Atheism in the USA seems to be on the rise, an interesting relief from the noxious religiosity that normally pervades the nation and the so-called “national discourse,” which is no discourse at all but a well financed propaganda offensive. But the seeds of piety and belief in what, on the face of it, is idiot nonsense has always fallen upon fertile soil in our country, the most religious in the Western world. No one has to force Americans to believe self-satisfying fairy tales, they are eager and willing to believe things for which there is no evidence.
Mainstream media polling has shown an uptick in the percent of people who identify themselves as having no religious affiliation, or as outright atheists. Some polls have indicated that upwards of 20% reject god and or religion. Even before the media’s discovery of this trend, atheism emerged as a hot topic and a salable commodity on some talk radio and TV programs and more widely, in the form of best selling books: You have Christopher Hitchens’s “God Is Not Great'” Sam Harris’ more tedious tomes, Richard Dawkins has written on this topic earlier than most, and there is Bill Maher’s HBO series and his movie “religulous.”
As a rule, I’m in favor of atheism and the defense of atheist ideas. This is because atheism is true and all religion and related forms of superstition, other-worldlyness, and magical thinking are false. The world is a material place and we are animals who have evolved from earlier life-forms along with all other plants, animals, fungi, etc. Humanity has developed ways to try and understand all of this. It’s called the scientific method, a way to, as objectively as possible, do research, test different preliminary theories and prove them more or less accurate or inaccurate. Investigating the truth or falseness of various propositions about many thing (“race,” geology, evolution of species, physics–all topic about whuch religion has established dogmas that everyone is required to believe) need an open mind and an ability to make provisional judgements and also to revise these judgements in light of new evidence. Religion is the opposite of this method. The origins of the scientific method are not recent. Ancient Egyptians developed mathematics, The Greek Euclid studied there; Aristotle developed the idea of research and classification; the Arab world and India made scientific contributions a thousand years ago when Europe was in a state of isolated stagnation, and so on.
Another reason to favor atheism is that it liberates your mind and also opens the way to progressive social and political ideas. Or at least I thought so until I encountered the latest crop of rightwing, neo-con, close-minded “atheists” who have become minor media stars. The emergence of reactionary atheism is a new development. For me, growing up in middle America among apolitical friends and family, atheism was a way to be progressive and go against the current. There were no leftist papers to read, no older people who had been radicals; I had to figure it out for myself. Trying to be a beatnik in late 50’s Indiana, I read Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, but it took Bertrand Russell’s writings in defense of atheism and the pernicious effect of organized religion on society to give me something to use in arguments with rightist Republican fellow-students in high school. So I came of age with an association of atheism with liberal and later, socialist politics; it was the right wing that was religious.
Christopher Hitchens was a pseudo-leftist who bolted to the far right when it suited his inflated ego and pocket book. His rants against religion were not honest explanations of the benefits of atheism. Their main thrust was hysterical, racist, Islamophobia, and an endorsement of US imperialism’s endless wars. Ditto for Sam Harris, another neo-con phoney. These people are basically rightist propagandists hailing neoliberal pillage of the world’s resources by the corporate/banking/military interests that defines the USA’s permanent ruling class. We get a lot about Islamo-fascism from these guys, but the growing influence of Israeli Judeo-fascism escapes their notice.
OK, as time went by I met and worked with religious human rights workers, and anti-imperialists, and even revolutionaries (during my time in Nicaragua in the 80s). Also a rounded, sophisticated understanding of history shows that many religious movements actually reflected class and social struggles (say the Reformation and development of capitalism, or various egalitarian levelers religious movements during the English Revolution), but that’s another topic.
So, that’s my stand. Atheism is a good thing. I’m not going to let the neocons ruin it. They probably will get religion if it helps their careers.
This post first appeared on Richard Congress’s blog, Politics, Music & Irony.
Unlike religion, atheism comes without dogma. Therefore, just because someone agrees with you on atheism doesn’t mean that he agrees with you on something else. Atheists can have any political affiliation. I really don’t understand Richard’s desire to distance himself from Islamophobic atheists. Distancing ourselves from such people is not necessary because there is no atheist community, no atheist doctrine, no holy book of atheism. Atheists don’t have common views beyond the rejection of the belief in the existence of deities.
I met and worked with religious human rights workers, and anti-imperialists, and even revolutionaries. Many religious movements actually reflected class and social struggles.
Possibly. However, you really don’t need to believe in imaginary beings in order to support justice. Religion is superfluous.
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” (Steven Weinberg)
I would qualify that atheism is “moderately good thing”. It is a negative quality, absence of a certain type of superstition or preconception. However, we cannot avoid preconceptions, and it is pretty hard to avoid superstitions, preconceptions that are immune to experience.
In the social arena, “scientific method” has rather short reach because you must have at least implicit definitions of what is good and what is bad. One of my favorite examples concerns standards for cages for chicken (egg laying hens). Researchers in EU found a number of behaviors that are essencial to keep a hen happy as measured by some standards of animal psychological trauma, they have found out that the standard very crowded cages that additionally lack some amenities like “privacy screen” and a roost make it impossible for hens to engage in those behavior and thus a new EU standard for hen cages was adopted.
Researchers in US found that hens in cages of the new type use 10% more calories per egg (well, most of “happy” behavior entail some kind of movement, hence consume calories, and the gains in health do not overcome the losses in extra feed that is needed in the new cages.
Question 1: which cages are better?
Question 2: what policies on the siege of Gaza should be recommended? There is actually some research conducted in Israel “how to prevent humanitarian crisis” which seems to be defined as a huge increase in mortality rates. One could try to conduct alternative research, like establish what are the essencial behaviors that are needed to make Gazans happy etc. By the way, both Israel and USA allow the traditional cages.
Atheism is particularly high among Israelis.
Islam and atheism is a sensitive topic.
After all, fundamentally, atheists – if they/we are honest – not only are not believers in religion but want a strong, secular state and, if we can dream, over the long-term would like to see a world completely ridden of religion.
That last part will likely not occur for centuries, if ever, unless there’s a radical transformation of human nature as we seem predisposed to beliving in superstition(whether religious or otherwise).
But we can reduce the influence of religion significantly, which has gone the furthest in Europe and some parts of East Asia.
The main reason why Islam is in the crosshairs for many atheists is because of what has happened in Europe, but also in places like Canada. Simply put, if you offend Christians you get outrage. If you offend muslims, you invariably get firebombed or even assassinated as Theo van Gogh. Take the Muhammad cartoons.
Even if you believe they are tasteless, in any free society you should have the right to offend without being told to censor yourself out of religious sensitivity(especially when that religion, like all religions, appeal to an imaginerary fairy tale instead of science and reason).
And one thing’s for sure: you sure as hell shouldn’t ever – ever – think it’s “understandable” that if “provoked” some elements may resort to threats of violence or even carry it out.
There are those who romanticize religions like Buddhism, for example, while ignoring or even being ignorant of the persecution of religious minorities in places like Burma(where the persecuted are muslims).
But in the Western world, it is simply delusional to deny that it is far more likely that extremists will kill you if you insult, say, Muhammad than if your target is Jesus, which is why many avoid doing so, even if Christianity is pretty much dead in places like Europe, Canada or Australia and increasingly so in the U.S.
Ivan Karamazov: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”