppressed religion.
Yes, but still, even if we accept that atheism is an integral component of communism, does that reflect in any way on atheism devoid of that context? I can see a link between “moderate” religion and fundamentalism that I don’t see between atheism and communism. If the fundamentalists, for example, insist on every prescribed punishment in a text from three thousand years ago being applied today, it is true that the “moderates” who wouldn’t stone people to death for something we’d consider piddling still claim to subscribe to that text. They’re just wishy-washy about it. I don’t see an equivalent to that that could somehow link atheism with communism. Atheists don’t believe there’s a god. Period. Communists are prepared to punish people who think there’s a god. That doesn’t mean that non-communist atheists have an idea that religion ought to be forbidden that they are too wishy-washy to act upon. That extra something that makes the communists punish people for believing is not integral to any form of atheism, no matter how integral atheism is to communism. There’s surely a case to be made that moderate and fundamentalist forms of the same religion have something in common. How on earth can one do that with atheism and communism? If that were possible, it would have to mean that extreme atheism is always communistic, which is nonsense. It’s the totalitarianism that makes the difference, not the atheism. Was religion the only thing the communists were totalitarian about? Surely not; I seem to have a dim recollection of death penalties for “economic crimes,” i.e. behaving as if personal financial profit were permitted. And if you’re going to make out that totalitarianism is somehow intrinsically linked to atheism, that must surely mean that “mild” atheism preaches limitations on personal freedom without taking it seriously enough. Communism did replace the authority of religion with a specific, other, nameable, dogmatic authority. Atheism does nothing of the kind, even if some of its opponents erroneously try to make out that anything by Charles Darwin is regarded as having some kind of sacred authority. And all the above, among other things, is why I absolutely cannot buy into criticism of a communist regime automatically saying something negative about atheism.
Stewart:
I think you are using a double standard here.
It is correct to point out that not all forms of atheism are variations of communism, but you also have to accept that not all religions have something to do with 3000 year old books that prescribe stoning. So you can find religions that commit no crimes, and you can find those that do but not because of the tenets of the religion but rather because of the human failings of believers.
The crimes of communism say this about atheism: that it is not incompatible with the worst of crimes, that it does not inoculate against murderous fanaticism.
“but you also have to accept that not all religions have something to do with 3000 year old books that prescribe stoning.”
That’s not a good parallel though. The three monotheisms do have something to do with such books.
Why would anyone expect atheism to be incompatible with the worst of crimes, or to inoculate against murderous fanaticism? That would need a terribly maximalist idea of atheism, wouldn’t it?
Part of what OB said is similar to my reply. I’m not knowingly using a double standard. I think it is vital to differentiate between a belief and a lack of belief. It just isn’t the same as comparing two opposing beliefs. It’s not that I have a belief that there isn’t a god; I don’t have a belief that there is one. Now that is absolutely not hair-splitting and there is a huge difference between the two. So many views of atheism from the opposing side seem to insist on painting it as a rival belief. Even the religions without three thousand year-old texts prescribing stoning do have something, something they preach, that they claim is true and you’re expected to accept that/those claim/s if you belong to them. And if there’s nothing supernatural about those claims, then few will agree that it qualifies as a religion. Atheism doesn’t have any of that. There’s no acceptance ritual, no creed to swallow, and that’s because it is an absence, rather than a presence. The term and what it represents are only a reaction to the existence of religion and deists. If there were no religion, there wouldn’t be any atheists, not in the sense we perceive them today. We all breathe air and nobody goes around labelling some of us “air-breathers,” because there isn’t anything else on offer. A powerful belief in something became the overwhelming norm and that is what is responsible for the labelling of those who don’t share it. If a few clusters of hundreds of people each, among billions worldwide, were the only ones to have that kind of belief, who would bother calling the rest of us atheists? That some atheists have grouped together is, I think, almost exclusively in self-defence against what religion has done and still tries to do: impose itself. Those groupings are not rival churches.
If, by stating that atheism is not incompatible with the worst of crimes and doesn’t inoculate against murderous fanaticism, you are reacting against someone who claimed the contrary, my reaction would be that you had stumbled upon a moron, a living atheist strawman. I know of no one who makes such claims. If you mean people like Dawkins who say the WTC was knocked down by religious fanatics and uses artwork showing it still there captioned “Imagine no religion,” well, he’s right, but he’s never made a claim that atheism was a cure for all violence, only that religious violence wouldn’t exist without religion and that we have problems enough without additional conflict based on unevidenced but strongly held beliefs. I don’t know of any religion that doesn’t claim to have access to the truth and the best way of living and, by implication, some kind of peace on earth (as long as all abide by the rules). Atheism, which is a lack of belief, not a rule book or moral guide per se, makes no such claims. Those who say otherwise are misrepresenting it, whether knowingly or not, claiming it’s a something, when it’s actually a nothing. An atheist has no miracle formula, but he doesn’t have the problems of religion, only the ones religion aggravates while claiming to solve them.
If someone who is not a member of the three major monotheisms tries to convert you to his religion, you can hardly retort that “religion” has led to large numbers of deaths in wars and other conflicts, and then expect to have a get-out when he rejoins that “atheism” has also led to mass murder.
There are various forms of atheism. In particular Communism has committed deradful crimes. It is correct that all the other forms of atheism cannot be blamed for those crimes. But equally not all religions can be blamed for the crimes of some religions.
Saying that “religious violence wouldn’t exist without religion ” is however doing just that. One can equally say that “atheistic violence would not exist without atheism”.
The distinction between atheists who have no belief in the existence of god and those who proclaim god’s nonexistence is irrelevant . It does not affect my argument.
I think your mistake arises with the concept of “religion”. It is important to remember that it is purely a classifying concept like “atheism”. What you are doing is effectively comparing atheism the concept with particular religions’ histories; blaming the faults of those histories not on the individual religions (or even individual believers) but on the concept of “religion” in general; and then refusing to do the same thing with individual forms of “atheism”. That’s the double standard.
Although it is true that there may be religions out there that have not led to mass murder, my personal response to someone trying to convert me would in any case be unconnected to the record of that religion as regards violence. Precisely because I don’t want wishful thinking running my life, my main concern about any claim, religious or other, is whether it’s true.
You seem to be implying that Communism is a form of atheism. I see it more as a political and social ideology that espouses atheism, and that is not, to my mind, its chief indentifying characteristic. I think there’s a difference and not a small one.
I don’t think the question ought to be whether “all religions can be blamed for the crimes of some religions.” I think it is valid to point out that accepting the unevidenced as fact, which underpins all religions of which I’m aware, has led to violence which should have been totally avoidable. Another way of saying that is that I can somehow understand why people might kill each other over, say, access to a resource like water when it is in too short supply to suffice for all. But when they are killed because of some trifling theological point regarding a person who may or may not ever have existed, that seems utterly gratuitous and senseless.
I still don’t see the double standard. Perhaps we genuinely disagree about what atheism is. If someone is a Roman Catholic, they know that they’re supposed to be listening to what the pope says. I’m an atheist; there is no such figure in my life.
Communism is not a form of atheism. Many or most communists may think communism entails atheism, but that does not make communism a form of atheism.