Eternal Recurrence
Atheism, like religion, is an act of faith: evidence for the existence of God may be entirely anecdotal, but evidence for His absence is even more tenuous.
Oy, oy, oy – will that stupid trope never die? It ought to – it is so lame. Yeah right, atheism is an act of faith, and not collecting stamps is a hobby, and not playing squash is a sport, and not eating lentils is vegetarianism, and not taking a train is travel.
I don’t know if you listed to that Radio One series of philosophical chats, but one of the funnier moments was on the last one, when a Christian philosopher – a philosopher who is also a Christian, not a philosopher of Christianity – said just that – ‘atheism is a religion’ – and Stephen Law gave a protracted whine of indignation. I’m laughing again thinking of it. “I hate it when people say that,” he said tearfully.
But really – why do people keep saying that? Why don’t they realize how absurd it is, and stop? They don’t consider themselves believers in the ‘religion’ of atheism for not believing in Poseidon, or Loki, or the angel Moroni. So why do they say it of people who don’t subscribe to their own particular religion? Especially grown-up people, philosophers, people who write articles in the Guardian. Because they get away with it, no doubt, but that’s a crap reason. As the guy said, ‘Have you no shame?’
It’s pretty obvious that religious people like to think that atheism and science are instances of faith because (1) it puts everyone on the same level, thereby relieving these religious folks of their inferiority feelings while imbuing them with a sense of fairness in dealing with all sides of an issue; (2) it jives with the comforting thought that hard things like evidence and truth are actually soft and cuddly; (3) it sounds (especially to those who aren’t smart or profound) like a really smart and profound thing to say.
“If atheism is a religion, then not stamp-collecting is a hobby.”
Love that saying.
And (4) it pretends that atheism is just as ill-founded as religion is.
Yeah, I love that saying too, which is why I’m always trying to think up other examples, but few of them have quite the zing of ‘not stamp-collecting=hobby’. Although ‘not playing [sport of your choice]=sport’ works pretty well. I’m a keen non-player of squash, or perhaps I mean keen player of unsquash; I love the idea that that makes me an athlete.
I’ve noticed, though, that at least some theists who declare that “atheism is a religion” will swiftly backtrack when it’s convenient for them.
I used to hang out in a set of web boards that had a religion policy: no slagging other people’s religion. One of our Christian fundies exploited this to pick on atheists and agnostics, blaming their nonbelief for what she declared to be their moral and ethical rot.
She got away with it, barely, because atheism is not a religion. And yet at other times she’d drivel on about how atheism is a religion. Drove me batty.
I’ve given up on that bunch, by the way. The statement that finally blew my circuits was, “It doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you believe in something bigger than yourself.” Gosh, doesn’t that make us all feel good about ourselves now? How inclusive we are! *snuggle* *twinkle* *sparkle* Feh. (And of course I believe in things bigger than myself. I am only five and a half feet tall.)
“Some of those theists” I should have said. There are other theists who never indulged in that stupid notion to begin with.
And alas, it’s not always theists. Occasionally it’s knuckleheaded unbelievers identifying as agnostics “because atheism is really a religion.”
It sounds even better (I’d say unimprovable) with normal
syntax: … yes, and not collecting stamps is a hobby!
_
Aaaah, the old rubber definition thing…sometimes x is y, and sometimes it isn’t, b/ no clear explanation of why, it just snaps back in your face. Drives me nuts.
There’s a fine library in my town that I am a regular at, and I can’t help but notice that every time I look at the new-books shelf there’s more Christian progaganda…sometimes lurking in outwardly-normal books on child-raising or something. I mentioned this to one of the staff members I am chummy with, and she said that one of the others was really into that stuff. A 3rd librarian said something about balance and covering both sides, and I said sometimes it doesn’t seem entirely like both sides really are being covered. They have some nice books on atheism, skepticism, critical thinking and so on, but need more–esp. in the kids’ section.
Long story short, this will [I was assured] be addressed at the next staff meeting. I’m working on a list of books I think they should get. Hope that isn’t too far off topic, and I will take a gander at your reading list.
Not collecting stamps, not doing this, not doing that… I never knew I had so many hobbies…
*snuggle* *twinkle* *sparkle* Feh.
cackle
Exactly.
Yeah, there are a lot of unbelievers who flinch at calling themselves atheists, even though that’s what they are. They seem to think atheists run around with heavy clubs hitting people while shouting ‘God’s a poopoo head!’
Very good work, Angip. Not off topic at all.
I suppose the trusting readers who accept Tim Radford’s statement that atheism is an act of faith will also swallow whole his assertion, in the same paragraph, that George Gershwin wrote the lyrics for “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Can the man get nothing whatsoever right?
I once attended what was inaccurately advertised as a Gershwin jazz concert, featuring a vocalist belonging to the Black Hebrews sect. After singing the above title more or less straight, she then sang an extra chorus, mandated by her faith, to the effect that it was all necessarily precisely so. Don’t try this at home (or anywhere else); it ruins the song.
I must say, all these claims that atheism is a religion make me feel dreadfully deprived. We don’t have any sacred texts, though I suppose the other side will point to anything by Darwin and the later Apocrypha by the Beardless Prophet Dawkins. And even then, those holy writings don’t contain so much as a hint as to what rituals we should be carrying out, let alone what funny clothes we can wear.
The situation must be rectified. I’m going off to pray to my Guardian Scientist to do something about it. Maybe the Lord Darwin will look favourably upon my burnt offering of an unblemished believer…
Sloppy piece; Radford’s writing is normally a bit more robust. It’s a cop-out to say that about faith and atheism, because it’s only true in as much as everything we cogniscise relies on an act of interpretation and rationalsiation, using agreed criteria that we are not absolutely certain about. He’s normally a reliable journalist; I fervently hope he tossed simply it off in a distracted manner while following the third cricket test last weekend.
Rgds
KKK Taliban Esq (Mrs)
Angiportus –
In my local library they have a stack of christian books (as opposed to books about christianity) in the children’s library religion section. They have been donated by a local church and all have stickers inside saying “if you want to know more contact…(youth preacher’s name,phone,email). I don’t know how widespread this practise is but it makes me fume! I’ve got to get round to contacting the head of libraries and finding out whether any organisation can use their shelves to advertise to children, or just the church.
I haven’t found any good children’s books on atheism, critical thinking at the ‘picture book’ level, but Stephen Law’s Philosophy Files series for older kids is excellent.
Maya
How many theists who insist that atheism is a religion also fight tooth-and-nail to keep atheists off Thought for the Day?
Thanks, Maya, I’ll look into that one. I did some searching on skeptical books for the young and there are a few out there, by small presses I haven’t much heard of (naturally I forgot to write down the the publishing info)
Maybe Yes, Maybe No, by Dan Barker
Maybe Right, Maybe Wrong, “
How Do You Know It’s True, H. Ruchlis
What About Gods, C. Brockman
Just Pretend–a Freethought Book, Dan Barker
Whoever among us next grabs the latest Skept. Inq. or Skeptic mag might uncover some more.
You guys rock.
One of my lecturers (George Ellis) won the Templeton prize last year. He has co-authored several books and papers with Stephen Hawking and is one of the worlds leading cosmologists. So, to all Cape Townians he is a great authority and he is constantly on the radio and writing stuff bout how atheism is a religion. He even supervises masters philosophy students teaching that bullshit. Its no wonder its so persistent.
A quick google shows Ellis as a fairly heavyweight thinker with an honoourable record of anti-apartheid activism and a quaker perspective. ( I have a soft spot for Quakers, the least obnoxious of the Christian sects.)
Is there a specific article where he lays out the ‘atheism is a religion’ claim? If you are going to tackle an opponent, it’s probably a good idea to take on the best, most cogent debater they have.
Would you say Ellis fits the bill?
Oh, by the way, apart from that one point (yeah, and the Gershwin thing) Radford’s article struck me as pretty sound.
Well, while I would certainly agree that Atheism per se is not a “religion,” it is an active affirmation that “God does not exist.” Those of us wholly-headed, non-believing “agnostics” are not willing to make this affirmation. At least speaking for myself, I remain uncertain/unclear about the nature of God. Hence-Agnostic. The one thing I am certain about is that the God promoted by Abrahamic relgions seems to be a rather nasty creature. Maybe the Gnostics are right-Jehovah is the Devil? :)
Analogies to sports and hobbies are wide of the mark, because monotheistic religion asserts the existence of an all-powerful supreme being.
Suppose someone declares that the rules of, say, a particular variant of poker were handed down by such a supreme being and are essential to our salvation. Those who play other types of poker, or other card games, or no card games at all, are destined for eternal punishment in the afterlife. We can put forward all sorts of arguments as to why this is illogical and implausible… but we cannot PROVE that this poker-playing deity does not exist.
It may be useful to distinguish between dogmatic and rational atheism. Dogmatic atheism could be summed up as, “I know for a fact that there is no God.” How can you be sure? God is all-powerful, remember. What if, when he created the entire universe six thousand years (or five minutes) ago, he also installed a wealth of empirical evidence that the universe is much older than that? How would you know the difference? You wouldn’t. So strictly speaking, dogmatic atheism is a leap of faith.
(Of course, explaining things away with the all-powerful nature of God brings its own problems. As the late, great Bill Hicks put it: “Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God might be f***ing with our heads? … God’s running around, burrying fossils: ‘Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha HA. I’m a prankster god. I am killing me. Ho ho ho ho.’ “)
Rational atheism, on the other hand, works along the lines, “the existence of a supreme being is not subject to proof or disproof, but based on the available evidence, it appears reasonable to assume that there is no such being.” In practical terms, it may make little difference; but philosophically speaking, this is a very different thing.
Unsurprisingly, religious spokemen (and they are invariably men) use whichever definition of atheism they find most convenient for rubbishing atheists, agnostics, and skeptics of all kinds. I think the answer is to declare yourself a rational atheist, admit the theoretical possiblity of the existence of a god, and then go on to argue that religion is nevertheless useless and/or harmful.
Well, while I would certainly agree that Atheism per se is not a “religion,” it is an active affirmation that “God does not exist.”
No it isn’t. It can include that, but that is not what it is. It is simply not theism, non-theism, a-theism. That is all it is by definition, all it necessarily is; therefore blanket announcements that atheism is religion border on saying P is not-P.
Olivia: I think “Angel” above provides some definitional clarity about what “Atheism” can mean? I think a flat out statement that THERE IS NOT is a statement of belief that is unprovable. Not a “religion,” but still a world view.
“Well, while I would certainly agree that Atheism per se is not a ‘religion,’ it is an active affirmation that ‘God does not exist.'”
Who gets to define what an atheist or atheism is? No claim that god does not exist can be proved. In their way, those who make a claim that there definitely isn’t one are as silly as those who claim there is. But – and this is a big “but” – it should never even have to come to that kind of contest, because until someone comes along with any evidence at all that there is one it is utterly reasonable and anything but radical to tell the believers to go away and not bother us till they have something – anything – worth considering. Until they do, god remains just one more of an infinite number of things whose non-existence can’t be proved. Some, including god, have been proposed, but why should one of that infinite number be considered rather than any other? The onus is, and always will be, one hundred percent (that’s literally, not figuratively, meant – it isn’t 99.9%) on those making an existence claim. Atheists claiming certainty do exist, of course, but they’re silly precisely because they’re reacting in an extreme fashion to something that should require no reaction at all and would never be a serious issue if it weren’t for the serious, very often threatening, amount of real power wielded by believers.
God not existing doesn’t have to be a claim. It’s the default position until someone detects actual evidence of one(as opposed to ancient or other texts considered holy, visions that can be easily explained as neurological disturbances, coincidences interpreted to have wishfully-thought meanings or outright, knowing, lies told in order to amass power).
Hark at Ratzinger’s message in Cologne, as linked by OB (a friend of mine had the misfortune to have to go there for other reasons on Friday; she said the overcrowding was every bit as bad as reported in the media): “The Pope told the crowds there were dangers in people finding their own religious routes.” In other words, stop thinking for yourselves, my snake oil is the only one on the market that works.
Niarb: Well any word ‘can’ mean anything at all, but such flexibility does not lead to clarity in discussion. I already said that atheism can include active affirmation – but that is not part of the definition. As for what is provable, that’s beside the point, as I’ve said here many times. This isn’t mathematics. The fact remains that atheism simply does mean not-theism – that is what the word means. It may have accrued all sorts of other implications, but those have to be stipulated, they can’t just be assumed. That’s the rhetorical trick used by those dreary people who like to say that atheism is a religion, and the trick is not legitimate. Atheism is not a world view either. It can (again) include one, but (again) that has to be stipulated; it’s not a necessary part of the definition.
The problem here seems to be that everyone wants to take a shortcut – for rhetorical or labor-saving reasons, or both. But you can’t do both – you can’t both take a shortcut, and say more than you can say with a shortcut. It takes more than three words to argue that atheism can be consistent with religion. ‘Atheism is religion’ just doesn’t do the job.
By Brian’s measure, I make leaps of faith constantly, and yet it doesn’t bother me at all. No doubt I am making an enormous number of leaps of faith all the time by implicitly dismissing a wide range of notions that I do not even know about. I had no idea I was so busy–but of course, they are very short leaps.
Here’s a silly one: I cannot prove that the world’s major economic institutions are not secretly run by tiny intelligent pink-spotted frogs — not even if I visit the World Bank’s buildings and rifle through all the drawers. (The frogs are hiding. There are always excuses. Proof is hard. We all know this, yes?) But I have no evidence that the frog hypothesis is true, and it fits not at all with what I believe I know of the world. I fail utterly to believe it. So let us give this position a name: I am a solid nonfroggist.
Even having been declared an “ism”, nonfroggism is not much of a worldview, and it certainly is not a religion. As a nonfroggist, one may be any sort of person.
Now, it’s true that if we were in a world in which Froggists had a lot of sway, we would probably expect many open nonfroggists to have a low tolerance for unfounded piffle and a high tolerance for not getting along too well with people; that personality type might be mistaken for a worldview. But nonfroggism itself does not require any of these traits. Consider how many docile, woolly-minded people you know who do not believe in Froggism.
Just like nonfroggism, atheism can be a very incomplete description of many worldviews. I am perhaps best described as a not-so-good Buddhist. My husband is a more typically Western rational atheist. My mother very quietly and politely disbelieves, and she can be a good bit superstitious. A friend of mine is a Taoist. We’re all atheists. Our worldviews are reasonably harmonious but they’re not all that alike.
Who gets to define what “atheism” means? Well, at our house, definitional arguments are almost always settled quite nicely by the editors of the OED. Those folks specialize in that sort of thing.
Well. OK then. I surrender. :)
Attaboy!
(I kind of wish the tiny pink-spotted frogs were really there…)
Really? You leave it all to the folks at the OED? You never, ever consult the gardener? How terribly non-overlapping magisteria of you!
It’s dreadful, I know. Alas, I am the gardener. It would give me an unfair advantage. (If only we had a tiny intelligent frog to ask.)
The real value of using the OED to settle such disputes, of course, is in its distracting the disputees with all the excellent nearby words. There are always some that are too swell to ignore: say, “atheling”, “atherine”, “athamantin”, “atiffement”, “atimy”. And “athermancy”, which — to my disappointment — is not about fortune-telling with athers.
It’s dreadful, I know. Alas, I am the gardener. It would give me an unfair advantage. (If only we had a tiny intelligent frog to ask.)
The real value of using the OED to settle such disputes, of course, is in its distracting the disputees with all the excellent nearby words. There are always some that are too swell to ignore: say, “atheling”, “atherine”, “athamantin”, “atiffement”, “atimy”. And “athermancy”, which — to my disappointment — is not about fortune-telling with athers.
And another thing. To define atheism as a religion, not only do you have to twist the definition of atheism out of all recognition, but you have to use a pretty uncommon definition of religion.
Commonly understood, religion is the “belief in and worship of a supernatural being or beings”.
Yes, an atheism-is-a-religion advocate could mine the OED for a broader definition of religion – something along the lines of “ideology” – but then that only demonstrates that they are using words in a deliberately imprecise manner in order to make a cheap propaganda point.
But, many non-theistic ideologies show many of the active attirbutes of religion: belief in primary texts, prophets, saints and sinners, overall goal/purpose of society, willingness to overlook or condone horrific things in the name of the over-arching goal or purpose.
To my mind, Marxist-Leninism-Stalinism can be seen very much as a “religion”-especially in its impacts on “believers” and “heretics/class enemies,” if not by the strictest definition of the term.
But why is it more useful to call Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism a religion rather than an ideology? Or, perhaps, an ideology held with some of the irrational tenacity and imperviousness to evidence and counter-argument that some religious believers display? A lot more words, I realize, but that’s just it – I still think this urge to sum things up in two or three words just creates muddle.
In other words, calling it religion seems unhelpful because the comparison is only to certain aspects of certain kinds of religion – so ‘religion’ on its own is just the wrong word. So why is it helpful?
To be honest, Olivia, I call M-L-S a “religion” as a rhetorical response to to those who claim, in all seriousness, that “Atheists” have killed more millions of people than the world’s “religions.” As I think M-L-S in its more bizarre examples shares many of the same fallacies as religions (references to a final, transcendent truth or force, even if that truth is not called “God”), I still think its useful.
Not that I disagree totally with your response. But, does Confucism have a “God”? An “afterlife” beyond family ancestor worship? Not really. Neither, in some ways, does Budhism. Yet, we call them “religions,” even though they are not really similar to our Western Abrahamic traditions (or indeed much of the world’s more “primitive” faiths).
Actually, Niarb, I don’t actually call Confucianism a religion, because it is pretty secular. Buddhism I do, but it is a special case (but it believes in reincarnation).
“As I think M-L-S in its more bizarre examples shares many of the same fallacies as religions”
That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I did say. I’m not disagreeing with the idea that some manifestations of secular ideologies have a lot in common with religion – but that is not the same thing as saying ‘atheism is a religion’ – which is what I am disagreeing with.
Why fight it, Olivia? Just change your name already. Or better yet: Olivier. You know, to keep some allusion your Hamlet fixation.
Can we agree, that ATHEISM in the broad sense is not “a religion” but that there are specific atheist ideologies (M-L-S) that are, due to their structure and results effectively “religions”? That would enable me to retain my favorite argument :)
To get a wee bit technical here, Buddhism does not generally involve a belief in reincarnation in the sense of a soul migrating from body to body. And that idea of reincarnation makes little sense in a Buddhist context. Some Buddhists, such as Zen priest Brad Warner, would say so very pungently.
The Buddhist principles of “anatta” and “anicca” — “no soul” and “impermanence” — come into play here. If you’re curious about this, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the subject — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirth_%28Buddhist%29
Most Buddhists believe in rebirth, which is subtly different. But there are are a number of Buddhists, especially in the West, who find the whole rebirth business unnecessary. (Can you guess where I am on that? I bet you can.)
It’s easy to confuse reincarnation and rebirth, even for some Buddhists. It may be especially difficult for cosmic woo-woo North Americans who like to impress each other with the details of their past lives.
Perhaps Buddhists who don’t hold with rebirth are philosophical, not religious. *shrug* People have been arguing over the religiosity of Buddhism, and Zen in particular, for a very long time.
Ah – thanks for clarification, C. I thought what I said was probably wobbly. I was going on memory of an exchange between Carl Sagan and the Dalai Lama, in which Sagan asked the DL if he would give up a core belief of Buddhism if there were good evidence it was wrong – the DL said certainly – Sagan said (I thought) ‘even reincarnation?’ and the DL said yes – but then added, chuckling, that it would have to be very good evidence.
I do tend to think of Buddhists as mostly philosophical. They should be bracketed for purposes of argument about religion! They confuse the whole picture.
Brian, well, I don’t agree with that. I still say that having some or many features in common with X is not the same thing as being X. And I have a settled aversion to eliminating useful distinctions. But I’m not going to take your argument away from you! I still don’t think it works if it’s worded that way, but so what! You don’t need my imprimatur.
You’re welcome!
The CS-DL conversation probably just wasn’t the time to split hairs over rebirth vs reincarnation. And the substance remains: if a core tenet of Buddhism is incorrect, then it clearly has to be jettisoned.
I am splitting hairs, so I might as well split a few more — I think what the Dalai Lama said was that it’d be “hard to disprove”, not that it’d require especially good evidence. I read that as meaning that the question of rebirth is tough to investigate, not that it’s such a special belief that the evidence against it has to rise to a greater level.
Ah – that’s interesting. I’m pretty sure the version I heard (and I think I did hear it, I think someone told it to me, as a story – so it’s even less reliable than my reported memory of an article would be) did have the DL say the evidence would have to be good – which I took to mean, along with the chuckle, that the DL was acknowledging, with amusement, the higher evidence-threshold there is for questions that matter to us.
Of course, it would be – pretty much insurmountably hard to disprove. Which Sagan must have known – well but he could have been using it as a thought experiment, rather than a real possibility. That makes sense.