The Devil's Advocate Evaluates: (his own) Atheism
April 4, 2008
=By Seth Stein==
Last weekend I went home. As is true for most people, going home meant spending time with my parents. It just so happens that my mother is the executive director of my Jewish synogogue, so in my case going home also means attending Friday night services. And for the first time in my life, I went but did not participate. I did not say one prayer, nor did I take part in one group reading. Instead, I reflected on the nature of the words being spoken, and on my own personal belief that there is no God.
Atheism is a complicated matter. What even makes one an atheist? Is a scientist who believes that God existed in the undefined world before the Big Bang an atheist? What about someone who has never been exposed to religion, and therefore has no concept or opinion about God? Is that person an atheist? More importantly, how should atheism interact with religiously focused American society?
For our purposes, an atheist is a person who does not actively believe in God. Ancients, such as the Greek and Romans, developed many coherent worldviews that either ignored a place for the gods or explicitly denied them. As Christianity emerged in the West, with its strong emphasis on a community of believers, only then did atheists became a distinct irreligious group — one that was the target of hatred and persecution.
But we live in a different time, and although an atheist may not achieve high elected office any time soon, they can openly espouse their beliefs with little fear of retaliation. Before we can examine how atheists take part in American culture, we must first understand atheism’s philosophical basis.
On a matter as personal as religion, I cannot discuss its societal role or effects without revealing my own personal beliefs. First of all, I consider myself culturally Jewish. It is the culture and system of beliefs in which I was raised. However, I think that most people who subscribe to a religion, or use it as a moral framework, base that upon God’s laws. For many, God’s divine laws are the ultimate answer, and from them flow morals, ethics, and culture. If I were a “strong” atheist, I would completely deny that God exists, and therefore I would consider religion, being based on divine laws, as not only ignorant but dangerous. Most people who would not be considered theists, however, are probably agnostic — they do not know if God exists, and could even be religious themselves. Unlike an agnostic, I consider myself a “weak” atheist, meaning that although I do not believe God exists I do not discount the possibility that there could be a God. After all, humans live on an insignificant grain of sand in an incomprehensibly large and complex universe. Who am I to claim that my knowledge of the natural world is complete enough that I can absolutely rule out the existence of God? In that way I envy those who strongly believe and those who strongly deny — they have an assurance in their beliefs that I will never have.
So in that way, atheists and those who believe in God are actually remarkably similar. Both have a kind of faith, which as defined by Easton’s Bible Dictionary is “in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true (Phil. 1:27; 2 Thess. 2:13). Its primary idea is trust. A thing is true, and therefore worthy of trust. It admits of many degrees up to full assurance of faith, in accordance with the evidence on which it rests.” I lack the certitude required to have “faith.” However, I see little evidence that God as described in Judeo-Christian theology could possibly exist. Reading the Bible, one is struck by its many inconsistencies and the changing personality of God. That, coupled with the rational evidence provided by science, led me away from God.
At least up to the point where I reject God, I feel that most Jumbos agree with me. I have met few Jews or Christians outside of the evangelical world who believe in God as described in the Bible. Most rational, intelligent people, when faced with the scientific evidence that the earth is 4.6 billion years old and that we evolved from a common simian ancestor, do not accept the stories in the Bible as fact. These stories constitute a cultural history, a legacy of a desert people who survived great persecution many years ago. God therefore transforms and evolves in different cultural and temporal settings. In the postmodern world, how many times have you heard someone say that they believe in a “higher force,” or that they see “God in the gaps”? God has become either an entity in the highest order of the universe that we can never understand, or a specter at the limits of our knowledge.
Why then do so many people still believe in God, if God is either unknowable or the unknown? If God is unknowable, then there is no point in believing or not believing; either way, we probably matter little to the grand master of the universe. If God is the unknown, then as our knowledge expands, God retracts — hardly a firm basis for an absolute belief.
However, for some, God serves another purpose. The matter is one of moral and ethical strength: as an individual, from where do you derive good and evil? God functions as that source of right and wrong, and for many in the third world, God is a path to a better life or afterlife.
The biggest hurdle I had to jump in my own personal beliefs, and the most common criticism raised against atheists is that atheists are amoral. In other words, because atheists do not have the divine law of God to provide them with a moral and ethical basis, they must lack morals themselves. In another sense, this can be interpreted as saying that atheists do not have any of God’s gifts: ethics, moral courage, and generosity. Although it seems politically incorrect to say this, it actually has a grain of truth. Religious people give an inordinately large amount of money to charity, far more than the non-religious. They have also been known to live longer, and the most common explanation provided for this is that the community support religion provides boosts life-span. But the kernel of that criticism, that atheists do not have morals or ethics, is patently absurd — many secular philosophies fill in that gap. As it became clear that God was either too high above for me to comprehend or otherwise could not logically exist, I needed to find a new source of that comfort and ethical basis for my actions. I found that in Secular Humanism.
Secular Humanism is a life-stance that uses reason and individualism as the basis for leading a good life and building a better world. It is about harnessing individual creativity and human reason to inform our actions in a way that is mutually beneficial. Beyond this, I see it as finding the qualities normally attributed to God in human interaction. Although the religious barrier of good and evil is not present, it is possible to distinguish between ethical and non-ethical action. This stance does leave more room for tolerance and relativism, but it can also be universalized. For example, I am informed by my reason that female genital mutilation, which is a barbaric and violent act that deprives young women from ever enjoying sex at an age when they cannot make a choice like that for themselves is wrong, fundamentally harmful, and based on superstitious beliefs. At the same time, a belief in Easter may be based upon something I do not see as rational, but because it is a supportive and nurturing communal holiday, it is therefore not reprehensible.
In this way, I am a Jew who does not believe in God; I try to use my reason and the strength of my ties to my cultural and Jewish community to inform my actions. Thus, ethics and traditions flow from the history of my people and their legacy, filtered through a scrutinizing layer of rational thought. The beauty of this outlook is its incredible tolerance and co-opting of other peoples and beliefs. The “inner jihad” of Islam, the progressive elements of Christianity, and the Jewish interpretation of the Torah through debate all find kinship in this moderate and liberal approach to life. Secular Humanism is the moderate and tolerant form of atheism, like reform Judaism or Unitarianism. Contrary to what I said above, I do not define myself as an atheist. Although under my own definition I am a “weak” atheist, I do not wish to define myself through what I don’t believe. Instead, I define myself through what I do believe — namely, I am an individual that finds strength in humanity’s gifts, as opposed to the moral certitude of God and connections with the natural world.
This brings us back to atheism and its relationship with society. Many atheists feel that because they have been a repressed minority for so long, and because what they believe is clearly right, that they must tear down the walls of ignorance. Radical atheists see religion as a disease that has killed more people than any other human activity, keeping down the poor with a false hope in an afterlife for which they are willing to suffer in the current life. Radical atheists, by defending their ideas and right to spread them under the veil of pluralism, are in reality no better than the religious conservatives they contend with.
It is the very spirit of tolerance that allowed atheists to organize and develop in America that they now threaten. Only a few weak willed people will truly be converted away from those “barbarous” atheists by frontal assaults on their beliefs. It would be more constructive to engage in an open, frank, and respectful dialogue with theists. Denouncing God and insulting his or her followers is damaging to atheists’ cause, and also to the pluralism that has allowed them to speak.
In a further counter to these vitriolic and base attacks, some of which can be found in the back issues of this magazine, most of their attacks on religion are ill-founded at best. Yes, religion has caused wars and death, but it is almost impossible to find a case where that was the only motivation. No state or group would engage in war unless it furthered other, more substantive ends.
This is not to say that religion is exempt from my criticisms. In reality, anyone who tries to impose his or her beliefs upon others is in the same, misguided boat. What I am calling for from all sides of the debate is simple: don’t be a jerk. Atheists and theists alike must be the vanguards of a secular, tolerant America.
Seth Stein is a sophomore majoring in political science.