On Atheism as Religion

Illusions, illusions...  Isn't that how Freud described religion?  Didn't Hobbes postulate that humans would concoct religious beliefs to stave off their fear of death and legitimise whatever small meaning they may find in life?  Whether or not there is meaning in life largely comes down to a question of whether the feelings, beliefs and perceptions we attribute to the "spiritual" are coming to us from some kind of unseen reality, or whether we're projecting these feelings, consciously or unconsciously, into reality in order to abjure the despair and hopelessness that are natural corrollaries to finding out the meaninglessness of all our actions.

In this vein of thinking, I propose that any atheist who says there is meaning, value or significance in our lives in any kind of objective or rational manner is just as deluded as a religious believer.  In fact, it goes even further - whereas a genuine religious believer may honestly believe in the mythos from which they derive meaning, an atheist is consigned to doublethink in order to justify their purposefulness.  They rationalise themselves away from believing in any "mythology", yet they become bereft of any meaningful stories for themselves in the process, and are forced to concoct their own.

One finds the only honest reactions to atheism in the likes of Nietzsche, Kafka and Camus: an admission of defeat, a throwing up of one's hands in surrender to whatever whims nature or desire might inflict, a nearly fatalistic confession that in the end none of it matters.  In others, most notably among atheist scientists, we find a less genuine reaction to atheism; that of the person who would put forth atheism as the anti-religion, the solution to all the world's problems that have been perpetuated through superstition and irrational thought.  The morality they come up with, in essence humanism though scarcely related in any metaphysic sense to its equivalents in Renaissance, Christian or Greco-Roman thought, derives from a hollow belief that mutual co-operation and advancement is somehow feasible and advantageous to each of us as individuals.  Despite history, sociology and psychology proving this task to be next to impossible with or without religious direction, and science showing us a picture of a bleak universe in which all that we may have ever stood for or developed ultimately becoming dust to be burnt away and absorbed by the sun, these particular atheists still strive onwards to convince us that it's all still worthwhile.  Like the religious persons they belittle, they too derive meaning from a meaningless universe, promise utopian rewards that will never come, and overlook plain facts so that they might live on hoping for a better, brighter tomorrow in which their views will liberate humanity from all its woes.

Many atheist leaders, nonetheless, have taken it upon themselves to broadside religions (particularly Christianity) with large, bloody strokes.  Accusations of "danger", "flaws", "intolerance", "brutality" and "stupidity" flow through their talk like a poisonous river, yet, it is in this way that they embody not only a religious quality, but the very worst of it.  When people begin listening to - and worse believing - the vitriol spewed by such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Phillip Pullman and others, the foundation for all the persecutions, crusades and inquisitions that have marked religious conflict through the centuries finds itself quite well-tended.  When they speak of those of us who believe in such a derogatory manner, they express desires that the very worst among us have wanted throughout history: the indemnification of ideological nemeses, their marginalisation, and ultimately, through whatever means most expedient, their elimination.

If the rhetoric of Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al catches on without proper counterpoint, it is no stretch to imagine how the small-minded individuals claiming a militant readiness to uphold and disperse religious teachings will take up with their camp.  We have seen hints of this under Robespierre, Stalin, and Kim Jong Il.  The witch-hunts of the godless future will feature haughty sceptics, touting their theories and morals in an effort to purge the world of dangerous and ill-informed "religious dogmatists."  Whether they will prove any more merciful or humane than their predecessors remains to be seen - but in comprehending what "morality" means when there is no understood universal to base this on outside only feeling and whim, I must confess that my hopes are not particularly high.

Religion, at its best, represents a way for man to come to grips with the world around him, and to envision life as enchanted by God's glory and the brief glimpses of another, better world.  At its worst, it becomes the mechanism by which all modes of oppression and barbarism find their actualisation, and all progress, questioning and reasoning become scarce.  With atheism, at least one of these options is eliminated, and there is little reassurance in human nature or threatening rhetoric that the other could not just as easily come to life.

Comments

[Eric O]

Good comments...

I have often suspected Western presumptions about China's supposed inching towards religious civil liberties (via the path of capitalistic reform) as over-reaching precisely because we need to view China's secular regime as fundamentally a religious system. We tend to view secularlism as utilitarian and shapeless...whereas we forget how it is a rigid worldview with its own dogmatic armature.

This is why the Chinese leadership will crap their pants if Buddhist monks ever manage to force the regime in Burma to grant any concessions (forget Chinese double-talk in the UN), and why they will keep insisting on complete non-interference with Tibet. Any ideology realizes its opponents, the issue is not just politics.